It puts them at ease so they can do their job accurately and efficiently. Maybe there’s a bag fee and I don’t have my reusable bags and they say don’t worry about it. Maybe they make sure to bag my groceries without putting a gallon of milk on top of a loaf of bread. Maybe it’s a restaurant I get food at periodically and they remember me being nice to them and they throw me a coupon or a free dessert. Maybe they were having a shitty day and just needed someone to look them in the eyes and see that they existed and making them feel better makes me feel better. Maybe they’re really Morgan Freeman God in disguise and they’re going to make me a deity for a day. I don’t know man, it’s just fucking nice. I don’t need another reason.
Do you really ignore blue collar workers who are doing a job for you and just refuse to speak to them for no reason?
Talking to someone about a topic you specifically say you don’t enjoy talking about only for the hopes that they’ll give you freebies isn’t nice, it’s actually pretty shitty. Like you view the purpose of a social interaction as a gamble to win a prize. Mind you, if you didn’t make such a fuss about hating the process of small talk, I wouldn’t think that, but because you say it’s something you don’t want to be engaging in, I don’t see how else to view what you’re saying as some strange transactional thing instead of human to human connection.
And no, I don’t refuse to speak to cashiers. If they talk to me, I answer. If there’s something I actually want to say, then I say it. I follow blue collar workers around my house so I can learn about what they’re doing because I’m curious. Don’t frame this as some sort of elitist snobbery when all I said was that if you don’t want to talk to someone about something that you either shouldn’t talk at all or choose a different topic you actually want to talk about.
It puts them at ease so they can do their job accurately and efficiently. Maybe there’s a bag fee and I don’t have my reusable bags and they say don’t worry about it. Maybe they make sure to bag my groceries without putting a gallon of milk on top of a loaf of bread. Maybe it’s a restaurant I get food at periodically and they remember me being nice to them and they throw me a coupon or a free dessert. Maybe they were having a shitty day and just needed someone to look them in the eyes and see that they existed and making them feel better makes me feel better. Maybe they’re really Morgan Freeman God in disguise and they’re going to make me a deity for a day. I don’t know man, it’s just fucking nice. I don’t need another reason.
Do you really ignore blue collar workers who are doing a job for you and just refuse to speak to them for no reason?
Talking to someone about a topic you specifically say you don’t enjoy talking about only for the hopes that they’ll give you freebies isn’t nice, it’s actually pretty shitty. Like you view the purpose of a social interaction as a gamble to win a prize. Mind you, if you didn’t make such a fuss about hating the process of small talk, I wouldn’t think that, but because you say it’s something you don’t want to be engaging in, I don’t see how else to view what you’re saying as some strange transactional thing instead of human to human connection.
And no, I don’t refuse to speak to cashiers. If they talk to me, I answer. If there’s something I actually want to say, then I say it. I follow blue collar workers around my house so I can learn about what they’re doing because I’m curious. Don’t frame this as some sort of elitist snobbery when all I said was that if you don’t want to talk to someone about something that you either shouldn’t talk at all or choose a different topic you actually want to talk about.