One of the most irritating bits of bullshit I’ve had to deal with since I came Over Here in the Great Wetback Episode Of 1986 is the (Californian) affectation of wishing everyone a good day, which along with the “smile” button never fails to set my teeth on edge.
“Have A Good Day!” is unbearably trite and superficial, not to mention facile and asinine.
Telling a shop assistant or restaurant worker to have a good day is totally stupid: how much of a good day can you possibly have when you’re serving the public? At best, you won’t be killed for forgetting to put the fries into the takeout bag.
As New Wife (who also hates the expression) pointed out to me over the weekend, it’s not just its banality but its ambition, which is unreachable.
“A whole day? That’s asking too much of the universe,” she said. “We should just wish that their next ten minutes can be disaster-free.”
And don’t even get us started on “Live long and prosper”. Talk about overreach.
We are kindred souls. Polite, but gloomily realistic.
Forgive me, but I don’t care what kind of day you have any more than you care about mine. These days I do not do a meet-and-greet on the street with people as they pass by, and as far as workers I have to deal with in stores or businesses, do your job, get it right, and thank you very much for your effort. I don’t believe I’ve wished anyone a nice day since I retired from retail all those years ago.
I’ve spent much of the Winter in Montana. Aside from the ridiculous cold, the natives of the Great Redoubt have some peculiar expressions. The one that gets under my skin is “Have a great rest of your day!”.
That’s a request that is somewhat less, but also more, ambitious than the usual “Have a good day!”. It also acknowledges that we can’t really do anything about the past, so at least they are not commies.
Don’t even get me started about “Have a blessed day!”, something you hear only in places of great Christian confidence. These days, I’ll take a blessing from anyone that is confident enough to give me one.
Since retirement, my wife has made it her mission in life to annoy spam callers. She keeps them online as long as she can, corrects their English(it’s provide, not prowide) and asks if, when they pray to Allah 5 times a day, do they ask forgiveness for being an asshole. She invariably ends the call by saying ;Have a blessed say, sweetie.’ Just one more reason why I love this woman.
stay safe
I (almost) never tell someone to “Have a good day”. If someone says it to me, my response is, “Thanks. I hope you do, too”. Sort of a wishing them well thing.
There’s another Star Trek reference phrase I’d like to see replace “have a nice day:”
Don’t catch any bugs.
Steve Martin’s 5 second response to “Have a nice day” in My Blue Heaven.
https://youtu.be/pcuzMaW6ShA
The one that bugs me to no end is when you say “thank you” to someone and they reply “no problem.” It annoys me for some reason. Slightly worse than that is when one company tried to eradicate that phrase at a hospital so the word police showed up to prohibit that phrase. Since I love petty tyrants so much, I used “no problem” as much as I possibly could.
JQ
I’m with you on that, JQ.
I feel the “No problem” response’s connotation is “You interrupted my day, but it’s OK,” rather than “You’re welcome,” which to me says the person is glad to do his job which is to help me with whatever.
Although to be honest, the first one is what I’m actually thinking more often than not.
You guys are really sour this morning. Oh well…
Have a great rest of your day!
Roy – running and dodging as folks start drawing their firearms. 😉
Every so often some twerp tells me “It takes more muscles to frown than to smile”
(It isn’t true, BTW)
And I get to say “But some people are worth the effort.”
it only takes three muscles for perfect trigger squeeze
JQ
FYI, HR isn’t happy when you reply that the proper way to deal with a nasty and rude customer is two to the chest and one to the head. I guess they want just head shots now. YMMV
JQ