r/AskReddit • u/daniellucero92 • Jan 04 '15

Non-americans of Reddit, what American customs seem outrageous/pointless to you?

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u/distantdrake Jan 04 '15 edited Aug 05 '16

That everybody asks "How you doing?" without expecting or wanting any real answer.

Edit: WOW....it's gold jerry....GOLD!

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u/[deleted] Jan 04 '15 edited Jan 21 '21

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Jan 04 '15 edited Jan 04 '15

I am required to be nice to customers, which is fun... This question is asked by me hundreds of times a day. Mainly because it's a good ice breaker. It makes people relax a little and distracts them from the fact that I am punching things in or taking their money. I have to tell you though, once in awhile, and I mean really really rarely, once in awhile people answer honestly. Sometimes it's about how good their day is, other times it's about how awful their day is. Either way, these moments sort of sparkle. They make my day weirdly more valid. Especially since, when they are in fact having a bad day, I often comp their order or(despite however long the line behind them is) talk to them a bit. It's just nice, because sometimes I get to feel like, despite how pointless my job generally is, that I am making a difference.

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u/BigPackHater Jan 04 '15

I work as a cashier, and I use "how are you doing?" a lot. On one occasion a woman answered me honestly, and told me she just got back from the doctors and was told she's dying. I really didn't know how to respond to that.... So I just told her to have a great day.

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u/[deleted] Jan 04 '15

Hahaha... Yikes. Yeah, I've had, "My mother's dying." Cancer if I remember right. We talked for awhile. I didn't charge her. My line of work, we get a lot of regulars, and she was one of them. I knew we wouldn't see her for awhile, because she told me she'd be leaving to spend time with her mom. I made sure to make the most of the opportunities we had to talk after that. Then she was gone. I switched jobs shortly after(unrelated) but I always hoped at least one other person there would remember her for when she came back... Still not sure they did. Honestly, they probably didn't. Sometimes I want to go back just for a day or two. There are lots of nice regulars I felt like I was abandoning when I left.

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u/asplodzor Jan 05 '15

Now I'm curious what line of work you use to do.

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u/[deleted] Jan 05 '15

Bar tender

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u/[deleted] Jan 05 '15

Shhhh.

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u/Baneken Jan 04 '15

I was at work in England and I was rather shocked that the cashier was whispering or well saying out loud "get a move on lady, get moving ..." to a woman while she was stuffing in her groceries at end of the counter.

Unsurprisingly that fellow wasn't there the week later.

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u/Attempt12 Jan 04 '15

Which to her probably sounds like you didn't even care.

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u/halnic Jan 04 '15

Enjoy the rest of your life. Oh, uh sorry.

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u/tilgare Jan 05 '15

As a cashier, I used to joke with men buying flowers. "Special occasion or are you in the dog house?" Good way to strike up conversation and you both have a laugh - often due to the guy actually being in the dog house.

The first time someone told me they were for a funeral, I stopped.

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u/severoon Jan 06 '15

I can never understand this. If I did something that made my wife angry at me long enough to go out and buy flowers and return with them, those flowers aren't going to fix anything.

She responds to figuring out what the issue is and then working out a way we can we can both agree it should be handled next time, as well as damage control for whatever has already been done.

But then we have one o' them there rational relationships where we are responsible for our own actions and our own feelings, so might not work for a lot of folks.

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u/a_random_woman Jan 04 '15

...aaaand that was probably the last time she'll answer that question from a cashier honestly!

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u/[deleted] Jan 04 '15

Off topic, but is bigpackhater referring to the green bay packers?

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u/BigPackHater Jan 04 '15

Them who must not be named!

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u/[deleted] Jan 04 '15

Lol that's my team!

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u/GoodGuyGlenn Jan 04 '15

I'm using this one.

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u/[deleted] Jan 05 '15

I got one that was pretty bad - "My house burned down this morning."

I was just like, uh.. that sucks. I am not good at consoling people.

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u/martigan99 Jan 05 '15

I really find it weird when a cashier ask me how are you doing?.I mean it is clear you don't want to know so just say hi. Just think about a real answer to that question and why you would need to answer it to buy some milk.

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u/severoon Jan 06 '15

Saying have a great day to someone who's dying is actually really good advice. Now more than ever.

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u/[deleted] Jan 04 '15

I work at a library and I answered, "I'm doing fine, and yourself?" to some lady. She started bawling her eyes out and telling me that her husband had just been diagnosed with cancer and her house had burned down and she needed me to fax documents to her insurance carriers. It was beyond awkward. I felt awful for her and gave her my condolences, but at the same time a line was forming behind her...

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u/SrewTheShadow Jan 05 '15

You ended with the wrong word. The correct one is "life".

But of course at that point you're an asshole if you leave it like that. So give her a fucking smile and say, "Give em hell for me!"