Make sure you smile first. I always try to be friendly with the staff. They are not my slaves, they are there doing their job. Always say "please" and "thank you" no matter the menial task they are providing. No mask can overcome politeness and courtesy.

No, it's not the masks, it's the desperation because of our economy.

Pre-pandemic working even retail job could afford you to have a relatively decent life. Now that everything went up 60-70%, they live right on the poverty line. Hence they look depressed and dejected.

It is hard to provide good service when you are being paid feck all for it.

That and the fact that the zoomers have started entering the workforce.

I think it started precovid- think faces buried in smartphones/tablets- I noticed teenagers a few yrs ago not able to make eye contact at the checkouts, the masks made it easier for the antisocial behavior

Fewer people have things to smile about. Prices are up. Wages are down. Crime is up. Bills still need to be paid and the economy is slipping down the tubes. And having worked retail now myself prior to and during the Pandemic as well as immediately afterward. People have a tendency to treat the staff a lot worse as well.

Might be at least in part it having affected peoples people skills. But there are a shitload of other things that play into people’s moods as well.

That and I think a lot of people just stopped giving a fuck about the pretend politeness that we previously considered good manners and people skills. The expectation when asked “Hey. How are you doing today?” Is “Fine Thanks”. Fairly likely you don’t actually give a fuck how the person is doing or about their personal problems or how they’re feeling that day. Politeness dictates however that we do the exchange of pleasantries. When neither party actually care. And depending on the location it’s done in. They may never see each other again anyway.

Though you maybe one of the strange handful of people who legitimately care. Odds are fairly likely you don’t. And don’t particularly want or care to listen to the Cashier, a fellow customer, or Stock Clerk talk about their problems, day, or life in general. As they’re a faceless interchangeable cog. There today and gone tomorrow. Replaced with yet another cog you may not even bother to learn anything but the face of. Before they too are gone.

And remote work

Remote learning

And 6ft rules

And going one way down a grocery aisle

And gross unsubstantiated fear porn 24/7/365

And snitching on your neighbors for being outside having a cookout unnasked not following the rules

...Kids voices See something, say something...

It's impossible to find good people these days, seemed to have started during the covid hoax. That, mixed with the new generation of young employees who have no discipline or practical or social skills or interests. Everyone is softer than baby sh!t anymore.

I think a huge part of Covid was killing customer service. They used to be 24 hours store, when you called customer service line they prided themselves by letting you know how many minutes you had to wait. Now I can wait up to 30 to 40 minutes just to talk to a person about some thing regarding customer service. People don’t smile, and they are entitled. They act as if they’re doing you some service by showing up to work because during Covid they were deemed essential workers. That was just another part of the psychological operation.

The internet did that

Yes.

Although, I feel that the mask followed by the vaxx as an expression of submission is the real culprit. on so many levels, the ties that bind us, have been severed, the fabric of society was disrupted.

From a certain perspective, they created the window of opportunity in 30 years or so, with all these kids being vaxxed and masked unable to learn expressions of the face.

Yeah, the pandemic period taught people to be entitled, lazy, and divided by race. Customer disservice.

Yes

Where is this ????