7 ms·

> Perhaps American culture is more receptive to this As an American I don't think people like corporations feigning social intimacy either.

encom 6y ago
But it happens all the time (according to my tiny sample size). A tong time ago, I was in an American coffee shop (probably Starbucks, I guess), and they asked for my name. I found that very strange and weird. You would neither be able to spell or pronouce it, so let's just go with James. This trend is beginning in Denmark as well, and I don't like it. It'd be easier for everyone if you just assign me a number and announce that when my drink is ready. I also encountered store greeters, which was the most bizarre thing ever.
- machello13 6y ago
  > But it happens all the time Doesn't mean people like it. I think there's also a difference between a low-level employee being friendly personally to me because it's their job and also it's just polite, vs some marketing employee being "friendly" to the 500k people on their mailing list. It's also always worth noting, is the case with many countries, the US is very diverse. People in NYC probably think very differently about this vs. people in L.A. or Boise, Montana.
  - erikstrottmann 6y ago
    Boise’s in Idaho!
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- currymj 6y ago
  the real point of the store greeters is to limit shoplifting -- they hang around the entrance watching people and may check people's receipts against what they are taking out of the store. making them say hi and act friendly to everyone is just a way of camouflaging this and making it seem less hostile.
  - clairity 6y ago
    you’re right about the goal, but not the mechanism. shoplifting is curtailed because greeting induces a sense of familiarity between the potential thief and greeter, thereby reducing the veil of anonymity, raising senses of guilt, reciprocity, and duty, while lowering the perception of potential success. it’s not foolproof of course, but helps at the margins. random receipt checks don’t do much other than impede flow.
  - shard 6y ago
    The usefulness of having a greeter to limit shoplifting has been reduced drastically as many stores have implemented policies where regular employees are prohibited from preventing a shoplifter from leaving, due to liability issues if the employee gets injured in an altercation. This has led to a situation where shoplifters would brazenly walk out of the store with armful of merchandise, knowing that they won't be stopped.
- jandrese 6y ago
  Coffee shops ask for your name so they can write it on the cup to make sure you get the right order at the pickup counter. It's a quality control measure. I guess they could ask you to think up a random number instead, but some people would find that mildly offputting I think .
  - bee_rider 6y ago
    Some places will just give you an order number, which usually increases sequentially, and has the side-benefit that you have a vague measure of how far your order is from being completed. Although, having the person's name is also nice, because people tend to be good at recognizing when their name is called.
    - hnick 6y ago
      Replacing names with numbers? How dystopian! This is of course a joke, I am a fan of the number system. The honour system also works fine here in Australia, they just call out the order and you go and take it after a tiny delay to see if the guy who was there first goes for it.
  - rovr138 6y ago
    Perfect,your order is #56 You don't have to ask for a number, just give them one.
    - hombre_fatal 6y ago
      You'd need a ticketing system so people even remember what their number is. And for what upside when names work fine?
      - astura 6y ago
        There's potential overlap using names when it's busy. This happened to me once and my name isn't particularly common.
      - scollet 6y ago
- bee_rider 6y ago
  There are lots of people in the US who dislike this kind of stuff, but overall, it must be the case that more people like it (or at least are neutral). Otherwise the companies wouldn't bother with it, right? Personally I don't like it, although I've never seen asking for your name lumped in with the false politeness. It is pretty widespread over here. People are more likely to pick up on hearing their name, rather than a number, right? Nobody can spell my weird name, but they just put a phonetically similar more common one on the cup and I've learned to listen for that. Store greeters are a pretty strange trend.
- wenc 6y ago
  I'm used to it now but when I first encountered the practice of food service staff asking for my name, I did find it very strange and not a little uncomfortable (it felt like an invasion of my privacy). It also has some serious downsides for foreigners/tourists/immigrants who: (1) may not speak English (analogous scenario: imagine going to a Starbucks in Japan and having the cashier repeatedly ask for your name in Japanese, and you don't speak Japanese); (2) have names that aren't easily pronounced/spelled in English ("Name?" "Zbigniew" "How do you spell that?" "Zed bee eye gee...." "Wait, what's zed?" "Last letter of alphabet" "Oh you mean zee" "No, zed"); (3) feel embarrassed about the whole interaction, which leads to them inventing a fake name, which in turn makes them feel dirty. (Zbigniew gives his name as "Zach" to the Starbucks employee although he has never used this name in his life -- it's not the name his parents gave him) (4) then has said name confused with 3 other Zachs also waiting for their tall lattes. It's almost like someone forgot to think through the UI/UX of this system with respect to internationalization.
  - patmorgan23 6y ago
    When traveling in a foreign country its not uncommon to invent a name on the local language to make interacting with locals easier.
    - chidg 6y ago
      Even when not traveling, for people with 'unusual' names it's not uncommon to use a more easily recognisable 'cafe name' to get around this issue.
      - wenc 6y ago
        Yes, many people with such names have so-called "Starbucks" names, and some are quite creative and funny -- I mean, there are people who use "Barack Hussein" as their Starbucks name. Ordinary names like Bob or Sue are common too. I understand why Starbucks does it. It's part of their corporate culture and marketing. I've no strong aversion to it -- as I said I'm used to it now and it is what it is. But I just wanted to highlight some of the downsides for people with unusual names, even though as you say it's no big deal to find a workaround. And there exist more universal systems that aren't dependent on a barista's ability to spell or pronounce an arbitrary name, and that doesn't require the customer to reveal or invent a name. p.s. English names are not exempt from this. Imagine going to a non-English-speaking country and having a name like Cecil or Xavier (which Americans pronounce Ex-zavier).
- Igelau 6y ago
  > store greeters This must have been Walmart. I always figured they had greeters because the small town Protestant church from my childhood had greeters.
  - HarryHirsch 6y ago
    The Church had doormen since the beginning, in the West the office of the doorman was the lowest of the Minor Orders until when Paul VI reformed Lower Orders in 1972. Not surprising that the Temple of Mammon also has doormen. Heh.
- type0 6y ago
  Happened to me in one of those definitely hipsterish places, I told them no and that it was bizzare, then barista told me: "all-right I'll call you Joe". My guess is that he already had a couple of John Does waiting or what.
- pbhjpbhj 6y ago
  UK comedian Dave Gorman did a section on this: he claims that his coffee shop, I assume Starbucks, stopped doing a particular drink he liked - maybe caramel macchiato? - so he heard someone in front ask for that drink, then said his name was "caramel macchiato" just to mess with them. They'd call the order as "caramel macchiato" and, he seemingly hoped, get trouble from the other customers who had been refused that drink ... cute. Aside: I always assumed the whole 'spell your name wrong' thing that Starbucks did was a marketing thing - they certainly got a lot of social media posts out of it!
  - sosborn 6y ago
    > I always assumed the whole 'spell your name wrong' thing that Starbucks did was a marketing thing - they certainly got a lot of social media posts out of it! Not everything is a conspiracy. Take the average starbucks barista, add in a shop full of customers expecting the line to move quickly, and you end up with a "This looks good enough, fuck it" attitude to writing the name on the cup. Customers that get upset about their name being spelled wrong really need to relax.
- another-dave 6y ago
  I think this solution from Dave Gorman is perfect: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erTaEeTRHDE&feature=youtu.be&t=630 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erTaEeTRHDE&feature=youtu.be...
- lowdose 6y ago
  Just tell them your name is Big Dick. They always bring your order immediately by foot without name calling.

encom 6y ago

But it happens all the time (according to my tiny sample size). A tong time ago, I was in an American coffee shop (probably Starbucks, I guess), and they asked for my name. I found that very strange and weird. You would neither be able to spell or pronouce it, so let's just go with James. This trend is beginning in Denmark as well, and I don't like it. It'd be easier for everyone if you just assign me a number and announce that when my drink is ready. I also encountered store greeters, which was the most bizarre thing ever.

machello13 6y ago
> But it happens all the time Doesn't mean people like it. I think there's also a difference between a low-level employee being friendly personally to me because it's their job and also it's just polite, vs some marketing employee being "friendly" to the 500k people on their mailing list. It's also always worth noting, is the case with many countries, the US is very diverse. People in NYC probably think very differently about this vs. people in L.A. or Boise, Montana.
- erikstrottmann 6y ago
  Boise’s in Idaho!
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
currymj 6y ago
the real point of the store greeters is to limit shoplifting -- they hang around the entrance watching people and may check people's receipts against what they are taking out of the store. making them say hi and act friendly to everyone is just a way of camouflaging this and making it seem less hostile.
- clairity 6y ago
  you’re right about the goal, but not the mechanism. shoplifting is curtailed because greeting induces a sense of familiarity between the potential thief and greeter, thereby reducing the veil of anonymity, raising senses of guilt, reciprocity, and duty, while lowering the perception of potential success. it’s not foolproof of course, but helps at the margins. random receipt checks don’t do much other than impede flow.
- shard 6y ago
  The usefulness of having a greeter to limit shoplifting has been reduced drastically as many stores have implemented policies where regular employees are prohibited from preventing a shoplifter from leaving, due to liability issues if the employee gets injured in an altercation. This has led to a situation where shoplifters would brazenly walk out of the store with armful of merchandise, knowing that they won't be stopped.
jandrese 6y ago
Coffee shops ask for your name so they can write it on the cup to make sure you get the right order at the pickup counter. It's a quality control measure. I guess they could ask you to think up a random number instead, but some people would find that mildly offputting I think .
- bee_rider 6y ago
  Some places will just give you an order number, which usually increases sequentially, and has the side-benefit that you have a vague measure of how far your order is from being completed. Although, having the person's name is also nice, because people tend to be good at recognizing when their name is called.
  - hnick 6y ago
    Replacing names with numbers? How dystopian! This is of course a joke, I am a fan of the number system. The honour system also works fine here in Australia, they just call out the order and you go and take it after a tiny delay to see if the guy who was there first goes for it.
- rovr138 6y ago
  Perfect,your order is #56 You don't have to ask for a number, just give them one.
  - hombre_fatal 6y ago
    You'd need a ticketing system so people even remember what their number is. And for what upside when names work fine?
    - astura 6y ago
      There's potential overlap using names when it's busy. This happened to me once and my name isn't particularly common.
    - scollet 6y ago
bee_rider 6y ago
There are lots of people in the US who dislike this kind of stuff, but overall, it must be the case that more people like it (or at least are neutral). Otherwise the companies wouldn't bother with it, right? Personally I don't like it, although I've never seen asking for your name lumped in with the false politeness. It is pretty widespread over here. People are more likely to pick up on hearing their name, rather than a number, right? Nobody can spell my weird name, but they just put a phonetically similar more common one on the cup and I've learned to listen for that. Store greeters are a pretty strange trend.
wenc 6y ago
I'm used to it now but when I first encountered the practice of food service staff asking for my name, I did find it very strange and not a little uncomfortable (it felt like an invasion of my privacy). It also has some serious downsides for foreigners/tourists/immigrants who: (1) may not speak English (analogous scenario: imagine going to a Starbucks in Japan and having the cashier repeatedly ask for your name in Japanese, and you don't speak Japanese); (2) have names that aren't easily pronounced/spelled in English ("Name?" "Zbigniew" "How do you spell that?" "Zed bee eye gee...." "Wait, what's zed?" "Last letter of alphabet" "Oh you mean zee" "No, zed"); (3) feel embarrassed about the whole interaction, which leads to them inventing a fake name, which in turn makes them feel dirty. (Zbigniew gives his name as "Zach" to the Starbucks employee although he has never used this name in his life -- it's not the name his parents gave him) (4) then has said name confused with 3 other Zachs also waiting for their tall lattes. It's almost like someone forgot to think through the UI/UX of this system with respect to internationalization.
- patmorgan23 6y ago
  When traveling in a foreign country its not uncommon to invent a name on the local language to make interacting with locals easier.
  - chidg 6y ago
    Even when not traveling, for people with 'unusual' names it's not uncommon to use a more easily recognisable 'cafe name' to get around this issue.
    - wenc 6y ago
      Yes, many people with such names have so-called "Starbucks" names, and some are quite creative and funny -- I mean, there are people who use "Barack Hussein" as their Starbucks name. Ordinary names like Bob or Sue are common too. I understand why Starbucks does it. It's part of their corporate culture and marketing. I've no strong aversion to it -- as I said I'm used to it now and it is what it is. But I just wanted to highlight some of the downsides for people with unusual names, even though as you say it's no big deal to find a workaround. And there exist more universal systems that aren't dependent on a barista's ability to spell or pronounce an arbitrary name, and that doesn't require the customer to reveal or invent a name. p.s. English names are not exempt from this. Imagine going to a non-English-speaking country and having a name like Cecil or Xavier (which Americans pronounce Ex-zavier).
Igelau 6y ago
> store greeters This must have been Walmart. I always figured they had greeters because the small town Protestant church from my childhood had greeters.
- HarryHirsch 6y ago
  The Church had doormen since the beginning, in the West the office of the doorman was the lowest of the Minor Orders until when Paul VI reformed Lower Orders in 1972. Not surprising that the Temple of Mammon also has doormen. Heh.
type0 6y ago
Happened to me in one of those definitely hipsterish places, I told them no and that it was bizzare, then barista told me: "all-right I'll call you Joe". My guess is that he already had a couple of John Does waiting or what.
pbhjpbhj 6y ago
UK comedian Dave Gorman did a section on this: he claims that his coffee shop, I assume Starbucks, stopped doing a particular drink he liked - maybe caramel macchiato? - so he heard someone in front ask for that drink, then said his name was "caramel macchiato" just to mess with them. They'd call the order as "caramel macchiato" and, he seemingly hoped, get trouble from the other customers who had been refused that drink ... cute. Aside: I always assumed the whole 'spell your name wrong' thing that Starbucks did was a marketing thing - they certainly got a lot of social media posts out of it!
- sosborn 6y ago
  > I always assumed the whole 'spell your name wrong' thing that Starbucks did was a marketing thing - they certainly got a lot of social media posts out of it! Not everything is a conspiracy. Take the average starbucks barista, add in a shop full of customers expecting the line to move quickly, and you end up with a "This looks good enough, fuck it" attitude to writing the name on the cup. Customers that get upset about their name being spelled wrong really need to relax.
another-dave 6y ago
I think this solution from Dave Gorman is perfect: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erTaEeTRHDE&feature=youtu.be&t=630 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erTaEeTRHDE&feature=youtu.be...
lowdose 6y ago
Just tell them your name is Big Dick. They always bring your order immediately by foot without name calling.