Hmm, this could be another cultural thing - round here, the only people who say, "have a nice day!" work at McDonalds.
Mind you, the checkout staff down under are generally polite and chatty. Not enough to let it slow them down, but they really are great.
I tend to only use one of my crutches when I'm shopping, it also comes in handy angled diagonally across the trolley, to help me control the nose of the trolley with my stick, while my hands control the back end of the trolley. But we try to avoid taking bags from the supermarket - we keep a plastic box in the car for this purpose. I usually unload my trolley onto the conveyor, and as the checkout person scans the items I then reload my trolley. But one lovely lady comes round to my side of the counter, scans the items and packs the trolley for me. Of course I still need to load my car, but that's what kids are for!
I'm also a bit of a freak on the phone, though. While husband would yell at telephone solicitors, I don't because I had to do the job once. But I still get annoyed with them, I usually say, "We're not interested, you're wasting your time, take our names off your list and move to the next name where you have more chance of success than with me." I know they need a certain call rate as well as a certain success rate. They usually go for that bait.
We're getting a lot of call centres from India ringing us up and the one thing I hate is when my phone rings, I pick it up and HAVE TO WAIT for the person on the other end. If I get impatient and hang up, they call back until they get through. And when they DO get through, they take ages to get to the point. "Hello, Mrs Marg? How are you today, Mrs Marg?That'sgood (all one word, no pause for response). Well, Mrs Marg, the reason I am doing the ringing of you today is to make you this wonderful offer, Mrs Marg - now tell me, do you like to go on the holidays? because let me assure you, Mrs Marg, this offer is a once in a lifetime opportunity..." by this time I am asking, "Who do you work for? What are you trying to sell?"
I once even had one of these call centre people constantly refer to me as "Mr or Mrs Marg" which was so fascinating it took me much longer to hang up on them.
Generally they are either representing a company I don't deal with, or trying to sell me something I have no use for. Occasionally if I'm feeling really mean, I let them talk while I file my nails. I had one bloke who was very persistent, he wouldn't accept it when I said, "I'm not really interested in aluminium cladding," so I let him talk. I began to make "interested" noises and ask pertinent questions of the sort I KNEW he had the crib notes for, right on his sheet. I fed him plenty of rope. And finally, after he had talked for half an hour and finished with, "So when do you want to make an appointment for our consultant to come and see you?" I replied with, "I'm not sure, I'll have to ask the landlord first if he wants to put aluminium cladding on his all-brick house..."
It was the only time I've ever had a telephone solicitor hang up on me.
easy child 2/difficult child 2's methods are much more bizarre. Unlike me, she has a little girl voice. So she uses it to the hilt to say things like, "I'm not allowed to drink cola *giggle*" or "I'm in the house all by myself, I ate all the biscuits" or "I'm wearing new frilly pink socks, wanna see?"
or any other random remark. She then claims she times the call to see how long before they hang up.
Sometimes having a house full of difficult children can be useful. Let THEM answer the phone.
Partly because we get a lot of these call centre calls, partly because I've had a few 'difficult customers' over the years, I do admit to having screened my calls. We did warn people that we would do this - well, we warned SOME people anyway - so most people would at least begin to leave a message. But now we have a phone system which automatically records a message or even a missed call if we happen to already be on the phone, so we can't screen any more (no way to listen in to see who it is). So now I get husband to answer the phone in the evenings, because I have a 'friend' who has turned into a real problem. I know, from talking to other people, that she rings people partly out of boredom but mostly because she's angry with someone and is hunting for ammunition to use against them. A very strange, very difficult person and I do not like dealing with her late at night right when I'm trying to get settled for bed. And she never takes no for an answer, nor will she get off the phone if I say, "I have to go now." If I actually say, "I have to go now, goodbye," and hang up, she will tell people I hung up on her very rudely. I know this because she says it about other people to me. so I avoid this. I HAVE had to invent a saucepan boiling over, a policeman at the door, another call coming in on my other phone - anything. I've also had to stop responding to her emails when she started to get really abusive.
But overall, I use politeness. Not even sarcasm, nut pure politeness. If someone is rude to me, I smile and I'm polite in return. If they respond with more rudeness, I will respond sweetly but I might get a bit snippy, in a polite way. For example, there was a bloke at the garage. I can't remember exactly what he did, but it was unforgivable, something akin to emptying his ashtray all over my car (that wasn't it, but I really can't remember - I do remember being that outraged, however). I said something to him along the lines of, "Don't you feel guilty treating other people so badly?"
And he replied with a very rude gesture and said, "Naah!" and turned and walked away. So I waved cheerily and said, "That's nice. YOUR MOTHER must be so proud of you."
But generally I stay polite and friendly. Absolutely no references to the shallow end of the gene pool needing more lifeguards...
I actually make a game of it with people I see on a regular basis. it began when I was a uni student and we had a technician in our chemistry lab who was positively terrifying. He was rude, he was terse, he had a face like a rusty barbed wire fence. Permanent scowl. Generally very mean, with no cause.
So I made a bet with myself that by the end of the term I would get him to smile. I made an extra effort to be nice to him, to always be polite, to never react and to thank him when he handed out the equipment, however grudgingly he did so.
And while I never got the smile I was working for, I found I wasn't so scared of him any more either, so I still won.
I've done this a number of times since - I see someone who makes me uncomfortable and I make an effort to at least be polite. And unless I really begin to get bad vibes, I often find I've made a new friend. A few times I've actually defused a potentially nasty situation because the other person was expecting and gearing himself up for hostility, and by being friendly I was able to keep a situation calm. We had a thunderstorm once when we were at the church and a belligerent drunk came to shelter from the storm. Two other women were with me, including one who was a former battered wife - she got very hostile very quickly, went inside and shut the door. The man got very angry at this and was going to start smashing things, but I stayed and talked, offered him a coffee (which the other woman barricaded inside brought to me) and we just talked until the storm eased. By the time he left the man had apologised for frightening my friend, once I had explained why she had gone inside. "Nothing personal, but she's been badly hurt in the past and loud voices frighten her."
Of course, we never saw the man again - there was no miraculous conversion and "I'll turn away from the demon drink" type of moment - but if nothing else my friend felt safer.
I knew I was fairly safe - if he had started bashing me, the women inside would have called the cops. I was sure he wouldn't, though, if I gave him no reason.
A lot of people are like dogs - they can smell the fear on you and will resent it. If you can send a different message other than fear; a more pleasant, polite message - you will generally get on much better.
Mind you, this does not apply to males. Women can get away with far more than men. Especially cripples, like me. What man wants the glory of beating up a middle-aged crippled woman? This allowed me to break up a fight a few weeks ago. Two men just getting to the shoving and pummelling phase, so I shouted at them, "Do you mind? There are women and children present," and these men actually began to APOLOGISE and justify themselves. After we went inside I turned to difficult child 3 and said, "Don't you ever do what I just did."
Maybe I DO have more freedom than most.
Marg