As you all may know, I have been frustrated with the conventional method of greetings such as “hi!,” “hello!,” or “how are you doing?” The results have made me feel lonely and out of place. Each time I feel like I did something wrong and then all these thoughts race through my mind: Am I ugly? Is my pants zipper down? Are they disgusted that my shirt is yellow because it used to be white? You know what? I did do something wrong, its the greet itself: Its boring, its not hip, it has no pizazz.
Yesterday, I greeted the customers by saying “howdy!” to see if the results would be better.
I came away with more of shocked looks then responses.
36 – No Greet/No Response
23+ – Gave me a shocked expression followed by a “huh?”
The most responsive were women and young girls.
A large majority of the shocked look were from guys.
The results were what I expected. People didn’t understand or didn’t get what I was saying. Its different and people are not accustomed to hearing it on a daily basis but that’s what makes it fun right! The shocked expression were priceless and I wish I had pictures to document the whole thing.
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Highlights
- A big trucker guy with a gotee beard came into my line and I was hesitant to say howdy, how’s it goin”? Fearing that I would offend him somehow. His response was rather obscure as well, “I’m doing swell, thank you for asking.”
- An older lady didn’t understand what I said so I had to repeat it several times:
Me: “Howdy!”
Lady: “Excuse me, boy?”
Me: “Oh… I said howdy, how are you?”
Lady: “What?” (puzzled look),
Me: “howdy, how’s your day?”
Lady: “What language are you talking in, boy?”
Me: “…”
