[islanderfun]

I'm a little confused here and I'm sure I'm missing the point. This article seems to argue (and some comments here) that being rude should be normal? Why? Why wouldn't we be nice to customers for their business?

On the other hand, hasn't bullshit/passive-aggressiveness/etc been always called out?

[treve]

I think the author is just not very self aware. The rules of communication do change, but they probably weren't aware of the unwritten social cues that they picked up earlier in life. Cues that probably were equally annoying and frustrating to someone a generation earlier.

I think lots of people would be a bit more at peace once they start embracing the fact that language and culture are always going to be moving and changing. Thing are going to feel awkward and forced until they feel normal and you'll continue to be expected to adjust to the norms. Some of those norms will suggest that you've been doing certain things 'wrong' all your life and it's gonna be hard to swallow, but everyone will always go through this stuff and this is why you can probably find some rants against political correctness for as long as there have been columns in newspapers.

It's a complete waste of energy, I hope the author found some peace in the 22 years since this article.

[dkarl]

> This article seems to argue (and some comments here) that being rude should be normal? Why? Why wouldn't we be nice to customers for their business?

The difference is intent. Being polite to someone to put them at ease in a difficult situation, to give them a better experience of their day, or to lubricate an awkward interaction, is a good thing. Relentlessly and deceptively framing yourself and your actions in the highest possible light is selfish and corrosive. There is overlap, such as greeting somebody in a cheery way as they enter a business. But where there is overlap, the selfish intention corrodes the positive one. When somebody greets me as I enter a store, I can't help seeing them as a worker who is forced to perform emotional labor on behalf of a business that wants to extract maximum economic value from me. It doesn't feel personal.

Likewise, when a customer service rep on the phone expresses positivity and a desire to help, I'm aware that they may be instructed and empowered to solve customer problems as well as possible, but they also may be following a script to guide me towards the cheapest outcome for the company, and their apparent compassion and helpfulness might be calculated to engender feelings of trust in me, so that I feel like I'm in good hands and allow them to guide me towards an outcome that is less than I'm entitled to. Their tone may even be being graded and used to evaluate them.

> hasn't bullshit/passive-aggressiveness/etc been always called out?

When something becomes normalized, it doesn't get called out. In the context of economic competition, it even becomes excused as mandatory.

[pdonis]

> This article seems to argue (and some comments here) that being rude should be normal?

No. The article is not talking about ordinary courtesies between individuals (those are mentioned briefly, but only to contrast with the article's main subject). It is talking about a tactic used by organizations.

> Why wouldn't we be nice to customers for their business?

Being nice as you and your company solve the customer's problem is great.

Being nice as you and your company epically fail to solve the customer's problem, and continuing to talk as though everything is just dandy even though it is nothing of the sort, is not great--but unfortunately it is a common tactic that organizations use and train their customer support representatives to use. That is what the article is talking about.

> hasn't bullshit/passive-aggressiveness/etc been always called out?

Not when it is cloaked in a veneer of seeming niceness, no.

[silmari]

I share the confusion, that the article seems to bash at nice, everyday phrases without giving the same nice kind of alternatives to lubricate communication, but rather it gives irony and satire, which are of the other end. The point of the article isn't about rudeness but making a meaningful conversation, and that passivity and talking from rulebooks doesn't really help from the author's point of view.

[omginternets]

I’m not sure where you got that idea from. The thesis is that there is a distinction to be made between ordinary civility and “nicespeak”. The distinction is that the latter is insincere, and serves the interests of a corporate power structure.