Originally Posted by
SWBKCB
It used to be a thing to sneer at the Americans and their "Have a nice day!" approach - how unauthentic, keep it real!
Then you experience it, and it's actually quite nice to deal with somebody polite and pleasant. Way better than a totally authentic disinterested grunt and sneer.
In the USA serving people is not considered demeaning at all it's considered a worthwhile job in its own right - much the same as waiting was in France - a career not a part time job.
I worked for a very large US company in the States and the wife of a VP worked all day in a local diner serving. She liked it , she was good at it and no-one thought it was odd