Comment by smelendez
2 days ago
Yeah, Walgreens (US drugstore chain for those who aren’t familiar) often has their cashiers say “hi, welcome to Walgreens!” when customers come in.
It just doesn’t work. Customers are wearing headphones, or on the phone, or sick with a respiratory infection and wearing a mask and trying not to talk unnecessarily, or don’t speak English very well, or maybe they’re just trying to remember everything they need, and it quickly gets awkward for everyone.
The same store often has the credit card terminal ask customers to donate a dollar to various causes, which I’ve seen completely stump foreign tourists and generally slowing down the line.
Perhaps I'm overly cynical but I always assumed the walgreens greeting was an anti-theft thing. It's particularly apparent with the big box stores in bad neighborhoods where they are extremely overt about it in my experience - at least two greeters, making strong eye contact, a very loud and energetic greeting - whereas the ones in the nicer neighborhoods often don't have anyone hanging out at the front like that.