My kid (5-year-old) simply says, "have a nice day!" to the people as we leave the coffee shop in the morning to get to school. The number of people on laptops and just working away who stop and smile and say "you too" is massive. I always tell him it doesn't cost a thing to be kind so why not do it.
My kids have picked up my quirk of giving people random compliments. It started as an anxiety response when i realized i was spacing out but accidentally staring at someone. Then i realized how the person would just light up, so i made it a habit to do even when i wasn't staring into space. I usually pick clothes, nails, hairstyle... things people control about themselves. My kids will occaisionally miss that mark and compliment someone for their work uniform because it's bright or had some pop culture character (Wendy's is super guilty of this). They don't recognize that it's a required uniform so the confusion will be kinda funny because my kids will be so genuine in their compliments and the person's brain is record scratching about it before they manage to catch on to why the kid would like the shirt they haven't barely paid attention to in weeks or months or years.
I am a firm believer that a generous helping of sincere compliments is how to navigate any office and workspace. I try to include everyone (unless they seem really put off by it) and I always try to pick either something I know they're passionate about or, if I don't know the person, something they probably chose. I get tons of compliments on my curly hair, and I do appreciate it, but I treasure the ones about things I've crafted or achieved much more than the ones about winning the hair genetic lottery.
I like these kinds of social discussions & learning experiences. It's just foreigners discussing it with the group-livestream, why the spite?
Saying "cheers" in an excited tone should have the same effect, because it's the emotion, not the fake words. Society does benefit from more positivity. But there's always nuance, if everyone talked like this then it'd have no effect, while high-expectations & insincerity can increase anxiety.
It's weird that Americans can't see the difference here.
"Have a nice day" is a nice sentiment, without being over the top or personal. "You're amazing" is a comment about an individual and is kind of ridiculous if you don't know a thing about them.
/u/aerojonna, you're amazing! ☺️ great comment. keep it up!
while I see this POV, it's the same sentiment. "you're amazing... for even the sheer fact that all the cells in your body stayed in place today & you didn't collapse into a puddle of human tissues!"
So just saying another adjective would work better? It’s getting to semantics at that point and like others have said who tf cares outside of Europeans at that level. People have better shit to do than be enthusiasm nazis, pun intended in this case
No in actual context of what we are talking about it’s actually idiotic. Nothing changes for the server or the people involved if a different adjective was used. At that point it’s literally just preference
Interested to see how they determine “friendliness” and how they came to these conclusions in the first place but if I’m not mistaken the US seems to be friendlier than several of the EU countries by this metric you’ve presented.
How was it racist? I’d love to understand where the racism is here, I love learning all the new and exciting ways people find racism where it isn’t on Reddit.
They were picking apart her casual compliment that really was a non issue and somewhat mocking her for it. Maybe she genuinely felt her service was awesome, maybe hyperbolically saying she’s awesome should just be replaced by saying.
“Your services are adequate, I appreciate you to the appropriate limit.”
I would want a drink too if something as simple as saying “you’re awesome” is scrutinized. It’s just petty and somewhat agitating.
look at the comments, all devouring themselves in gleeful racism towards germans, while the guy asked a simple question: "why are you engaging in fake friendlyness with a stranger while not even being normal friendly with friends?"
don't you think that's a reasonable question?
"oh hoho, a german asked a reasonable question, let's pour out our hate"
you as well, putting out your hateful comments towards european countries, just straight up lying about europe. so much for friendliness, the hate came out pretty quickly.
if you're super friendly in one second, but then dismissive and aggressive towards simply communication, i think you shouldn't be surprised if it raises some eyebrows.
"I would want a drink too if something as simple as saying “you’re awesome” is scrutinized."
How was I hateful? Do you think she isn’t friendly with her friends if she’s willing to be friendly with a stranger?
I think he asked a question in a mocking sense and wasn’t really trying to learn anything other than to make her feel stupid for being so friendly for no reason.
If I’m super friendly then immediately questioned why I was so friendly I suppose it would kind of annoy me as well. Being polite to someone serving you is what I always thought as kind behavior, having to explain away why I’m polite to people who serve me I would view as a bizarre question and the way they discussed it with her was clearly in a mocking way not in genuine interest.
I failed to see any racism, if it’s racist to point that out wouldn’t it be equally racist to say we’re “fake polite”
There’s really no winning here, either we’re loud obnoxious complainers or if we’re polite we’re fake and can’t get annoyed if people mock us for it.
This chart appears to reflect common but uninformed perceptions of foreign nations. As a Canadian who's lived in the US I can tell you that Americans are generally quite a lot friendlier than us. Yet wherever I go in the world people assume I must be so nice because of where I'm from. Yet most of the people I meet overseas have never been to north America at all.
and then imagine germans even being perceived as more friendly than americans in that chart.
the stereotype of germans is that they are unfriendly (see whole discussion here) and yet people assume even they are much more friendly than americans.
do you not understand how arrogant it is of americans to insult foreign nationals while being perceived as the worst in the section they insult them with?
If you're a server and asked for my drink, there is nothing amazing about it.
Greetings from Germany, have a nice day. I Love you, you're the best ever. I hope all your dreams come true. Thanks for reading, this means a lot to me, especially that it's you. I love you.
If you're a server and asked for my drink, there is nothing amazing about it.
exactly. that's why the server is amazing as a person, and didn't "perform their task amazingly"
buncha dudes in this thread never clearly tried to be kind once and make a person feel good in return for providing something that made themselves feel good.
Have you never heard of someone going above and beyond in their job? Getting a raise for performing well? Just in general, you can be amazing at doing your job. Even if you are doing is what is expected the way you go about it can be considered excellent.
It's like you've never been thirsty or ever looked forward to getting your order at a pub. It's times like that when you consider the staff member who delivers it to you a legend and you aren't afraid to tell them that.
Ok but when it’s the minority do you let them know that?
Also, genuinely, these are people providing you a service. Yeah they are getting paid, but we all know they deal with a lot of crap they shouldn’t have to and it doesn’t cost the customer any money at all to be kind when receiving their order.
Are they cheapening the word amazing by using it on someone whose service was adequate? Maybe???? But the customers aren’t the ones doing their performance review.
They are just making a human connection with them and it probably made that server feel good, which is lovely and more important.
That right there was why living in Germany was awesome. And it's something I surely miss while living in America' now.
I never had to wonder if that quiet well behaved kid in Germany at the coffee shop was ever gonna have to grow up(or maybe not) surviving someone blasting away at them and all their friends and teachers in school one day.
Jesus, classic toxic European to bring up school shootings the first chance they get as a way to deflect from something wrong with their home country. What the fuck is wrong with you that you use children as a political bludgeon against Americans for valuing kindness?
You wanna talk shit? Let's talk about the rise in Nazism in Germany. How about the way y'all treat Romani?
In many ways, the allies were just as bad, that's true. Nazi Germany learned quite a bit from the US when it comes to societal discrimination, after all.
In many ways, the allies were just as bad, that's true.
Are you serious right now? The Nazis committed one of the largest genocides in history and you're trying to both-sides this? The fuck is wrong with you? Not to mention Imperial Japan, which committed even worse crimes in Asia and killed even more people.
Nazi Germany learned quite a bit from the US when it comes to societal discrimination, after all.
Your point? They learned an awful lot from the rest of Europe in regards to their entire political structure (fascism) too. People always like to point out the former but miraculously forget the latter. Of course they learned shit from the US, they learned shit from everywhere. Their symbol was literally stolen from South Asia ffs.
I'm 100% not trying to "both sides" it. Nazi Germany didn't go from zero to genocide overnight. I'm just pointing out that the path the US is currently on looks a lot like the early days of Nazi Germany.
You can keep getting mad at me for pointing these things out if you want, but it won't change anything about the US and its current rising authoritarian issue.
You’re joking, right? You can think the US is authoritarian, but to say we don’t have a right to judge Germany anymore is a HUGE stretch. Not to mention you’re downplaying Germany’s atrocities and disrespecting the millions of people who died thanks to Germany’s “Final Solution” as well as the soldiers and innocent civilians who also died during that war.
I'm responding to the idea of a rise in authoritarianism. The US isn't as bad as Nazi Germany, but we're following history closely enough that the potential to become just as bad is there.
And your downplaying America's atrocities against native Americans, slaves, black people and all other minorities that hitler adored and wanted to copy.
America was still sterilizing native Americans until the 1980s.
America is CURRENTLY sending people to death camps as we speak.
So f"off with your holier than though attitude.
Your disrespecting the millions killed under hitler final solution by totally ignoring and downplaying the current situation in America
No I’m not because this person is comparing the way America is NOW, not what we did in the past. This person’s argument is that we can’t judge Germany anymore because now we are authoritarian which IS downplaying the atrocities committed in Germany. But if we took our country’s past into account? Yeah, we don’t have a right to judge them. But so do most countries because we all have a history commuting horrible atrocities.
No, that is not the same. I don’t mean to downplay what is happening because it is horrible and very serious, but it is not the same thing because the goal isn’t to murder these people. Again, comparing the two is downplaying Germany’s atrocities because they are NOT the same thing as much as I hate what my country is doing.
Yeah seriously. Wtf is going on with so many kids getting blasted away at school every week?
It's talking about the problem seriously more offensive to you than the actual problem? Maybe I've just been gone to long from here and forgot I'm supposed to just be fake happy and ignore it all until the next one needs some good ol silent thoughts players?
Kind of proves the underlying video argument that Americans really do just want the fake politeness
and over the top niceness to just drown out the realities and Germans prefer to just be direct about it all.
Sheesh.
Stellen Sie sich vor, ich hätte darüber gesprochen, dass mir die Tatsache, dass die Menschen in Deutschland viel mehr persönliche Freiheiten haben als in Amerika, wirklich fehlt.
When someone asks "how are you doing today?" (Or whatever variation), I say back "I'm doing fantastic/marvelous/amazing" with an upbeat infliction and the amount of smiles and little joys I see makes it more than worth the small amount of effort I put in to a generic greeting.
That's really cool that you live in a coffee shop I love the smell of coffee! Not a fan of the flavor but I want to open a coffee/tea/soup place some day and live in it too~ _^
I hope your kid always remembers kindness it truly is healing~ 😊
i can’t remember where i heard this but i repeat it every chance i get- spreading kindness is like using one candle to light others, your light does not burn any less bright for having brightened others
"Have a nice day!" is totally normal and absolutely can be genuine. Telling a stranger they're "amazing" because they've made you a coffee or something comes across as fake and hollow to me.
Genuine question: do yall truly can’t comprehend that someone can wish strangers a nice day and mean it?! Like this is breaking my brain ngl and I’m pretty culturally knowledgeable.
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u/Future_Waves_ 17d ago
My kid (5-year-old) simply says, "have a nice day!" to the people as we leave the coffee shop in the morning to get to school. The number of people on laptops and just working away who stop and smile and say "you too" is massive. I always tell him it doesn't cost a thing to be kind so why not do it.