Recently Walgreens told their employees they no longer need to say “Be Well” after their interaction and are not required to say “Welcome to Walgreens” either.   The writer of the article below, however, has a problem with them now encouraging employees to use customer’s names where possible, since he doesn’t want the clerk remembering him and asking, “So Mr. Smith, how did that Miralax work out for you?”  Quite honestly, there are a lot of people who DON’T want help or to be noticed while they’re in a drug store buying Preparation H or cold sore medicine.

Requiring employees to use a certain dialogue has always been a sore spot for me.    Saying the same thing over and over again will become repetitive and not natural and definitely won’t sound the same the 100th time you say it in a day.    I had an employee who was great at greeting people at the door with a cheerful “Welcome to CVS!” but by the end of the day even he sounded like it was forced and he didn’t really mean it.

I eat at Panda Express usually once a week (I know, it’s not healthy, but there are only so many food choices near my work…) and the employees there have a forced dialogue as well.  So even though I’ve been there hundreds of times and the same employees see me every time, they still ask “Would you like to sample something?” (No, I’m in a hurry and know your food already)  “Would you like an eggroll or wonton with your order?” (No, not today or any of the other 100 times you asked me) and “How about a large Pepsi?” (No, I’m getting the small since you give free refills and I’m not a moron.)    It would be so much nicer if they just said “The usual today? Two items with chow mein?”

So companies, please take note.   Forcing employees to use a particular dialogue does not make them courteous and friendly, in fact if anything it does the opposite.   Just tell them to greet the customer (Hi, good afternoon, how’s it going, what’s up?) in whatever way they wish, offer help in some way and thank them after the sale. And please, not “Have a nice day.”  Especially after they buy a pack of condoms.

An open letter to my neighborhood Walgreens:

The day that one of your clerks, cashiers or pharmacists hails me by name and inquires about my shopping needs is the day I become a customer of CVS.

It’s not that I’m particularly furtive or easily embarrassed. Or that I don’t realize your employees often recognize regular patrons.

It’s that I like to assume that I’m anonymous when shopping for the sorts of personal items in which your chain specializes — you know, the ointments, unguents, palliatives, powders, sprays, pads, nostrums and devices that, taken together as purchases, tell intimate stories about us all.

And so I was disconcerted to learn of your new corporate policy that tells employees to begin to “offer assistance in a personalized, sincere manner, using the customer’s name, when possible.”

An example, taken from an internal memo obtained by Tribune business reporter Ellen Jean Hirst: “Welcome back, Mr. Smith, what brings you in today?”

But he will nevertheless be unnerved by the reminder that employees will know him by name and on sight when, sooner or later, his needs are more, shall we say, interesting — Beano, perhaps. Rogaine. Pin-X. Preparation H. Clearblue Advanced Pregnancy Test.

The last thing he wants to imagine when he wanders in for a pack of gum is a clerk booming, “Welcome back, Mr. Smith, how did that Miralax work out for you?”

Sure, privacy is an illusion at the neighborhood pharmacy. We leave trails of consumer data every time we pick up a prescription or swipe our credit cards. Cashiers can see at a glance the state of health in our families (though, honestly, they scan in so many products in a shift that they almost certainly don’t think about it for two seconds).

But it is an important illusion — akin to the illusion of mutual anonymity between penitent and confessor.