> This is such a weird American fixation. Here, take my money and hand me my burger and receipt, there's no need for a conversation or a fake smile. You don't care how my day is going, I don't really care about yours. Let's keep this transaction professional and solely focused on this exchange of money for burger.
As a Canadian cousin over here, if you can't tell the difference between a smile/a polite "Hi, how can I help you?"/a "have a nice day", and an actual conversation involving smalltalk, then you clearly don't know about what you're criticising.
In our part of the world, is there a social/cultural difference in expectations of the interaction with people around us, including workers in the service industry?
Yes, absolutely.
Is there something "weird" about that? No, absolutely not, and you can put down the superiority complex.
As a Canadian cousin over here, if you can't tell the difference between a smile/a polite "Hi, how can I help you?"/a "have a nice day", and an actual conversation involving smalltalk, then you clearly don't know about what you're criticising.
In our part of the world, is there a social/cultural difference in expectations of the interaction with people around us, including workers in the service industry?
Yes, absolutely.
Is there something "weird" about that? No, absolutely not, and you can put down the superiority complex.