What's the problem with "no problem"?
(Bolding mine)
I think people need to find better things to worry about.
And here I thought it was just a variation on something that gets repeated a hundred times a day in a retail setting. It gets old saying the same thing over and over again, even if it is just "you're welcome"...silly me.
Many especially dislike hearing “no problem” in commercial transactions and from folks in customer service jobs, since, as the customer is always right, nothing a customer could ask for could ever be “a problem.” “I assume my business is not a problem,” huffed one complainer on the message boards at the Visual Thesaurus. Others on the Internet have taken the same tack: “Why would it be a problem? It’s her job, isn’t it?” and “It better damn well NOT be a problem, because I just gave you my money.” Some dwell on the counterfactual: “I always wonder if the person would have helped me if they had known it would be a problem.” And from Twitter: “I know it’s no problem. You rang up my orange juice. How could that be a...problem?”
I think people need to find better things to worry about.
Perhaps the “no problem” of service workers is a way to reclaim some measure of power - “no problem,” after all, does remind the customer that her request is technically within the power of the employee to grant or refuse. It’s subtle reminder of the control workers often do have over a customer’s experience - especially in the face of the customer who is always, or perhaps simply needs to be, right.
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