I'm not a trained monkey, or passive-aggressive game-players

[Food Lady]

At the FF I normally don't work every day, so this may be usual for our crowd, but it's new to me & it's every day now, & it's always men. This guy asks me how I am and I reply with a socially-required nicety. He then says--while straining to see my nametag--"Oh, [name], what's wrong?" Excuse me? I don't know you and I'm not required to discuss with you how I feel about anything. So I answer "nothing. What can I get you?" and he keeps trying to ask me how I am instead of placing an order. I am not your puppet to respond as you please. Just place an order already!
I'm sure I'll run into this tomorrow, because it's different people doing the same EVERY DAY. *sigh*

[Andara Bledin]

So, what is it you say as your socially-required nicety?

I always just say, "I'm fine, thanks," and move on. So far, nobody's tried to make me elaborate or seemed to think I wasn't actually fine.

My boss, however, hates that social stuff when 99% of the time, the other person doesn't care and my boss gets irritated at the wasted time, so once in a while he'll go into this huge made-up sob story about how his mother's in the hospital, his dog died, his truck broke down, he's got an ingrown toenail, etc, etc, etc...

^-.-^

[One-Fang]

I'm with your boss Andara. Well, I don't do that, but I want to! I also think it's a waste of time.

Try using the nicety, followed up with "What can I get you today?" with a big bright smile. If you directly ask them for an order, instead of waiting for them to place one, they're more likely to go straight into it.

[Bubsy]

Ugh! I hate people like that, because you know they don't actually care how you're doing, they just want to know that someone else is more miserable than they are

Sounds like you're doing the best thing, just saying fine thanks & them pressing them to make an order, they don't understand that you're not getting paid to make friends, you're getting paid to serve the SC.