Meet and greet

How can I help you?

It's New Year's Day 2013 and Everyday Eavesdropper has been instructed to have a 'Happy New Year' several times. Receiving this sort of reminder is welcome, especially when it's specifically rather than generally addressed. The vast majority however, coming via Facebook, are what you might call shout outs; they are a more general statement of bonhomie to 'friends' around the world.

There's nothing wrong with that - although it doesn't take much effort. Not like a greeting card, or better still, one that is homemade. Like reading a paper made out of paper there's still something touching about getting a Christmas or Birthday Card in the post.

Once upon a time, EE studied Sociology and he can vaguely remember some social anthropology about the subject of greetings which took up several seminars. At the time, this didn't seem especially interesting. He was keener to read topics such as Social Class and Linguistic Development: A Theory of Social Learning (by Basil Bernstein - all about restricted and elaborated codes - no idea if it still has credibility in an age of ;-) lol and 'it's like whatever' but suspect it has). However, he wishes he had taken more notice at the time, as the seminars covered the degree to which greetings are universal or culturally specific.

Now then, EE is not the world's most enthusiastic shopper, but Christmas time does demand a bit of an effort. This year, in an attempt to buy something a little classier than the Birmingham City FC calendar (which they seem to have stopped making) he went in to a 'shop' called L'Occitane de Paris. If you've never been, it's worth a visit because in the Cambridge branch there is room for about six customers and four shop assistants. Their greetings go well beyond 'hello' - in this case more like 'good afternoon sir, lovely to see you and how are you today?' and then going on to ask what EE was especially looking for and offering a drink to help the process (declined of course). This sounded like a pat learned greeting - but what was especially clever is that as the six people shuffled around studying the soaps on offer further customers were greeted - but never in exactly the same way. How reassuring - she was a real person and every greeting was tailored (well, sort of).

(This post was originally drafted on 1st January 2013 but never posted. I think there was supposed to be more to it but I can''t remember what it was. JG)