The Pet Peeve

 

On my mind of late is the increasing use of the term "guest" instead of "customer."  I was standing in line at a checkout when a clerk waved an arm and called:

 "Next guest!" 

I looked around. Guests? Whose a guest? Who...me?

I wanted to ask the perky person behind the arm why refer to me as such an animal.  I thought I was here to buy something. Am I to be entertained? How nice, where may I sit and should I have taken off my shoes? 

I thought this experience was an abberation. Perky was obviously out on a limb of her own choosing. This misuse of the term couldn't have been suggested or condoned by the powers that be. It couldn't possibly take root in the lexicon of customer/business relationships. And so, I forgot about it. But then, alas, it happened again and again.

Guest, per Webster is a person entertained in one's home or a person to whom hospitality is extended. 

Customer, per old Webster is one who purchases a comodity or a service from a store or a business.

I'm a customer when I go to the department store, the uptown store, or the downtown store. I don't expect an easy chair, or a glass of wine, or a crumpet. I neither expect nor want to take off my shoes. I don't expect anything other than efficient, polite service and a commodity at a fair price. It grinds my goat to be called a guest when I'm a customer. Guest implies friendship and comaraderie. It implies a gift exchange. I think someone far removed from those of us who grease the gears of civilized society decided it would make us feel all warm and snuggly to be thus labeled; complacent as lemmings as we stand in line to pay for our gifts with Guest stamped on our foreheads, bamboozled by yet another example of the flagrant misuse of the English language.

Gift, per Webster is a thing given willingly to someone without payment.

The final straw was the tire guy. We needed a tire rotation, which was free because it's where we bought them. Unfortunately, this turned into four new tires and an estimate for brakes and rotors that if not attended too would land us in the ditch where we would be neither guest nor customer but SOL. In reading over the estimate and invoice, we were referred to over and over as a Guest. This service (please refer to Webster's definition of Customer) was going to cost us (now their GUEST) over $1,200. 

Is that any way to treat a guest when all we wanted was a free rotation?

Challenged by Bjorn Rudberg at d'Verse to use rhetorical device to argue a cause you believe in, I have argued a pet peeve of mine. As Bjorn reminds us: "rhetoric is the art of convincing." Did I convince you?