I really have to stop saying “Thank you, I appreciate it” to anyone who provides me a service. It’s my default response and I even said it to the nurse who gave me a routine blood test yesterday.
Naturally, she looked at me as if to say, “I’ve just stabbed you with a needle. How the hell can you appreciate that? If you appreciate it that much, maybe come back tomorrow and I can stab you again. You seem like my ideal man. Someone I can stick big needles into at every opportunity. Also, you could save the NHS a small fortune on the oranges they buy for us to practice injections on. We’ll just use you instead.”
But I annoyingly say it all the time without thinking and it seems either insincere or unnecessary.
For example, when buying rail tickets: “Yeah, I really appreciate giving you money and you handing me, in effect, two bits of cardboard.”
When buying anything in shops: “Thanks for first taking and then handing me back the very things I want to pay for. I appreciate it because you could’ve just stashed them under the till if you were feeling mean spirited.”
In W.H. Smith: “Thanks for looking out the back in the stockroom (which I can’t prove, you may have nipped out for a crafty vape) and telling me you haven’t got the book I desperately wanted and putting a small downer on my day. I really appreciate it.”
If a cold caller tries selling me a product I don’t want, I tell them I don’t want it and then weirdly thank them anyway for thinking of me and wasting my time.
And in pubs I’m forever thanking bar staff, in effect saying, “Thanks for serving me, which is your job and giving me something that will just make me continuously thank you even more throughout the evening.”
I really have to stop thanking people because it’s getting ridiculous.
Anyway, thanks for reading this. I genuinely do appreciate it.
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Russ Writes 
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