David Hill: He wants what? Listen to the Old Weirdo

My Gold Card doesn’t make me a nonentity, so don’t speak to me like one when I’m shopping, says David Hill.

The pleasant young assistant in the stationery shop had just pleasantly confirmed that, no, they didn't have any phone diaries with print large enough for Gold Card holders to read. "Sorry," she told me - pleasantly.

Would they be able to order one? "I'll just ask," the assistant said, still pleasantly. She turned to a nearby nametag reading MANAGER and indicated me with a nod of her head. "He wants to know if he can order ... " she said. She turned back to me, and blinked at the scowl on my face.

'She", we used to be taught geological ages back, was the cat's mother. That would seem to make me the subject of a feline paternity case. But I was startled - and so was the pleasant young assistant - at how strongly I reacted to her form of address.

I'm not alone, as inquiries among fellow large-print users show.

"He wants to know ..." or "She's asking if ..." don't sound good. They're phrases which come across as dismissive and uninterested. They reduce the customer to a nonentity. They make us Gold Card holders gnash our dentures.

I know my young shop assistant didn't mean it that way. She was - I may have mentioned this? - pleasant. She knew no other way of referring to me.

So why don't shops and businesses train their staff to say "This lady ... This gentleman ... This customer" instead? It sounds far more courteous. It acknowledges the person with the credit card as an individual. It makes her/him feel valued. And, after all, businesses want valued customers. Their letters even address us as such.

I could have said something. But I suspect I'd have caused embarrassment, been identified as an Old Weirdo (you know them; they're the ones who want large print in their phone diaries). So I mumbled something, adjusted my bifocals and hearing aid, gripped my walking stick and shuffled off. Behind me, meanwhile, the manager was asking the assistant "Did you ask him if he ... ?"

But would any shopowners reading this please take on board how displeasing such a way of referring to customers sounds to that wide and widening band of people with discretionary income, the Golden - and Gold Card-holding - Oldies?

We really appreciate being recognised as individuals. For some of us, that brief commercial contact in a shop or supermarket is also one of the social contacts of our day.

Teach their staff this new customer skill, and they could lift the National Happiness Index as well as their takings.

While they're at it, they could also encourage those staff to replace the metronomic "And how are you today?/And how's your day been?" with a simple "Hello", and a genuine, eye-meeting smile, which once again would acknowledge the customer as an individual, rather than another container jerking past on the assembly line.

(Best reply I've heard to the "How are you today?" incantation, incidentally, was "I've got a lump".)

Please would they take on board how offensive that "He wants to know ... She says ... " sounds to the large, myopic mass of us Baby Boomers and above.

After all, they want customer loyalty, don't they?

Of course they do; that's why they offer customer loyalty cards. Unless, unless the "Loyal' part stands for 'Look - Our Young Assistant's Lost".

David Hill is a Taranaki writer who says no shop assistants were harmed in the writing of this article.