No Problem vs. You’re Welcome

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Lindsay from Waynesboro, Virginia.

Lindsay, welcome to the show.

Hi, Lindsay.

Hi.

So I am part of a online community, whatever, message board forum.

And a while back, one of the members of the board had posted a problem that she had had.

She had just started a new job in a retail.

And she had evidently thought she had this really great first day and had felt like she’d done this great job, and then her manager had come to her at the end of the day and said, yes, you were wonderful, you know, this was great, this was great, this was great, but really didn’t appreciate that when customers came up and after you rang them up, they would say thank you for serving them, she would respond with no problem.

And the manager felt that this was really not appropriate and that it wasn’t an appropriate thing to say.

So the member of this forum had come and kind of put it before the group.

Was this an issue?

Was this rude to say to somebody, no problem, most specifically in a retail sort of situation?

And the group sort of really was very split along generational lines.

These self-proclaimed olds felt, yes, this was rude because, well, of course it’s no problem.

It’s your job.

While the young people were more along the lines of, well, it’s the same thing as saying you’re welcome.

So they didn’t really see an issue.

Now we bring it to you guys as the language arbiters.

Is this rude?

Not so much in an everyday context.

I think, you know, you do a favor for a friend and the friend says thanks and you say no problem.

That’s certainly not rude.

But more in that sort of retail, more formal sort of context.

What makes this particular phrase so different from something like you’re welcome?

Lindsay, you’ve laid it out wonderfully.

And I would guess from the sound of your voice that you’re in the no problem camp.

You’re young.

Well, I don’t know.

I’m not an old.

Frankly, I have worked in retail.

And this is not a phrase that I would have used when I worked in retail.

Partly because a lot of the people that are customers would fall in the old camp.

And it doesn’t really matter if I think it’s rude or not.

If they think it’s rude, it’s rude.

But also because I honestly, when I worked in retail, I didn’t say you’re welcome either.

I would say, no, thank you, or something along those lines.

Because, again, this is my job.

So it shouldn’t be a problem.

It shouldn’t be something that I’m being thanked for.

Yeah.

If you want to talk about it in linguistic terms, what we’re talking about here is what linguists who study conversation call an adjacency pair.

That’s a two-element construction where one person says one thing and then the other person is supposed to say whatever is relevant and expected in return.

And you’ve laid it out beautifully that older people often find that no problem isn’t relevant or expected.

If you’re saying no problem, then you’re responding to something that was a problem.

But if I’m a paying customer, it’s not as if I’m creating a problem for you.

But you can’t analyze the semantic content of no problem because it is part of that pair, just like you’re welcome.

There is virtually no semantic content there.

It is simply a traditional response.

And the problem is that the olds are examining it as if it has semantic content when it serves the same purpose as you’re welcome.

Yeah, maybe the olds are examining it.

I think it’s just a matter of being used to it, though, used to you’re welcome.

The other problem, that is definitely it.

The other problem is that you’re welcome actually has some of its own problems.

For example, there are common sarcastic uses of it where you might do something for a friend, and then when they don’t instantly response with thank you, they’re like, you’re welcome.

Yeah.

Right.

And there are other problems with it, too.

It’s bleached out.

Your welcome is so blech that it doesn’t really seem to have any force left in it.

Well, and my pleasure is weird, too.

You know, some people encourage you to say my pleasure.

Because it’s not actually your pleasure, necessarily.

You’re just saying that it’s important.

Yeah, I’m not having fun.

Right.

And the thing about no problem, too, is it puts the customer and the service person on a more equal footing.

And I think that may be what we’re seeing here as well.

The olds don’t want that.

They want that deference that traditionally comes from clerks and salespeople.

And the younger generation doesn’t want that because it doesn’t fit their notions of equality and community.

And we’re all in this together.

You know, today I’m the salesperson.

Tomorrow you’re the salesperson.

We switch roles back and forth.

Yeah.

And to my mind, Lindsay, I think that you might as well respect the older folks’ point of view on that.

I mean, it’s sort of like switching from the informal to to the formal usted in Spanish.

I don’t think it takes that much away from your interaction as a young person.

Right, exactly.

My feeling was always, especially in a retail-type situation, is that you kind of modify your language to suit whoever feels that it should be more formal.

You might get better tips that way, too.

How are you going to know?

You don’t know until they’re ticked off.

Right.

Yeah, but you can guess.

Sure, you can guess.

I mean, it doesn’t hurt to say you’re welcome.

When whole large portions of your world accept no problem with no problem, you just may never know which part of your world is going to have a burr under their blanket about it.

It’s a minefield out there.

Well, sales is just a minefield in general.

Yeah, you’re right.

You’re right.

You never know when you’re going to get somebody the wrong way.

But, yeah, like I said, I tended to just deflect it completely and respond with a, well, thank you for coming in.

That’s a bit more British, too.

Thank you.

I would do that as well.

Thank you in response to thank you is actually really solid.

This is brilliant.

We’ve solved a national problem.

Oh, right.

Salespeople everywhere are grateful.

Well, Lindsay, I’d be delighted to find out what happens when you take this back to your forum folks and find out what they think.

I suspect that there’s just going to be more and more and more discussion that will never end.

Oh, I’m sure.

That’s the way they are.

Well, Lindsay, thank you so much for calling.

Seriously, I think we solved the problem right here on the air.

Take care now.

All right, and thank you.

All right, bye-bye.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

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