A while back, I wrote a post called Saying Thanks. It was about the importance of…saying thank you to others. Crazy, I know.
So today I want to talk to you about saying “You’re welcome”.
I hadn’t even really thought a whole lot about this phrase until I was sitting in my Funny Bone defensive driving class (That link is for those of you who may need it. Pretty fun, and worth the 35 bucks). The guy who was teaching was talking about something that I don’t remember, and said, “What ever happened to ‘you’re welcome’? We’ve got all this “no problem” stuff going around these days.”
And I thought to myself, I thought, “Self. That is an excellent point. Make a mental (and electronic) note to blog about that”. So I did. And here we are.
He made a great point. If you’re at a restaurant, and you say “Thank you” to a waiter/waitress, you’re more likely to get back a “No problem”, than a “You’re welcome”. And it’s so simple. Of course it’s not a problem for you waiter/waitress. It shouldn’t be. You’re doing your job.
But what about a friend? What if you say “Thanks” to a friend? Shouldn’t they be comfortable enough to say “No problem”, because maybe it really wasn’t a problem for them. That’s true. But saying “You’re welcome”, is not only a courtesy, I think it speaks to being able to receive love/praise/…thanks…from someone. If someone is actually taking the time to thank you for something, chances are, they are genuinely grateful for whatever it was, and you should feel just fine saying the words “You’re welcome”.
Try it.
-Stippick
