I have a pet theory that says we should all say “I hope you
have a nice day” instead of “Have a nice day.”
“Have a nice day,” as many people have pointed out, has
become kind of useless—a stock phrase that’s automatically uttered at the end
of a phone conversation or a retail transaction that means nothing to the
speaker or the listener. “Have a nice day” is just translated as “this is the
end of our interaction.”
That kind of sucks—I think the idea of verbalizing a desire
for someone’s day to go well is charming. And like asking “How are you?,” I
think there’s value in what others might dismiss as conversational lubricant; by
asking (for instance) your barista how she’s doing, it’s basically a shorthand
for, “I know that it’s easy to forget that the people around me aren’t just
characters in my story but rather human beings with their own lives that are as
real as my own, and especially in customer service situations, there’s a
tendency to reduce people to, say, ‘human who’s making my coffee’ instead of
the complete, vibrant people that they are, so even though it’s probably
impractical and undesirable to go into the ins and outs of how your life is
going, I want to ask you the question just to acknowledge the fact that you do,
in fact, have a life beyond our interaction and I respect that.”
“Have a nice day” is supposed to serve the same purpose—an acknowledgement
that you understand that they’re going to have a day beyond their interaction
with you—but through sheer repetition and the customer-service-ization of the
phrase, it’s no longer really effective.
It has a simple fix, and that fix is “I hope you have a nice
day.” It’s an atypical phrasing, so it forces the speaker and the listener to
actually notice the words being said. It turns a command that can be kind of
pushy and presumptuous (because, hey, maybe I don’t want to have a nice day today—you don’t know what’s going on in my
life) into a humble little well wishing. And it’s a much more sincere
sentiment; it’s a lovely kindness to hope for something good for someone else.
As a part of my ongoing project of leaving little Post-it
notes in library books, I’m testing my theory out. (At the very least, it’s
probably nicer than the note I left in Paper
Towns saying that I hate John Green’s face. Don’t get me wrong; I’m sure he’s
a nice guy. But I swear the man has a face of a dude who corrects your grammar
at parties, and seriously, screw that guy.)
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| Attempt #1: "I hope your day goes well today." I added a heart, just in case the message seemed to cold. But then it kind of looks like I'm being all flirty, so I specified that it was a "platonic heart." Just so no one gets the wrong idea. |
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| Attempt #2: "Hey, I hope you have a good day today." To make it even friendlier, I drew a cat. But then it doesn't really look like a cat. So then I clarified that it's "supposed to be cat." Which somehow makes it look less like a cat. Eh, whatever. |
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| Attempt #3: "I hope you have an interesting day today! Unless you're in the mood for a boring day. Basically, I hope you have the sort of day that makes you happy." tl;dr: You do you, buddy. |
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| But no, seriously. I hate John Green's face. |
