DH and I live in a high tourist ( ski) area of New England. One of the lightning rods for " service industry" here right now is the Rite Aid-turning-Walgreens. At our age, we seem to be there a lot because our Rx drug refills aren't synchronized.

Our discussion this morning settled around the issue that employers cannot train "attitude". If employers want upbeat, friendly, helpful, empathetic and understanding employees, they have to hire specifically in favor of that " attitude" and reward that "attitude" institutionally as much as feasible. One pharmacy tech says " Hi David, how can we help you today? We saw you and your wife out to lunch the other day, it's good to see you two out and about." Another pharmacy tech looks at the scrip and sez, " Geeze, yeah, this again, probably be an hour or so, we all need to go on break or lunch."

Will Walgreens weed out the bad attitude?

It isn't necessarily that the employer doesn't care, it can be all about an employee pool that never gets paid enough, is frustrated and unwilling to feel " always onstage for others", and doesn't trust the employer not to change their own focus based on election, buy-out, or management change.

Humanity is not always easy.