COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Two South Carolina legislators say state employees shouldn't have to answer the phone with Gov. Nikki Haley's mandated cheery greeting unless it's truly a great day in South Carolina.
Democratic state Reps. John Richard King and Wendell Gilliard have filed legislation saying no state agency can force its employees to answer the phone with, "It's a great day in South Carolina," as long as state unemployment is 5 percent or higher. Their bill also would prohibit requiring the greeting as long as all South Carolinians don't have health insurance.
At a September meeting, Haley ordered her Cabinet agencies to embrace the greeting, saying it could help change the mood of state government. A Haley spokesman says the Republican governor stands by the greeting.
I'm not sure how I feel about mandating a cheery greeting .... I think the Democrats mandate that they must have low unemployment and everybody must have health insurance before it can be used is even weirder, don't you? Is it another case of "if everybody's not happy, nobody's going to be happy"??
Gad, you'd think a happy greeting might go over well in tough times like these..........a happy attitude can change things around and they're not greeting with "It's a PERFECT day in South Carolina!" What do you think?
z
26 comments:
I just saw this at Chuck's site.
This is nothing more than a puerile jab at a Republican by the Dems.
They of course have plenty of time to waste on stupidity, but no time to actually work on fixing the state's problems.
Typical.
These were probably the same democrats cheering on The People's Ministry of Labor when Obama used them to shut down the Boeing plant.
I can't imagine it ever being a good day in South Carolina.
o gosh have a nice day!..heh Happy and healthy New Year Z!:)
Brooke, Chuck and I do this SO often it's scary. thanks for letting me know.
I think it's just a jab at her, too.
SF: exactly
Ducky, I can't imagine why not
Typical, foul-tempered, unionized public workers; discontented and dissatisfied.
I believe in the power of positive thinking. Positive thoughts equal positive results.
The whole thing is stupid.
They should answer "As long as Obama is President it isn't a Good Day anywhere"
FW, I thought so, too.
Bob..you're probably right :-)
Lisa..good one.
tales from the trenches hehehe
The legislature shouldn't be involved. On the other hand, the
scripted greeting is generally frowned upon as 'phoney' (as in
telephoney?). But 'It's a beautiful day' is preferable to
"You have reached the state offices: press 1 if you know your
party's number, press 2 if you want
the tax division, press 3 if you are hard of hearing.."ad infinitum.
..I still miss the ancient dial
telephone....
How would you know duckbutt? Get our of your mommies basement long enough to make a trip the Charleston , Savannah or Hilton Head and you will see why, it's a great day.
Beats the hole called Taxachusetts that you hide in.
"Thank you for calling the United Nations International Help Line. Unfortunately Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon is currently unavailable to personally answer your call. Please use the following menu. If you would like to blame Israel for something, please press 1..."
How provincial of you duhkkky
It's all so silly, that it's just plain ridiculous!
That kind of stuff on the part of the dems, is just par for the course, in my opinion.
It reminds me of a certain city councilman in my former hometown, who is always trying to stir the pot, and get some kind of disagreement going, no matter how disruptive it might be.
If you say "the sky is blue" he'll say, "no, it's not." He'll argue with a Stop sign, at the drop of a hat, all the while saying that it's for the good of the city, but all it has accomplished is to make the whole council, and the town, a laughingstock.
Nothing he does is productive, as far as accomplishing anything positive for the city....much like what is going on in South Carolina.
Not saying that "it's a great day" there isn't going to change anything, one way, or the other, so why don't the legislators spend their time doing something that will?
They say that no state agency can force its employees to answer with that particular greeting, as long as state employment is 5 percent, or higher, or as long as all South Carolinians don't have health insurance..but I'm sure they are supporters of Obamacare, which will force everyone to buy into that, no matter how much we dislike it.
It seems hypocritical on their part, and just a way to grab a little attention for themselves.
beamish, didn't you have a job like that but you were ruder, right? :-) (Love it!)
"Please use the following menu. If you would like to blame Israel for something, please press 1..."
PLEEEASE make your living being clever and ornery; you'd make a million!
BB....good point! It IS better than that!
Elbro; provincial or elitist! :-)
Jan, that's my point! The Dems don't want a happy message "mandated" but they will MANDATE that health insurance is had be everyone in S. Carolina or they can't say "It's a great day!" Are they NUTS?
Good comment, thanks
Commented on this at Chuck's but I thought the "It's a Great Day" greeting is a bit hokey. But the Dem response is even hokier. I thought of a nickname for the two Dem Reps: The Eyores. State employees can answer the phone like this, "It's not a great day in South Carolina. Our unemployment is at 5%. Our governor is a Republican. We're Southerners and you know what that means. Sigh. Is there something you want? I probably couldn't help you even if I felt like it. Sigh."
beamish, didn't you have a job like that but you were ruder, right? :-) (Love it!)
I did, and no I wasn't rude. It's totally not a job for the thin-skinned. The best gigs were in tech support and troubleshooting, the worse were in debt collections and defaulted mortgage settlements.
Believe it or not, I once spoke with a kindly elderly woman who had the same voice and mannerisms of my beloved departed grandmother and she was being absolutely reamed on her bill by the wireless communications corporation I was indentured to and... I broke. By the time the call ended, I had worked magic knocking literally thousands of dollars off her bill (some was honest error, most was sleazeball sales reps padding their commission) and was quite literally in tears. Work like that requires true patience and sincere empathy, and sometimes the emotional stress can just kill you. And then, you bounce from one friendly call to the next one coming live from Hell.
In that line of work, it makes you polite and patient whenever you're on the phone with some customer service rep outside work dealing with your own business. God knows I hated taking calls from Hell, and when you make it to supervisor level, that's the ONLY kind of calls you get, and you have to soothe and de-escalate belligerent, angry people you'd much rather be electrocuting.
I may go back to that kind of work someday (it pays in the okay to well range) but for now, I'm head first in helping my cousin keep his landscaping business busy and successful.
And, sitting at a desk all day was totally making me thick in the middle. Now that I'm back to how drop dead in shape I was in high school, I don't think I could sit still for 8+ hours a day again. ;)
I think this is a perfect example of making a mountain out of a molehill. Things must be pretty good in South Carolina if this is what get's criticized, and a bill is introduced against it!
Good grief, what has happened to maturity, and how old does someone have to be before he grows up?
It's a positive greeting for crying out loud, it's not that big a deal!
They of course have plenty of time to waste on stupidity, but no time to actually work on fixing the state's problems.
This by Brooke pretty much sums it up.
LMAO at Beamish's UN bit
Z, I agree with you and I'm with Lisa on this one.
Alligator, thanks for coming by. IMagine saying all of that every time the phone rang! I LIKE IT (if it was a Dem receptionist!!) :-)
Beamish, I thought you'd said that you were crazed by some of the callers and gave a little back to them! I'm glad you didn't lose it and I'm glad you're still working the landscaping thing.
Beamish, I thought you'd said that you were crazed by some of the callers and gave a little back to them!
Well, I can't say the analogous accounting and disposition status equivalents of spitting on a customer's onion rings in the drive-through never happened ;)
Really though, knowing the "trade secrets" of how call center customer complaints are handled and what will fluster a typical customer service rep has helped me score a few breaks and billing discounts for myself at the supervisor level, simply by saying the right things to the right people in the chain of command.
My last ISP gave me nearly 6 months of free internet service to quell my impeccable impression of an irate customer ;)
It's a power one must never abuse :P
See. Beamish is really just a big cream puff. Until he gets pissed! :)
Alligator, nobody ever doubted that. I've known the guy for about 12 years :-)
Creampuff, Gator? LOL. Maybe I'm just loyal to a fault, until I'm not, ever again.
12 years, Z? Maybe almost 8. I began my assault upon the blogosphere in August 2004.
12 years ago, I was an USENET junkie under a different name entirely.
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