They’ll ask me to do something, and then a few seconds later they add, “Please, thank you,” as if they realized that they have to say it.
They’ll ask me to do something, and then a few seconds later they add, “Please, thank you,” as if they realized that they have to say it.
My parents are actual boomers by the definition. Though I think my dad was technically just before the actual Boomer generation. I lost him last December. I don’t really remember it but they raised me to be polite. So they must have been as well.
Interesting story, I used to go to a family owned Mexican restaurant that my parents were well known at. The owners daughter waitresses a lot. One day I had asked her for something adding please at the end. And she thought it was the oddest thing. She said I didn’t need to say please. As if because they was serving us my politeness wasn’t needed. That seemed odd to me. I’m guessing she was millennial just by the age she looked. Was younger than me but not a teen. It didn’t stop me from saying please and thank you, but for some reason that always sticks in my head.
My mom recently said she noticed I am like that with servers and other staff at places much more than my siblings are. I spent a lot of time with my grandparents and people in their circle growing up. Much more tha my siblings did so maybe I got it from them. The pre-boomers whatever they would be called.
This is just my conjecture but the fact that it’s a Mexican restaurant seems relevant - it might be cultural; I’ve noticed that plenty Mexicans (and people interacting often with them) are considerably informal, even for Latin American standards. As a side effect, politeness words end sounding a bit stronger and more verbose for them; requests and the likes are probably done in a more direct way, if the request is no biggie.
I think that it’s easier to explain with an example. Imagine that someone told you “if you don’t mind, could you kindly provide me the menu? Thank you very much in advance”. It would sound weird, wouldn’t it? As if the person was being excessively indirect for something so mundane. I think that that’s how your usage of “please” sounded like, for her.