Once upon a time, there was a concept known as customer service. The idea was that if you treated customers nicely, they would show their gratitude through repeat business, because they’d know they were welcome in the establishment. Customer service used to be the standard for businesses everywhere.

I remember during my brief forays working at grocery stores, fast food and other retail businesses that the rules were to greet them nicely, ask them how they wanted their purchases bagged together, and to wish them a nice day—all with a smile on my face and a song in my heart.

Okay, the song in my heart wasn’t a requirement, but the point was that, even if I was having a lousy day, I still needed to brighten the days of others. No repeat customers usually equals the downfall of a business.

These days, though, it seems like the number of nasty workers in businesses that deal with the general public is on the rise. Hellos are gone, replaced by required and rehearsed lines, with deaf, unsmiling zombies on the front lines.

Let me give you the examples I’ve experienced in recent months. We’ll start with a grocery store in an adjacent town.

I was getting some food after church, and I made a stop at the deli to get some lunch meat. When I arrived, another person was being helped by a smiling, talkative clerk. I was scanning the options for some sliced turkey, and I looked up to seek another clerk glaring at me.

No hello. No “How can I help you?” Not even a smile. She didn’t appear to be someone where English was a second language. What she appeared to be was someone who had an expression that was a cross between “I’m having a bad day” and “I haven’t murdered someone in the last 72 hours, and I’m really suffering from the withdrawal.” I managed to get the sliced turkey and escaped with my life, but I’ve largely avoided the deli since.

I have a convenience store near my home, which is really helpful when I need to grab something to eat before work in the morning or need to grab something right away for lunch because my break time is limited. They’ve got tasty food, but the customer service of the majority of their employees leaves a lot to be desired.

This convenience store has, like many grocery stores, a plastic card that rewards you for repeat business. However, instead of asking if I’d like to use my “rewards card” today, many of the employees just say, “Rewards card?” after I’ve barely gotten to the counter, with no hello and no smile on the face of the cashier. Many times, I’ve got the card in the electronic reader already when they say the biting two-word expression, not looking up to see I’m already using it.

Fortunately, there are a few at this place who manage to request the rewards card with a complete sentence or just don’t repeat the company line at all, realizing that people aren’t stupid and don’t need to be prompted or pressured to use a card that’s really just a way to capture the customer’s spending habits and use that knowledge to offer sales and discounts to encourage repeat patronage. Now if only they could replace their zombies with more real people with personalities.

Things aren’t much better in the fast food industry. I stopped off at a place that I hadn’t been to for a while, where they actually make everything fresh when you order. The cashier seemed nice enough in the beginning, although he missed that I wanted the meal as a value basket, but there was a lot of loud equipment behind him, so I figured he couldn’t completely hear me.

After I told him I wanted the order to go, he asked for my name. I told him and then paid for the meal. Then he gave me a number normally placed on the tables for when the employees deliver the meal. I told him I didn’t need it because it was a to-go order, at which point a persnickety manager stuck in her two cents and said I had to have the number, even if I wasn’t dining in, which brought up the question of why they needed my name in the first place.

There are a lot of things making a comeback these days, including reboots of television shows, classic movies returning to theaters, and even cellphones that flip. Maybe it’s time for good customer service to make a comeback, too.