At checkout, will someone else pay for my key-pad responses?

The modern-day greeting from clerks at local supermarkets is "Did you find everything you were looking for?"

It's the equivalent of someone asking, "How are you?" Replying anything but "good" is wasted breath. It's kinda like, "Well, I didn't really care how you were doing. I was just asking to be nice."

So now, even when your answer is legitimately "no" because you didn't find everything you wanted, the clerks' response is often unrewarding. No one is listening to you.

"Oh," they say.

Sometime in the last year though, my checkout experience changed. Wal-Marts across the country and throughout Hampton Roads added questions to the key pad at the checkout counter. Before the machine got to our usual conversation about credit or debit, or whether I wanted cash back, the key pad piped up by prompting me: "Was your cashier friendly today?" Or "Was the store clean?"

Hmm. Well, I'd like to think about that.

This was a higher level of accountability. Farm Fresh and Harris Teeter train employees to ask questions, but at Wal-Mart, having a machine log my answer, surprisingly enough, made me feel like someone or something was listening.

Previously, I'd just say sure, I found everything. Happiness, true love, riches beyond my imagination. It was next to the I Can't Believe It's Not Butter the whole time.

But the key-pad interrogation provided a new opportunity for a passive-aggressive shopper like me. There's a vindictive new sheriff in town, and he likes to be pampered. Smile and say hi or watch him move the stylus to a place you don't want it to go.

Customer reaction has become a valuable commodity.

When I bought my car years ago, the salesman warned me I would be receiving a survey on the experience. He pleaded with me to answer all 10s. Even if the answer was 9 out of 10, certainly a fine score, anything less than 10 was considered a failure.

I caved and gave all 10s. Not because the process was perfect but because it was largely complaint-free and I didn't want the guy to get in trouble.

This memory sticks with me at the grocery. I'm not sure if I'm comfortable answering questions that could factor into personnel decisions, especially when they're based on such quick interactions and subjective measures. Friendliness? Cleanliness? I dunno.

Besides, I'm a believer in second and third chances. I don't want someone judged on one question after I've stood in line poring over OK! magazine. What if I was too interested in Sienna Miller's latest escapades to focus on the question?

I called Wal-Mart for some peace of mind. Executives there like the key-pad questions because they capture what people are feeling about their shopping experience while they're actually shopping. But the company also uses online surveys and an 800 number for comments.

So I asked: What's that information used for? Do I need to feel guilty for answering "no"? Do I need to feel like I'm negatively affecting someone's raise or performance score because of one bad day? On days I'm a vengeful shopper, is it worth tattling to a keyboard when there's a real person standing 3 feet away?

Worry no more. The data's broken down at a store level.

"They don't compile anything individually," a spokesman told me.

Information on cleanliness or friendliness is generated and given to the store manager, who can see the scores and try to improve on them.

After all my overthinking and fretting, only one response seemed appropriate.

Oh.

Mike Gruss, (757) 446-2277, mike.gruss@pilotonline.com