How's It Going?

There's a new greeting in retail that I don't quite understand. Instead of, "Hello. May I help you?" I'm now greeted with "Hi. How are you?" Or the now infamous Taco Bell greeting "Hi. How's it going?" Then you say, "fine," and they say "go ahead and order when you are ready." Personally, I think that's too much work for a bag of cinnamon twists.

I stopped in a store yesterday to check out some shoes. I found a couple of styles I liked. The clerk was busy with another customer and there were 2 or 3 other customers waiting to try something on. I really wasn't sure who got there first, so I didn't want to butt in when he was finished with his current customer. Figuring he was on the cutting edge of which customer got there first, I assumed he would hone in on the next one in line. He approached me as he was walking toward the back room to put away the rejects from his "finished" shopper. "Hello. How are you?" I said I was fine. He kept on walking. He stopped at the next person - whom I know got there after I did. "Hello. How are you?" She said she was fine and did he have these shoes in a 10 or 11? I was still standing there and he came back to me and with a look like "well Stupid, do you get it now?" asked me if there was something I'd like to try on.

Really, I liked it much better when clerks, tellers and prostitutes said, "Hello. May I help you?" I don't think I'm asking too much to make it clear to me that you either want to help me, or you want to know how I am today.