Personally, I like to make an assessment of my feelings toward the favor done. If I feel put upon, I give an “mhmm” or “yup”. My enthusiastic response is usually “no problem!”
“You’re welcome” implies you can ask for favors anytime, day or night, and feels a bit too prostrate. I’ll say it to some people, but it almost feels like an “I love you” type of response, and I reserve it for when I really mean it. I don’t say the words “you’re welcome” casually. I kind of say them like you would say something deeply truthful to someone
While we’re at it, what’s up with young people saying “bless you”? I kinda thought that one would have fallen off with people under 35
We don’t acknowledge virtually any other noise that other humans make outside of normal conversation. I’m on the boat of sneezes are just another weird noise we make, there’s no requirement to acknowledge them.
This isn’t the middle ages anymore where a sneeze had way different implications related to illness and death. And I don’t know of any faiths that truly believe the old “soul leaving your body” ‘origin’ story either.
I feel the opposite actually. I say “no worries/problem” when I’m trying to communicate that the task was not a burden and that the person isn’t bothering me if they ask again. I say “you’re welcome” to acknowledge that I went out of my way to put effort in for them and that I appreciate their appreciation.
It’s definitely more personal, like if I said thanks for a gift and they said no worries, it would feel a little transactional (for me).
If someone thanks me for my open source code, I’m going to say “you’re welcome” because I’ve put many hours in primarily to improve their experience. If one of the more senior devs in my community asks me clarify something in my documentation and says thanks I’m going to say no worries because I would’ve done that anyway if I was aware of the issue. Honestly in that case I’m going to thank the dev for pointing me to the issue.
Yes it does actually imply that: you incurred no loss of status, nor debt, for this thing.
It’s for situations where the “favor” could be provided a thousand times without issue.
It’s for situations you totally don’t mind repeating, such as when you’ve provided a cup of coffee for a customer.
“No problem” is more appropriate for situations where it actually would be an imposition to repeat that favor. Like, your neighbor wakes you up in the middle of the night asking to use your hose to put out a little fire in his back yard.
“I’m so sorry to wake you. That was dumb of me. I should get my own hose …”
Personally, I like to make an assessment of my feelings toward the favor done. If I feel put upon, I give an “mhmm” or “yup”. My enthusiastic response is usually “no problem!”
“You’re welcome” implies you can ask for favors anytime, day or night, and feels a bit too prostrate. I’ll say it to some people, but it almost feels like an “I love you” type of response, and I reserve it for when I really mean it. I don’t say the words “you’re welcome” casually. I kind of say them like you would say something deeply truthful to someone
While we’re at it, what’s up with young people saying “bless you”? I kinda thought that one would have fallen off with people under 35
There aren’t many good replacements that I’ve seen for bless you
I’m sure I get considered rude once in a while, but I just don’t acknowledge when people sneeze.
We don’t acknowledge virtually any other noise that other humans make outside of normal conversation. I’m on the boat of sneezes are just another weird noise we make, there’s no requirement to acknowledge them.
This isn’t the middle ages anymore where a sneeze had way different implications related to illness and death. And I don’t know of any faiths that truly believe the old “soul leaving your body” ‘origin’ story either.
I just say “salud.” I’m far from a fluent Spanish speaker, but I like it better. It’s the same as “gesundheit” but easier to say.
I feel the opposite actually. I say “no worries/problem” when I’m trying to communicate that the task was not a burden and that the person isn’t bothering me if they ask again. I say “you’re welcome” to acknowledge that I went out of my way to put effort in for them and that I appreciate their appreciation.
It’s definitely more personal, like if I said thanks for a gift and they said no worries, it would feel a little transactional (for me).
If someone thanks me for my open source code, I’m going to say “you’re welcome” because I’ve put many hours in primarily to improve their experience. If one of the more senior devs in my community asks me clarify something in my documentation and says thanks I’m going to say no worries because I would’ve done that anyway if I was aware of the issue. Honestly in that case I’m going to thank the dev for pointing me to the issue.
Yes it does actually imply that: you incurred no loss of status, nor debt, for this thing.
It’s for situations where the “favor” could be provided a thousand times without issue.
It’s for situations you totally don’t mind repeating, such as when you’ve provided a cup of coffee for a customer.
“No problem” is more appropriate for situations where it actually would be an imposition to repeat that favor. Like, your neighbor wakes you up in the middle of the night asking to use your hose to put out a little fire in his back yard.
“I’m so sorry to wake you. That was dumb of me. I should get my own hose …”
“No problem. I’m gonna go back to bed now”