No More No Worries

I went to a small conference the other morning at the St. Regis hotel. It’s the kind of place that radiates

such privilege that you feel guilty using the sidewalk under the marquee’s heat lamps in the winter and not paying for the experience. Its sheer opulence forms a natural barrier to anyone who doesn’t belong. I belonged because I shelled out $50 for a coffee and pastry and a dim hope to network and land a job. And maybe I’d be employed right now if it weren’t for that damn bellhop.

I wore an expensive suit and my nicest watch, having spent hours trying to figure out how to dress without looking unemployed. I even went so far as to arrive in a taxi. I felt prepared walking up the carpeted steps and staring down the next thirty minutes of torturous small talk with tenured professionals of my industry. I felt that I belonged when the bellhop held the door for me, to which I said, “thank you,” and breezed by him as if I knew where I was going. But his reply paralyzed me. “No worries.”

The Aussi aphorism, once charming, once invoking a carefree mentality to focus on the finer points of life and forgetting the noise, has spoiled, and its proof is reaching the luxury service sector. No problem was banned as a replacement for you’re welcome in the restaurant industry because guests don’t want to hear that their request is an imposition; it is the obligation of the server to serve. No worries takes this phenomenon one step further whereby the server preemptively extinguishes the concern of a guest for having to thank the server for a service or completion of a request. The assumption alone is audacious and doesn’t belong in venues that charge $5.50 for a Pepsi in a vending machine.

The bellhop’s reply triggered something in me where I had to stop myself from saying, “I’m not worried. Do I look worried? I am NOT worried and you are NOT the goddam Crocodile Hunter!” I wondered if he’d say no worries to the gentlemen on the panel or if he had said no worries to any of my competitors already getting their yuck on with the next hiring manager. I started thinking the effort I put into how I dressed was obvious and a telltale sign of desperation, and that the few recognizable faces I was about to encounter would see right through me. I didn’t talk to anyone.

I’m constantly worried, but not about you.