"Do you like this?" The Whole Foods battle cry
"Do you like this?" she said while holding up the Briyani seasoning. I looked at her, the typical Whole Foods check out cashier. Nose stud, check. Dye streaked hair, check. Birkenstocks, check. Tattoo, check. As I began my detailed description of the merits of a good Briyani marinade, I noticed that she continued bagging my groceries with nary an attention to anything I was saying. I was taken aback for a second trying to reconcile why a she wasn't listening to a word I was saying when she was the one asking me if I liked it. Then it struck me. I've had the same conversation with many other check-out artists, as I like to call them, many times in the past. Until today, I never realized that those conversations were hatched in some conference room at the Whole Foods headquarters. The cashiers are trained to engage the customer in friendly banter, and one of the tactics they learn is to use a strange or unusual product at check-out to engage the customer in a conv...
