February 25, 2023 by Amy
Hey, How Ya Doin’?
I absolutely hate this statement. I despise it. I abhor it, because it has lost all meaning.
Of course, I use it all the time. Multiple times every day.
There are several ways to look at this. A.) It’s harmless and now a function of polite society and nothing more, or B.) it’s awful because it implies you care when you really don’t.
No one really wants to know how you’re doing. I have tested this. If I’m feeling particularly punchy, I stop and tell the questioner my actual answer. The good, the bad, the ugly. “Well, I went to bed too late last night and was tired when I woke up, and then the dog refused to poop in a timely manner and it was cold AF this morning, and traffic was bad on the way in, but I stopped at Starbies and got a mocha, so yeah, I mean, I’m okay.” Most of the time, the other person stands there in a state of shock, because they didn’t expect you to actually answer. They expected you to cheerfully say, “Good!” and then keep on walking. Then there are the people who stare at me while I answer and then say, “No one actually wants to know that, Amy.” Which, you know, they’re absolutely right about but then again, why’d you ask?
I toss off “Hey, how ya doin’” a hundred times a day as I pass people in the hallway. I’m always past the person before they can answer, so it’s a special brand of stupid, not to mention rude, to ask the question and not even stick around for the “Good.”
My first post-college internship was at a large public relations firm and my cube desk was just outside of the interior office of a bookish, elegant, and highly-educated junior account rep who routinely answered the question with a gentle and composed, “I am well, thank you.” (She also taught me that being organized is the foundation to success in the workplace, for which I will be forever grateful.) “I am well” is the proper way to answer, not “I am good” because “good” is an adjective and “well” is an adverb.
I tried using “I am well,” and sometimes still try it, but it feels as though I’m being rather formal and stilted (and a little bit like I’m haughtily correcting everyone around me who says “good”…I mean, I can be pedantic with the best of them but I try hard not to) so I most often default to “Good” Or “Fine.” If it’s a Friday and my mocha was particularly good and we’re having tater tots at lunch, I might reply with “Great!” Maybe if I felt I could authentically could pull off “I am well, thank you,” like that junior account rep—who is surely running her own firm by this point—I’d use it more often. Unfortunately, no one has ever described me as elegant, gentle, or composed. It’s like putting a ball gown on a pig. (On a related note, Zoe had a teacher who trained her to say that she was finished with something, not done, because turkeys in the oven are done and people are finished. Turns out that teacher was simply archaic, at least according to my friends at Merriam-Webster.)
Another way to look at “How are you” is this: it’s an opportunity to be creative.
Two people I work with have great answers. One routinely says he’s “Livin’ the dream!” and the other, with a South African accent so get that in your head before you read this, smiles and replies, “I am bad to the bone.” I love both of these responses because they never fail to make me smile. One of my favorite monks at my old job was English and elderly, and every time I saw him I’d say, “Father Paul! How are you?” and he would bellow, without breaking stride, “Still alive!” The first thing I thought when I heard of his passing was how disappointed I was that he can’t say that any more. And that I can’t ask him any more. These colleagues are (were, in the case of the last one) the only people who I really want to hear from when I ask them how they’re doing.
Thinking about all this has made me realize that I have two goals:
- Stop asking people how they’re doing unless I truly want to know. Stop tossing off this question as a greeting, because it’s not. Words are important; they are weighty, literally imbued with meaning, and I shouldn’t use them lightly. If I don’t really care how someone is doing, I shouldn’t be asking, right? If I’m not willing to stop and listen to their answer with intention and thought, I shouldn’t ask them the question. I will henceforth try to train myself to say, “Hi…have a great day!” or something like that. A simple, cheerful “Hello!” would suffice as well. Suggestions welcome, of course, if you think of something better. “GREETINGS, EARTHLING” might be fun.
- Come up with a creative response to the question when other people use it on me as a passing greeting and not an actual question. I realize that I cannot retrain the world to stop using it. (Just as I, unfortunately, cannot train people to stop using the word “literally” when they mean “figuratively” and I can’t make some people say “nuclear” instead of “nucular” and I can’t go back in time and ensure that the character of Toby from The West Wing, a character who worships the power of the word, stops consistently uttering the phrase “I could care less” when he really means “I couldn’t care less.” What you’re trying to say is that you care so little that it’s not possible to care any less, and this will forever and ever be the only fault I find in Aaron Sorkin’s writing. It’s egregious, but forgivable. With effort.) I shall have to work with it and find some way to amuse myself.
“Livin’ the dream” and “Bad to the bone” are already taken, but the user of “Still alive!” is now dead so maybe it’s up for grabs? Part of the fun, though, was hearing it in his English accent, which of course I do not have. Other options: Stupendous! Extraordinary! Prodigious! Mind-blowing! (My friends at Roget’s are just as cool as my pals at Merriam-Webster.) I even googled this but it turns out that people who write articles on “creative answers to the question of how are you doing” are actually devoid of creativity and personality, so that’s no help. I am truly on my own here.
I have now thought about this extensively and wrote about it and yet Monday, the first time I see someone as I’m charging down the hall to my destination, I bet I say “Hey, how ya doin’” without even slowing down.
Stupendous!
Editor’s Note: Today’s photo once again has nothing to do with the content of the post. It’s something I made while in San Diego recently, and it was only after I went hunting for an image to use that I realized I’m on a vertical kick, as nearly all of my photographs from that trip are vertical. Huh.
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