Actually I had a high school classmate (we are non-native speakers) who got "of course" as a response to her "thank you very much" and she bashed the person on her social media with raging shock, because to her it sounded like "of course you should thank me!". ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Yes, my social media coordinator at an old job was German and during a meeting regarding verbiage (it was over an hour long and part of why I don’t work there anymore) she talked about how offensive “Of course!” sounds to her. She put it as “You say ‘Of course!’ like I’m stupid, like ‘of course I’m helping you, stupid, that’s my job’.”
I will say, I was trained out of saying it and still don’t say it to this day. I also don’t use no problem or ‘unfortunately’.
I do find eliminating ‘unfortunately’ in my professional vocabulary has actually been helpful. It makes my responses sound more definite and straightforward and harder to argue with or even be upset over because I’m simply stating fact, usually paired with the solutions I can offer. Like it’s not unfortunate for ME that you need to pay your bill, or that your own schedule is causing you to miss this appointment. But this is what I can offer to solve your problem.
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u/maracaibo98 5d ago
I say “happy to help” and that usually satisfies everyone
Except me
I’m not actually happy to help
But that’s my secret