February 1st, 2008 at 11:37 pm
While class was going on, I would ride with one of the employees to the restaurant of choice. One supervisor told me that whenever he would leave the state, the people he visited would generally be nicer than other Californians.
I said that I hadn’t sampled enough California hospitality to judge for myself. Okay, so the hotel doesn’t have its tray of cookies out every evening like other Garden Inns. Maybe not everybody I ran into said, “Hello.”
This evening Joe and I went out, first to a local steakhouse where the wait for two people was 75 minutes, and then to the Applebee’s. We waited a while there, sat down, got some bad service which resulted in getting my Riblets half-off, but the kicker was leaving the restaurant. The place was pretty crowded. I don’t know how many times I had to say “excuse me,” “pardon me,” etc., etc. I don’t think 10-15 was an exaggeration. I really didn’t want to explain to them how my leaving the restaurant actually increased their chances of sitting down.
Sure, it’s one data point, but it makes me wonder about the truth of the generality. It also makes me wonder if California has needed its Byzantine taxes and laws because they’re not very nice, or whether Californians are not very nice because of their Byzantine taxes and laws. 
February 2nd, 2008 at 3:45 pm
It’s true, Californians are generally the coldest people I have ever met. It’s the avoidance thing, how everyone is in their own space and world.
New Yorkers used to get that label, but there is a difference between brisk and avoidance-cold. You can walk up to a New Yorker and start a conversation, as long as they aren’t running for a cab or a meeting, but a Californian will slink away after two sentences, even at a supermarket.
I miss this about the east coast. I went to a holiday party this December, and myself and three other women were enjoying each other’s company, laughing up a storm. It turns out we were from NJ, NYC, Baltimore, and Pennsylvania.