In my experience, this is horseshit. Ehrenreich's Nickle and Dimed is just one example of people in low-wage jobs ostensibly requiring little formal education who are subservient to customers and bosses, who bend over backward to go that extra mile for customers, etc. Another excellent example is Robin Leidner's _Fast Food, Fast Talk_. The differences among establishments has nothing to do with the level of education of the employees, but the surveillance, and the punishment/reward system for poor/good service. When you work in a place that has daily team hustle meetings, that rewards you for good service, that punishes you for poor service, that devotes energy to surveilling your behavior, not suprisingly, you get people like those at B&N.
This hasto do with the heavy scripting that goes on in chain establishments. Workers are trained to follow scripts (cf Leidner's Fast Food, Fast Talk). These places have 3" thick books full of scripts they are taught as part of their training. They do so, sometimes because they believe in what they are being fed in team meetings, but they also do so as a way to protect their "selves." They see the scripts as a way of protecting their "real" selves from the demeaning reputation of the job. They warmly ask you all the things their script demands, they enthusiastically inquire about your life if you're a regular, in order to take on a "role" and, thereby, no subject their true selves to the interaction. On the flipside, people *also* go through the script in a surly, uncommitted way as way to also "protect" their selves. They also do it out of sheer boredom. The strategies are both seen by Leidner as strategies of resistance.
At Starbucks where I have been nearly every day for months now, they are friendly to regulars to relieve the boredom. They also ask about what I'm reading, and sometimes engage in talk about, say, anthropology or their coursework, probably because they, like every waitress I've ever worked with, wants the regular to know that, outside of this lowly job, she's a person with a life that goes beyond the constraints of this job. (see also, Greta Foff Paules/ Dishing It Out which is about waitresses and their treatment of customers for a different explanation that's tied to the way waitresses earn tips.) When you have a job that affords the time to interact with customers, that's what people do. But at Walmart, you have a job where your only requirement, company policy, is to get them in and get them out. You're not at Walmart for an experience, you're there to buy shit. Starbucks, whole 'nother ballgame. In and out, yes, but they also want it to be an experience, hence a corporate culture that encourages staff to "personalize" the experience.
A new indie coffee shop has opened up, and the staff is even more accomodating. Why? Because they are "family" - which is to say they see themselves as part of the "family" of the owner, with a personal stake in the success of the business. They look at my name on my debit card, note that I friended their facebook account, blah blah. I'm pretty sure no one looks at my debit card at Stabucks. Same thing with the indie bookstore and the localvore restaurant next door where I occasionally have lunch. They bend over backward because they are ideologically committed to the success of the enterprise. I don't get treated like that at Barnes and Noble, which is not far away in the downtown mall, mainly because I rarely see the same person at the counter. Although there was one day, a couple of years ago, when I said: "damn, no chocolate at the checkout. don't you usually have chocolate here? Today is a day I could use some chocolate." Guy says, "Well, I'm sweet tasting chocolate." And his workmates tittered at the funny comment, pshawing him for saying it but still indicating it was funny. That's about the most personal treatment I ever get at B&N.
I just don't think any of this fits neatly into your schooled/not schooled dichotomy. Over 50% of the population now attended college. It's horseshit to think that you know the clerk at Walmart has a GED and isn't a local college student.
My sister, by the way, is a GED holding waitress, who works at a local establishment, a "hotel" on a four corners in a small rural town. She also serves up spaghetti at an Italian restuarant next down over, one of those long-time establishments that's been around since the 40s. Sis isn't especially surly - except when tending bar, where it's de rigueur to be slightly surly. I sincerely doubt that the two year college degree for pre-k childhood education for the local community college has anything to do with how she treats customers.
shag
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