It all began with “Have a nice day.” On the face of it a harmless enough wish, encouragement, or expression of good will.

But in fact “Have a nice day” is a directive, much like “Keep off the grass” or “Stand and deliver”. A reasonable response might be, “Or else?”

“Have a nice day” is a customer service fundamental, just like other common demands made of the customer. Even a “Thank you” these days is in practice a demand for a “You’re welcome”, isn’t it? “Enjoy”, you’re instructed when you receive your lunch. And more recently, even if a customer offers an unbidden “Thank you” that’s not enough to satisfy the equation; good customer service demands an “Of course” in response. “Of course” meaning, “It’s my job, you idiot, didn’t you realize that? Try not to make the same mistake next time.”

This is customer engagement, or forcing your customer to interact with you. It’s supposed to help create loyalty.

These are ways in which customer service has come to mean customer instruction, direction, or manipulation. And with free more or less instant communications offered by the internet, things are only getting worse.

How many times have you bought, subscribed or otherwise joined in with something online as a customer, only thereafter to be harried for feedback, for a review, or a contribution to some online forum that will “help other customers”? Engaging with a company online is an invitation to submit to an onslaught of customer service, to be customer serviced to the point of distraction.

Customer service in these cases is a more blunt directive, more often that not a pretty obvious demand for your time as an acting uncompensated contributor to a company’s marketing effort. Masked as an opportunity to “Have your say”, it’s a ploy to getting you to put some skin in the game, to invest in the company and thereby feel in some way obligated.

It’s all a variation on the king’s shilling, the unbidden quarter you receive in the mail, or the free address stickers you just can’t throw away. “Take this,” they say. And it’s too late; you’re either ungrateful or obliged, either way they they’ve got you where they want you, they have your skin in the game.

Perhaps the most annoying of these tactics will begin with “Just a friendly reminder”. As it repeats a previous demand for your time, it’s anything but friendly. “Just a damned annoying and soon to be repeated with no way to get us off your back reminder” would be the least unnerving interpretation, but it’s more threatening than that. It sounds like something one of Tony Soprano’s sidekicks might say. It’s supposed to suggest you’re being asked to help a friend, but it can’t avoid the hint of an alternative, less friendly and more sinister outcome if you don’t comply. “Just a friendly reminder this time around.” “We can still keep this friendly, you know.” “Let’s be friends; you wouldn’t want us as an enemy.”

This isn’t customer service in any usual sense of the word service, is it? Unless they mean the agricultural one.