Alan Greenblatt is a GOVERNING correspondent.
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“It’s a great day in South Carolina. How can I help you?”
That’s the greeting you’ll hear if you call an agency in the Palmetto State, under a new directive from Gov. Nikki Haley. “As hokey as some people may think it is,” Haley told Columbia’s The State, “I’m selling South Carolina as this great, new, positive state that everybody needs to look at.”
The move has already been criticized by some for being unrealistically sunny in a state with an 11.1 percent unemployment rate, the nation’s fourth-highest.
Still, Haley’s not the first to dictate phone etiquette for state workers. As Stateline.org reported, when former West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin took office in 2005, he directed public employees to answer phones with “May I help you?” instead of “Can I help you?”
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