You all right there?

This phrase has suddenly become ubiquitous in and around Oxford. 'You all right there?' or the snappier 'You all right?' is what everyone in a position of customer assistance seems to be asking. The phrase is disconcerting because it sounds like 'How are you?' when it pointedly isn't. The question is disconcerting because it implies that though you've approached a member of staff in a shop or other site of customer service in order to ask for service, the fact that you are doing so comes to them as a surprise. Sometimes the situation is nothing less than funny. You can be standing there for some time, patiently waiting to be attended to while the staff member is busy with someone else, even exchanging smiles of understanding with the staff member whose help you are waiting for, and then when they're free to help you they start doing something else then ask, as if they've just noticed you as if for the first time, 'You all right there?' It has happened that I've had to stop myself from laughing at the silliness of it all, because I suspect this reaction of innocent delight in absurdity might be misinterpreted as snarkiness. Maybe the clue to this current phrase craze lies in this curious fact: the person asking the question always, but always, makes a point of showing that they are doing something else, that they are busy. They attend to you not because it's why they're there in the first place, but because they have manners enough not to ignore someone who temporarily interrupts their busy-ness though they are too cool to make a show of their kindness with 'Can I help you?' Could this be an unforeseen effect of smartphones, of the new pressure to be always connected somewhere else or to always have to seem occupied with private matters while in public?