I believe in being kind and courteous to the cashier person at the store. I believe that asking how the sales clerk is doing may help make his work day less boring. I believe sparking a small conversation and making someone laugh is much better than being another customer coming through the day. Working as a salesperson can be a bit boring at times, so I believe when someone addresses a clerk with lively friendliness it can help brighten up their day.
The first time that I felt this way was one day a few years ago at Wal-Mart. Once my family and I were done shopping, we went to the checkout line. That line seemed to wrap around into the walk way. The cashier looked miserable. She dealt with some jerk at the counter who was giving her a hard time because his own credit card was being denied. After the pompous jerk was done making a fool of himself I sparked a small conversation with her, and talked about some odd thing I can not remember. But that little odd conversation put a smile on her face, and I could tell it made her workday much more bearable.
Another instance a couple weeks after this I was at the mall near Christmas time. There was a very sweet lady working at a kiosk selling glass jewelry. Some very disrespectful kids had just broken the glass at her stand, and sharp fragments were spread disorderly all over the floor. I stopped what I was doing and helped her clean up the mess of glass. She thanked me graciously and