With Apologies to Cleveland, S.F. Rates Hi

People are friendly in San Francisco, hard to impress in Chicago, paranoid in New York, unforgiving in Minneapolis and extremely apologetic in Cleveland, a poll of traveling salesmen said today.

A research psychologist asked 2,610 business travelers, most of them salesmen in their 40s, to rate the major U.S. cities in which they do business and, occasionally, step out to socialize.

The results, published in Forbes magazine, showed that West Coast cities have more friendly people than the East, where Boston was cited as the most unfriendly city in which to do business.

Washington ranked as second most unfriendly.

‘Cavalier’ in Chicago

Participants said Chicago treats salesmen “in a cavalier fashion.” New Yorkers “think you’ll pick their pockets or sell them a watch that only works for three weeks,” one salesman said.

“More than half the people you do business with in Cleveland apologize for the place when you visit them,” one salesman said.

Survey participants were asked to make up slogans for major cities starting with the words: “Keep it. . .”

Of Los Angeles, they said “Keep it cool,” for New York “Keep it moving” and for the nation’s capital “Keep it to yourself.”