Haha, yes exactly. It's just the ambivalence that we have within ourselves: On the one hand,funky lime wrote: Sun Oct 15, 2023 10:11 pm ... I would greet people with "how are you doing today?" It was meant as a rhetorical question, but one day when i was already quite busy, i greeted a woman who was dining by herself and asked her how she was doing. she burst out into tears and proceeded to tell me all about how her dearly beloved cat had just died. i just had to stand there awkwardly, actually busy as f**k, and conjure up some sympathy while this woman bawled her eyes out in the middle of my crowded section.
After that, i stopped greeting tables with open-ended questions. really, stopped using "how's it going?" and similar greetings. only statements. no more tears.
we also want to pay attention to others and participate in their issues. On the other hand,
we are so absorbed in our own topics and work that it is often difficult to respond to others.
I think it's always a kind of balancing act.
