On the way downtown for coffee this morning, I grabbed a bacon, egg and cheese on a roll from a cart around 37th and 8th. While the guy was making my sandwich another guy came through and got a coffee and something, he didn't even need to order. The vendor just saw him and gave him whatever his regular order is. Then the customer paid and said: "Hey, have a great weekend. Enjoy the holiday" in a very genuine way before continuing on.
Non-city dwellers don't understand how much of this goes on: how much micro-community there is between people and vendors on their commutes they see all the time. It is like a million little virtual small towns exist along paths between homes and desks. The fact that maybe these people never have time to get to know one another deeply and specifically doesn't matter. They interact and transact regularly and this engender a lot of mutual respect.
It is as if manners (generalities) serve to instantiate and fill in for the absence of substance (specifics): it doesn't matter that I don't know your specifics, your stressors, your fears, your joys. I know that you are human and experience tells me that whatever your specifics are, your they are worthy of consideration.
To shift frames a little, this is the beauty of rules-based commercial flow across larger value chains.
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