Who says namaste to whom matters

I was coming from a funeral service for a friend. I hadn't planned my grief out appropriately. Strange thing, grief. It won't affect you in the moment, but it can hit you out of nowhere in the most inopportune of times, like when you're ordering an espresso drink at a local coffee shop. I barely could say the drink order.

“Namaste,” said the kid behind the counter.

“OK,” I said.

In my head I had a thousand thoughts, not one of which really involved what I was doing at that moment.

“How are you?” asked the kid behind the counter insistently. I didn't know this kid, the coffee shop or shopping center. It was just there because it was convenient. I think I might have grunted a response.

“I am fine,” he said. “Thanks for asking.”

“Beg your pardon?”

“It's just polite to ask someone how they're doing after they ask you how you're doing,” he said.

It's only when you, as a service person, decide that people must be concerned about you and your feelings that you're going to get into trouble.

It was at that moment that my grief punched me in the face. I don't know why. It just did. It might have had something to do with that kid. It might have had something to do with the fact that in a situation I didn't want to be in, at a place I was unfamiliar with, someone I didn't know was expecting me to take care of their feelings.

I didn't take care about his feelings. In fact, I got sort of angry. Now, I don't wear my feelings on my sleeve. If I did, I probably would have found a different line of work many years ago. But sometimes your feelings are just your feelings, and no amount of self-control or rationalization is going to stop them. And perhaps they shouldn't be stopped.

“Can I just get a frickin coffee?” I asked.

He was taken aback. Apparently he did wear his feelings on his sleeve. And perhaps, he might have found the wrong industry to go into.

The friend I was with stepped up and ran interference.

“Look, dude,” said my friend, searching for a relatable honorific. “We just came from a funeral. Maybe we can just get a couple of coffees and go?”

“Oh,” he said. “I'm sorry, I didn't know.”

The service business eventually teaches you that not everybody in your restaurant, bar, coffeehouse, whatever is there