The night shift manager who knew my name after one visit

I stopped at the same 24 hour diner off I-80 for about three months straight, always after midnight when I was done with route checks. The manager, this older guy named Sal, would pour my coffee before I sat down and never messed up my order, not once. One night I was in a weird mood, tired and grumpy, and he just said "rough one, huh?" and slid a piece of pie over without asking. I never told him my name or what I did, he just picked it up from the way I talked about traps and crawl spaces. It stuck with me because nobody in my actual neighborhood knows me like that, and I only saw him for maybe 10 minutes a week. Makes me wonder how many other people notice the small stuff we don't think we're showing. Have any of you had a stranger clock your mood better than your own friends do?

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linda_dixon4920d ago

You ever notice how the people who see you for ten minutes a week are sometimes the ones who really GET you? That pie thing got me thinking, Sal probably watches a hundred tired faces a night and has learned to read the body language. It’s a skill, not magic. I’ve had a bartender do the same thing, just knew I needed a quiet corner booth and a refill without asking. My advice is to pay it forward. Next time you see someone looking heavy, just say something small. You don’t have to fix their night, just show you see them. That’s all most of us want anyway, to be clocked as a person.