The Walking Dead 9

During the summer I was enjoying a visit with a friend on the terrace garden of an elegant café downtown. While we were chatting, a young man working there was watering the flowers and plants near where we were sitting. I said hi to the young man, saluting him by his name. He smiled and said hi back. Then my friend, with an odd and perturbed expression and tone, asked me how I knew this person. Apparently, it was something unusual to him that he or one of his friends would be on a casual, friendly and first-name basis with the serving staff of an establishment they were patronizing. I felt surprise, and a certain disappointment, in my friend's reaction. I explained to him that I only know the young staff member through the establishment, and when I am in regular contact with people who work in places that I patronize, my tendency is to be friendly. I also mentioned that since I have worked for years with the public, often in similar low-paid positions, that I also have a natural empathy with what they have to put up with on an average workday, especially from customers who seem to forget or not want to know that they are also human beings. I further explained that they already have to work hard enough, why not let them know that they are appreciated as persons and not just for their function? I also said that I have generally done well making new friends with people working in cafes where I hang out, and this has often resulted in some very enjoyable friendships offsite as well as on. I'm not sure how clear my friend was on the concept, as we do come from very different backgrounds and things for this reason can be easily miscommunicated. My friend simply commented that this way, by befriending staff, I'm more likely to get good service from them. I decided to not continue on this thread, because he didn't seem to be getting it, which is nothing unusual, I suppose, given how different we are. But, no, that is not my reason for making friends with people. It's because I care about people, and I like to reach across lines and gulfs to help bring us closer together. Regardless of what they are being paid to do, they are persons and therefore my interest in them is always going to rise above their function or usefulness. I suppose it is easy for me to think this way, because, I have spent most of my life as a professing Christian, and this goes well beyond having a belief system or claiming to have an invisible friend named Jesus. It is about how I see and relate to others. It is about caring for, and honouring others. It is about acknowledging the kinship that we all share. It is about love and friendship, and living in a state of perpetual friendship with others, even if they happen to be strangers on the bus, or workers in the coffee shop. This has nothing to do with wanting to gain some kind of personal advantage or perk through friendship by the way. And neither does this imply that the workers' boundaries are going to be ignored or disrespected. The only way that friendship can occur is when there is a mutual desire and interest in friendship, and no, I do not go chasing after servers and baristas because they happen to be an easy target. By the same token, when you are motivated by love, fraternal love, this can do much to erase barriers. It all depends, I suppose. There are a couple of coffee shops where I am quite regular, and there is a tendency to be friendly with regular staff, because it is the right thing to do. Likewise in my local Shoppers Drugmart, where I have friendly conversations with two of the staff, both Filipina women there. but I'm not about to ask anyone out for coffee, or whatever, for the simple reason that I am busy with my life, they are busy with theirs, though should we end up in contact offsite, that's okay, too, but it's not the objective either. It is simply a matter of building community, one smile, one friendly word, one expression of interest in hearing the other's story, at a time, and this is how the Walking Dead can begin to morph into real and living persons.