The first hello is yours

Walk into a small café in Muscat late on a long afternoon and watch what happens at the counter.

The man behind it looks up. Maybe he smiles. Maybe he is tired and does not. The customer reads that look in a fraction of a second and answers it, with warmth or with impatience. He reads the answer and adjusts. By the time the order is taken, the two of them have built a small mood together, and the next customer walks straight into it.

None of this feels like a choice. It feels like weather. He was curt, so I was curt. She was friendly, so I was friendly. Each reply seems to be nothing more than a reflection of the one before.

But a chain of reflections has to start somewhere, and the first link is often in the guest's hands. Coming through the door, before anyone has said a word, there is a moment that belongs to whoever takes it. A greeting, a name remembered from last time, a thank you that sounds meant. The person behind the counter has been through dozens of these exchanges today. The next one can be different, and it can be different because of the person walking in.

We tend to talk about service as something done to us, and judge it accordingly. A good half of it is a conversation, and conversations follow their openings.

Most of the time we wait to see how we will be treated before deciding how to behave. That waiting is the one moment we could have set the tone, spent on watching.