What the man at the counter says

At a bean and falafel counter in Tanta, the man frying the discs answers every thank you the same way. He tells you it was his pleasure.

It sounds almost formal for a place where people eat standing up. Listen to the rest of the street, though.

One stall answers that you are welcome. That is polite, and it means: I did a piece of work for you, and I will do it again whenever you ask. Another stall says it was no problem. That sounds warmer, and it quietly suggests that it might have been a problem, and that today you got lucky.

Only the first answer says anything about why the person is standing there at all.

Nobody is made to hand hot food to strangers at seven in the morning. People choose it, or choose to stay with it. And if the reason for the choice is the moment the food reaches someone who wanted it, then pleasure is not good manners. It is the most precise description of the job.

The word matters less to the customer than to the man who says it. What we call our work, hundreds of times a day, becomes what we believe about it. A man who tells himself it is his pleasure keeps finding small ways to make it more so: bread turned on the griddle so it stays warm, a regular served before he reaches the front, a little more tahini for the child who likes it.

A man who tells himself it was no problem is keeping count of the trouble.

Which leaves an uncomfortable question for anyone whose day is built from these small exchanges. If the honest answer has not been pleasure for a long time, then this is probably the wrong counter to be standing behind.