Smile like you mean it

As a contracting engineer, I go to new sites often and I spend a lot of time meeting new people. The one thing I have found is that if they have no contact with you what so ever, it is still good to be nice and to smile. They will think you are trying to sell them something, which technically being a contractor I already have, but it never hurts to be nice. Or so I thought.

At a site recently I would run into this one lady often as we worked in the same atco-hut-make-believe-office, but she had nothing to do with the job I was there for. Going by my own philosophy, I would smile to her in the corridors (or in between cubicles) and do the small talk in the kitchen when getting a cup of tea. But I was stuck, now every time after that I had to smile and say hello.

I could pass her up to five times a day, and obligated to say hello to her every time. Sometimes I would even bust out the "long time no see" joke, which is a winner if you want polite laughter and nothing more.

I have no idea what her name was, or probably still is, nor do I feel I need to know. It will just descend into an awkward situation for some reason or another I can tell. I probably overlooked her one day when distracted by thought and automatically be an arse. She did suffer from ducks disease, so very easy to overlook.

I do not want to be an arse Sam I am, I rely on people liking me for performance reviews, and I do genuinely find people interesting. The only thing I could do is just to keep smiling. Smile like a maniac at everyone even when half a shit day has passed and the afternoon forecast is worse. So yeah, take that lady; even if you are having a bad day, you’re going to cop one of these bad boys :)