Thanks to the hormones and a forthcoming unhappy anniversary I was feeling less than great for much of the day. I had a headache which the drugs wouldn’t touch, and my chemical imbalance meant I was pretty paranoid. Luckily I’m used to this so only a few folks spotted it.

However, it seems I’ve laid some good groundwork.

When I go through the ticket barrier on my way to & from work, I don’t just wave my pass at the chaps checking tickets. I hold it near my face, smile pleasantly and say “good morning/good afternoon/hello”. After all, these are people, not machines. I’ve noticed lately that at least 2 of them now recognise me and smile & greet me back.

This morning, as I approached the machine with my ticket out, the chap who was standing at the other end of the barriers to normal saw me coming, and opened the barrier for me. With a big smile and something like “have a nice day”.

That helped.

Also, a colleague at work noticed I was a bit out of sorts. When I told him, as subtly as possible, the reason why, he did the only age and gender-appropriate thing which was, with all due sympathy, to run away as quickly as possible. Later that afternoon he brought me chocolate. No explanation, no expectation of a response, just gave it to me and went away again.

Aww.

See? Treat people like people, and when you need them to, or even if you don’t, they act like people. Often.