say 'hi' to at least one stranger each day

At work – and there were a couple of exercises about building rapport with people and the course instructor actually wanted to go out onto the streets of London and talking to random strangers and try to build rapport with them. Needless to staying I voted for this but the others on the course were killjoys. Nonetheless she suggested doing this on a day to day basis to improve your skills in the area. It sounds coldly clinical and cynical but even so…

I have already been praticing some of the stuff back at the office – turns out I have been only about 40% effective for ages :-)

Him: (about a fellow passenger listening to his iPod at volumes that can be heard over the noise of a Piccadily tube train) By the time he is my age he won’t be able to hear. Tinitus!

Me: Have you had a good night?
Him: Yes – I was at Palace to see Preston play them in the cup.
Me: Oh
Him: We won 2-1
Him:
Me: I am a brummie
Him: We beat them in 1996 etc etc

I come away with a useful fact – Preston North End were known as the Invincibles because they were the first team to win the double and were unbeaten for ages and they gave Spurs their first football kit (they still wear the same colours…)

He was a nice/genuine guy. Mmmm chatting is good!

Okay – so a lot of them where either barmen, waitresses, air-hostesses or shop people but you gotta start somewhere. Also chatted to a guy in Ruby Foo’s and some dudes in the Metropolitian Art Gallery.

Oh yeah and all of the taxi drivers :-)

Does this count?

I would just like to apologise to all of London.

Last week I went out on the beers two nights in a row and both times I ended up chatting to people on the tube or night bus. I am not sure that this counts. On the bright side chatting to someone means that you don’t go to sleep and miss your stop and sometimes you get a different insight into life.

Not sure it really counts as saying “hi” though.