Smoothness

How to make friends and influencers

“North Sound” (1979), John Hoyland

I flew to San Francisco this week for a story. Before departing, an Australian guy at the bar—forties or fifties, shorts and a cardigan, boat shoes with little white no-see-‘em socks—pestered three employees in the span of twenty minutes. He said to each one, “Hey, excuse me, I’m asking Delta employees, I’m just curious…