Permanent employees in transient spaces: the workers who take tickets, sell drinks, clear trays, mop and restock, providing the necessary services for bus stops, train stations and airports. They stand firm amidst a moving tide of people, all of whom are concerned, first and foremost, with arriving at their destination (and not stopping for too long here). These workers seem to enjoy a special kind of camaraderie based on their ability to withstand this moving current, like a thicket of reeds growing in a fast river. The normal, oppositional dynamic that characterizes the exchange between seller and buyer, between server and consumer, is, in these busy transportation hubs, intensified: for here the consumer brings a new sense of entitlement, a new sense of purpose – which is to be elsewhere, and in reaction to this aloof posture, the employee has a more stubborn sense of dutifulness, officiousness, formality. Thus business is often conducted in a theater of heightened sensitivity, earnestness, rudeness and alienation.