"Nobody even said hello to me,"

she told me.
I find "pop up" stands selling things in the shopping centre irritating.  I am also, perhaps wrongly, irritated with the stands that try and "just tell you about" - often a charity looking for money.
Despite that I try to acknowledge all of them at least once as I go past.  It's polite. They are, after all, visitors.
There is someone among all these people I know slightly. She turns up a couple of times a year. Her job is not to sell so much as to make appointments for people who might be interested in buying gutter guards and blinds to speak to someone whose job it is to sell. She is not "in your face". That isn't her job. If you want to ask about the products she will tell you. If you want to make an appointment she will do it for you. 
She is pleasant, friendly and does the job as she has been told to do it. 
It is not her job to accost you. She doesn't rush at you with pamphlets in hand.
Perhaps that's the problem.
I met her several years ago. She arrived and, as I was passing, I saw she looked harassed. I did what I thought was the natural thing, I asked if she needed some information.
     "No, but I've just been told I need to move my car. I can't leave all this here. I just have to pack it up and take it back and..."
I told her I would stand there and watch over the load (and it was a load) while she went and shifted her car if she would trust me. 
Offer gratefully received she rushed off and a few minutes later she was back looking relieved. She wouldn't be fined for parking the car in the wrong spot. She would be "open" on time.
Since then if I have seen her there - or somewhere else - I have stopped and spoken to her. It has generally been nothing more than a brief hello but I have done it.
And yes, she is there this week. I saw her yesterday and asked, "Good day yesterday?" 
"No, not at all. Nobody even said hello to me."
I probed. No, it wasn't simply a lack of customers. Nobody had spoken to her as they went past. She had to stand there all day without anyone even bothering to say hello to her.
I think even I, who might be able to plan the next piece of writing, would be bored by that. She was, rightly, feeling very down about it. 
   "Oh, it was very quiet anyway. There weren't many people around," she told me. Yes, she was trying to be nice about it.
But it made me think - and then think again. We don't need gutter guard or  blinds but just greeting her as I pass need not take time. Once it would have been a given. People would at least acknowledge one another. Now people are "too busy" or they are looking at the screen on their phone or they can't be bothered.
I think the world was a safer place when I was a kitten. Not everyone had a car. Phones were only available at home. 
If we were out and about we actually talked to the people we saw. Perhaps we should try it again?