There is an intricate social interaction that occurs when walking down a long corridor, such as a hallway at an office building, where architecture allows you to see someone from a greater distance than volume levels appropriate for polite conversation would permit conversing.  As a result, when you see someone you know on the other end, you realize that eventually you must acknowledge him with some form of greeting.  But at this distance, you’d have to shout “HELLO!!” across the building to do so, which would make you look rude.  So you continue walking, looking at the floor or wall or something—anything to avoid staring at him for thirty consecutive seconds.

Now it’s on.  You have chosen your destiny for the next half-minute, and it will involve a hallway hello.  Sure, you could duck into a row of cubicles, and pretend that was your intended destination until the person passes.  But what if there are people in those cubicles?  They will be all “what are you doing here?”  Unless you are good at making up answers to such questions on the fly, your best course of action is probably to continue walking down the hallway.

Before you know it, you are at last in speaking range.  At this point you look towards the other party, wait for him to look at you (which he is expected to do!), then say something like “Hey, [passerby’s name]” or “Hey how’re you?”   Next, if you are dealing with a civilized individual, you can expect to hear “Hey, [your name]”, or just simply “Hey.”  Note:  do not tell the other party how you are doing, even if he asks; he is asking merely out of politeness.  Finally, any eye contact is immediately broken until you have passed said person.

Whew, that was close.  But now you’ve successfully executed a hallway hello.  That makes you a real people person.  That’s why they pay you the big bucks.  And doggone-it, people like you.

PS: I was surprised that spellcheck didn’t have a problem with “how’re”