The number of engineers I have met that do not understand this is staggering. Rope can be used to pull, entwine, or bind. Thoreau once said that you can never know everything about your hometown. He knew the nooks and crannies of Concord better than any school-kid, and yet could always find a new path every day. You pay someone to spend their time to make bread, fry some ground cow, and give you lunch.
Real time is a precious thing, and spending a little bit of it goes a long way sometimes.
It is never lost on a total stranger. Like I said, kindness is never lost on a total stranger. One very cold night at Worcester I was walking home and ran into a local homeless man. He asked me for money to buy food. Instead of giving him money, I asked him to follow me into the local pizza place.