Seriously when I was in Japan I saw people at the station that were just pointing passengers towards the exit. And it wasn’t even an emergency situation, just a regular workday.

That's because in Japan, people like people showing them the way. In a society were social contacts are... Seldom, these small things remind them there are other actual people. And I get the sentiment and I'm pretty young in comparison with just over 30. Making that exact job anything but meaningless.

[–] moistclump@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

I mean similar to how in the Western world we like to sit down at a table and have food brought to us, when we really could just get up and get it from the counter ourselves.

Service industry is exactly that. Serving people. Which can be expressed in lots of different ways in different cultures.