Another reason that the Residency Match drives doctors nuts is how impersonal it is.

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The kind of relationship you have with your boss may determine how much you spend, but remember to keep it impersonal.

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"So the legal procedure may seem cold and impersonal, but it took long enough to carry it out....that some of the people benefited, " he said.

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If the road to financial backing is a thrilling and emotional one for entrepreneurs, for investors, especially Angel investors, who regularly part with their own money, rather than an impersonal fund, it can also be especially fraught.

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The gold standard achieved this not because of any mystical property of gold itself but because it was an impersonal system.

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"It was very impersonal and very insensitive, " he told CNN.

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"It can be impersonal, " she said.

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As an alternative to bricks-and-mortar retail, e-commerce has ample benefits, but it is still an impersonal channel for buying products.

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Pennington says London might be getting bigger, but the Web site brings people together in an otherwise impersonal city and reminds them that it's a small world, after all.

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KB, another New Yorker who did not want to use his full name, says the technology has radically changed the dating and cruising scene, making it too fast and impersonal.

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Nor does it have to be impersonal.

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Our health-care system has become impersonal, mechanized, and hollow, and it has failed millions of people, many of whom want to find a way to regain control of their own medical decisions.

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It is a business model that sustains itself on our chaotic and impersonal internet world.

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But it is less successful at explaining prejudice in one-off or impersonal transactions.

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Is it that humane, heavy-industrial capitalism has declined into alienating and impersonal consumerism?

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