The Vincent Effect

Prefer to Listen?

We got kicked out of an Uber on a hill above Lake Lucerne.

It wasn’t dramatic. Our driver had been grumpy the whole way up the winding roads, and then the pavement ended at a small barrier with a red light, the kind that only lifts for pedestrians and a few approved cars. We called our hotel and they offered him another way around. He declined. “This is a problem,” he kept saying. “This is a problem.” Then he unloaded our bags at a hotel that wasn’t ours and drove off.

So there we were, standing with roller bags in front of a hotel where we weren’t staying, explaining ourselves. That’s when we met Vincent.

He came out with a smile and shook my hand with both of his, one as expected and the other laid gently on top, the way you do when you lean in a bit and mean it. He brought us waters. He told us to make ourselves comfortable and to sit anywhere we liked. The hotels up here always try to help each other out, he said. He didn’t mind that we weren’t his guests. He had nothing at all to gain from us, and he treated us as though we’d been expected all morning.

By the time our hotel’s car arrived, we were laughing about the grumpy driver.

That’s what I keep thinking about. Nine seconds of one person’s warmth, and the whole temperature of the day changed.

Here’s my confession. When I walk into a room with bad energy in it, my instinct is to go quiet and wait it out. I’ve done this since I was a kid. Any stress, and I would shrink against the discomfort until it passed. Which means I’ve spent a lot of my life letting whoever is grumpiest set the temperature.

Vincent wasn’t loud. He didn’t manage the situation or fix anything. He just refused to match the mood we arrived in, and his warmth turned out to be stronger than the stress we brought up the hill.

I want to be the second hand placed on top of someone else’s. The one that’s reassuring, that nobody asked for, that says you’re welcome here.

Thought for the Week: Who set the temperature of your last hard room? And what would it take for that to be you?