Recently attending a conference in Virginia, I decided that since I was only there for a short stay, I would forgo a car rental, and just take an Uber to and from the airport. It was a very short trip. and as the driver pulled up, he was extremely courteous, waved to me, put my bags into the car, and we drive off to the hotel. I was using my headphones to talk on the phone, and so I stopped the conversation and just told the driver the location of the hotel, but I thought that he wasn’t paying attention to me because he knew I was on the phone. I said it again, and still no response. Then I tapped him on the shoulder, and he looked at me and mouthed, “I’m deaf”. I had no idea. He then showed me the location on the phone, and I gave him the thumbs up, and quickly we were at the hotel.
As I left, he jumped out of the car, grabbed my stuff and shook my hand goodbye. If you ever use Uber, you will see that there is a rating system of drivers. I have used the service often, but this was the first time that I had a driver who had a perfect score of 5. He went above and beyond expectations, not just for me, but obviously for others as well.
I remember seeing a post on Imgur of someone sharing they had a deaf driver, and so they googled how to sign “thank you”, and the driver was extremely appreciative of the gesture. I totally pulled a George Costanza after getting out of the car and thought, “That’s what I should have done!”, and was upset that I missed the chance.
Forward to the next day…
As I am leaving the conference, I connect on Uber and get the same driver. He was there instantly and smiled to see me again. While in the car, I googled how to sign “thank you”, saw a picture and even watched a short YouTube video on how to sign the gesture. As I got out of the car, I was nervous that I would screw up, yet I signed, “thank you”, to him, to which he had the biggest smile and the double handshake. It was a powerful moment and I was really overwhelmed on how such a simple gesture could make such a difference.
Here is part of the reason I went out of my way to do this for this driver.
Because I could.
In my hands, I had the ability to access information to learn more about someone and connect with them in a way that was meaningful to them, so why would I not do that? It was a simple reminder that although we have all of the information in the world at our fingertips, what we do with it, is more powerful than simply having access.
Ten years ago, this post could not have been written because, although we always have had the opportunities to be kind to one another, but because we would not have had access to some of the information that I needed on this day . I am not sure I would have came up with the idea on my own, nor would I necessarily had the ability to access and learning something so quickly. But now this post can be written and I am glad that I had and took the opportunity to make someone’s day better, because through his kindness, he did the exact same thing for me.
