Everyone is talking about the low water: the cancelled sailings, the buses, the ship swaps. Almost nobody is talking about the crew. Since July, crews on Europe's rivers have been explaining, reorganising and smiling through the same questions week after week. After 26 years on these rivers, Maddy has one thank-you for them, and one question for every leader reading.

Friedrich was 78, had never wanted to come on the cruise, and let everyone know it by the first coffee. Then Maddy saw him standing completely still in front of a painting in Vienna. What she did next — and what he said to her on the last evening — is the clearest lesson she knows about what hospitality really means. And why noticing is a skill you can learn.

What decides between candidates is something harder to define and easier to recognise: sustainable, genuine enthusiasm. The kind that would still be present at hour eleven of a long guest day. The kind that's real rather than performed.

Interviewers are specifically assessing whether you could carry that energy for a four-to-six month contract, day after day, guest after guest. They've seen candidates who present beautifully in a 30-minute call and collapse under the weight of the actual job. They're trained to tell the difference.