As my father had been seriously ripped off three times during his life in business by people he trusted, he often warned me about the surprising number of rogues and scoundrels swanning around, ready to use any vile trick to relieve me of my money.
Just my father’s bad luck, I thought, until about a decade ago, when I came across one of these villains. He was a rather grand agent, who asked me to give an after-dinner talk at a serious conference on education. Flattering, but scary, because I had never done such a thing before – a long, serious speech. I asked how much I would be paid.
“How much do you charge?” asked he. How should I know? I was new at this game. I might mess up and deserve nothing. So I asked, rather weedily, for £300, and the organiser’s phone number, because I needed to know exactly what they wanted. Yes, I could have £300. No, he didn’t have a phone number.
But I found one, rang up, received my instructions, then mentioned wages. Was £300 about right? “No,” said the helpful event manager. “We agreed to pay £1,500.” Crikey! Now what? “Email the agent, tell him your fee, and ask what his percentage is,” said the manager. So I did. The speech was a success, I received the correct fee, but my big surprise was that this scoundrelly agent didn’t seem ashamed, just rather peeved that he’d been caught out. He wrote a curt reply, but not the tiniest apology for trying to trouser my wages.
That was in the World Before Social Media, when bad behaviour couldn’t be flashed across continents in an instant. But now it can. Surely international shame might control the villains? So when I saw the Carillion directors being grilled by MPs on TV, then probably tweeted, Facebooked and angry-face-emojied across a gazillion screens, I hoped, for a nanosecond, that they might feel a weeny bit embarrassed, and then do as the MP Rachel Reeves suggested, and give up their multimillion-pound bonuses. But they didn’t.
So disappointing. My dad was right. Rogues are now pouring out of the woodwork on a grand scale from every quarter. It’s wonderful that we’re finding them out and showing them up, but tragic that it makes hardly a speck of difference, because they couldn’t care less. Like that greedy agent, they’re just browned off that they have been rumbled and have to pretend to be sorry.
I heard that the psychologist Steven Pinker thinks humans are evolving for the better, and pessimism is misplaced. If only. I don’t like to put a dampener on things, but I can’t see much of an improvement. It looks to me as if the sharks are running the show. I’m sticking to pessimism. Then if I’m wrong, I’ll get a pleasant surprise.
