Next stop: Rhamnous

It's hard I know, because there are so many folk only too ready to test your patience but the most important attributes to foster in professional life are civility and honesty. By professional life, I mean in the broad sense, very few of us are literal professionals and those that are, seem to spend all their time circumventing the ethical standards administered by their professions with little or no consequence. The rest of us though, have to get by and so I will relate a cautionary tale of, not exactly woe but a not so minor degree of misfortune for a particular individual. It's not woeful because he never knew about it, for him there was no gnashing of teeth or sour grapes to contend with, all that he knew of it was the phone just didn't ring.

There was this meeting, a fair few years ago now, during which a few potential creative resources where mooted. Only we get to one name and I'm afraid I must've let my guard down for a second and let one of those looks out, you know the rolling eyes and the fidgety head because everyone stopped talking and looked at me. 'You know him?' the boss asked.

'Er--no, I've had some... er I've encountered him,' would approximate my reply. I would've been trying hard to change the subject but to no avail because then the interrogation started, what's he like, is he reliable, that kind of thing. I pretty sure I didn't actually say the word arsehole in response to these queries but it would've been hanging in the air during the lengthy pauses between my words. I tried really hard to be fair, not to condemn him in literal terms but my feelings on the subject got the better of me and were betrayed by my countenance. My equivocal vocal response didn't help matters and he was quietly removed from the discussion.

I felt a little guilty because it was a case of personal animosity, I'd encountered him while I was touting for work and he was a little, how can I say this, um--obstructive? As I mentioned, I felt guilty but I didn't feel bad about it, someone else would benefit from his misfortune and they'd be buying a new house on the coast or boozing it up in Thailand in their favourite lady boy bar. In the end, we went for a guy who'd been quite a well known name from a decade or so before. He was an occasional visitor to the building, having some dealings with an agent on another floor. From his demeanour and attire, I gather he'd hit hard times so perhaps it's just as well.

I'm not quite sure why the unlucky party had given me such gip during our encounter, at the time I thought it was a wrong side of the river thing. Since then though, I have seen him interviewed and you know what, he does come across as a bit of an arsehole. I don't think he ever moved out of that flat south of the river though.