A long time ago when I was with GuySuCo there was an occasion when I found myself growing irritated because my secretary was urging me to find time for an interview with an old man, a pensioner from the old sugar times, who had been trying to see me for a couple of days. The excuse I made was that I was just back from an important meeting on GuySuCo’s strategic plan and had to write up my notes and there was little time between that and another important meeting I had to attend with a visiting trade delegation. “Try to put him off”, I said. “Or get someone else to see him.” I was, to put it briefly, full of myself and my importance.
But my secretary was far too good a secretary to be fobbed off with such pomposities and very soon I was interviewing the old man. And a very absorbing experience that turned out to be. For one thing, his talk about his long career in the sugar fields held me fascinated and reminded me how much that we think we know so well now was known even better long ago. And, for another thing, the particular grievance the old man had, and which he explained with care and precision, badly needed looking into and putting right and not only for his sake. When this was done a few days later and I saw the old man again, he expressed his thanks with dignity and a sense of the fitness of things. It was a good experience for me. The old man had made his case. And I mused on the lessons we should try to learn every day of our lives.
The truth is that most of us, if not all of us, are
