While the sitter’s words were not untrue, there were so many other things they could have said about my staffordshire bull terrier

When Uber was first invented, my mother was incensed about the star-rating system. She did not wish to be evaluated for her manners, she said. It was outrageous. You paid someone to take you somewhere – your personality was none of their concern. “You could try just being nice?” I suggested. “I am nice! I’m always nice. I’m really nice,” she said, with feeling. “I just don’t want to be ranked on my niceness.” I pointed out that she could rank them back; it was a symmetrical power dynamic that could only serve to drive up niceness in aggregate. And that is pretty much how it is worked out, I think (I’m a 4.73, thanks for asking, and I’m sure I dropped that quarter point because of my husband).

You know what online power dynamic isn’t symmetrical? Dog-sitters. Romeo, my charming but problematic staffordshire bull terrier, went to stay overnight with a dog-sitter from Rover.com, let’s call him Steve (which is not his name). He was great, my review said he was great. I was nice, his review said I was nice. And then it came to the dog, of whom his review was: “Romeo – loves attention”.