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”.
Look, this is not untrue; two of my friends claim they still have paw scars on their legs from when he loved attention so much he humped them for it. If you make the mistake of lying down near him, he will sit on your chest as if he’s making a public safety video about what a heart attack feels like. If you walk past him in the pub and accidentally pat him on the head, or even meet his eye, but don’t stick around to make a deeper acquaintance, he will bark at you until you come back. But it’s not what you would call a resounding recommendation, is it? Nobody thinks: “Ah yes, that’ll be peaceful to have around the house, a three-stone bull breed who can’t be satisfied with his own thoughts for five minutes straight.” There were so many other things Steve could have said, which would have been just as true while also burnishing the Romeo-care experience: “Romeo – loves life”; “Romeo – loves company”; “Romeo – if you’re lucky, he also loves being asleep”.
This is what happens when the dog can’t review you back. Their only testimonial is that they’re still alive.
• Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist
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