The concierge has a stake

A hotel concierge in Dubai is asked where a couple should have dinner on their last night.

He wants their evening to be wonderful. He also has relationships with certain restaurants, some of which look after him in return for the guests he sends. Both of those things are true at once, and he knows it.

It is easy to call that corruption and move on. It is more honest to admit that nearly everyone who helps us is in the same position.

The uncle who lends a nephew money to open a shop genuinely wants him to succeed, and also needs the money back, and those two wishes will not always point the same way. The friend who recommends a builder wants the kitchen done well and also does not want to fall out with the builder. The person who publishes your work believes in you, and has a rent of their own to pay if you turn out to be a single season.

The conflict does not make the help false. It makes it human. Someone with nothing at all riding on our choices is rarely paying close attention to them.

What separates the good ones is not the absence of a stake. It is what they do with it. The good concierge says it out loud: I send a lot of people to this place, they treat my guests well and yes, they treat me well too; if you want somewhere I have no connection with, the small grill two streets back is excellent.

Now the couple can weigh the advice properly. The interest is still there. It is simply on the table, where it can be seen.