Budget season had arrived again. The team faced the annual problem of travelling to the divisions’ offices to ‘bottom up’ the budget in order for it to be subsequently rejected by the board. Budgeting can be a lonely task at the best of times so if three of us all go together, I thought, we can get all the interviews done in one week. Even better we’ll have a bit of company in the evening. Staff in local offices are not particularly keen to provide entertainment in the evening after another year of the board expecting ‘double digit’ growth.

But we had an accommodation problem. A yachting conference being held in the city meant that all hotels were booked by the wealthy outdoor types that had descended on the city, leaving only a few hostels which I didn’t fancy so much. No worries, I thought, we’ll just get an Airbnb, like modern internet workers. We’ll get the work done and save the company money, and even better, be in a position to keep mentioning our frugality for the next year.

We