I learned very early on in my working life the importance of a dollar. The organisation I worked for early in my career partnered with poor communities in Africa. At the end of each month we would transfer funds to help pay salaries. If we didn't meet budget at the end of the month, I would get paid first, followed by the senior staff in Africa, the project managers etc etc and on down the line it went. The person that would miss out was the driver or the cook or the cleaner - the person that no doubt needed it the most. In this context, I learned to value every dollar. While I have mellowed a little in my penny watching over the years, I still have experiences that make me feel completely at sea. Last week I had one of those experiences. I was out to dinner with some old friends from school. Most of my old school mates work in the finance sector. It is a different world to the world I live in. We started talking about expense accounts and work lunches. One of the boys piped up with this question. 'Boys, some clients took us out for dinner recently. There were…
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