Watching The Apprentice last night, I bet I wasn’t the only one who wanted sweet, lovely Tom to win, but was convinced that the 250k investment was going to either headstrong-Helen, or the overly charming Jim. Why? Because it appears that anyone who seems to get any where in Business has s**tloads of douchiness (or as I like to call it, SOD).

You might use SOD to back-stab your workmates in order to gain promotion. Or perhaps you use it to knowingly rip off customers. Either way, you have to be willing to use SOD without caring about the fact that everyone can see you’re a twat.

Having worked in Customer Services for the majority of my day-job life, I am fully aware that we’re not hired to provide the best possible service for customers. We’re hired as damage limitation. Our job is to explain to customers why we’re unable to provide the service they expect and to phrase it in such a way that they actually think we have a good point. And why can’t we provide the service our customers expect? Because our bosses have SOD and that’s how they make their money.

The only real way I see people making a fortune is when they take advantage of other people. Sometimes this is because they sell something for far more than it’s worth, or it might be because they don’t pay their employees enough. Either way, it makes me sad that it seems to have become socially acceptable to forgo basic human morals if it’s in the name of Business.

So it was understandably refreshing to see a nice guy like Tom win for a change. Hopefully it will begin to set a trend for other budding entrepreneurs and prove that you can still run a business without being a sod.