Dear mary

Q. My father has worked pro bono for many years on the advisory board of a certain company with a long established reputation for gentlemanly values. When a new chief executive was appointed, he rang to offer his congratulations and to introduce himself but the assistant who took his call had to ask him to spell his name so she could take a message. When he explained that he was on the board of advisors, the assistant replied that she had no record of him, and she thought the new executive would be ‘getting in his own advisors’. This turns out to have been the case and my father’s telephone call was not returned, nor has he heard anything by way of ‘thank you for your help over the years’ even by telephone. My father, who still has many years of useful advice in him, feels demoralised but wants to take no action.