I like questionnaires, oddly, but I seem to have spent hours recently filling in or fending off requests for ratings and reviews. Over-eager Airbnb hosts, useless utilities, hit-and-run couriers, family-run hotels with a TripAdvisor obsession, airlines, restaurants, even public toilets, whose panel of germ-ridden grumpy-to-smiley faces is the only survey I always avoid. All want me to quantify my satisfaction.

So when a woman with a branded lanyard and clipboard asked me to rate the rental company on a scale of one to 10 after I dropped off our car, I was ready for her.

I had arrived first off the plane, but the car I had reserved had been unavailable and it had taken 40 minutes to upgrade me to another model. So, on balance, I thought a modest but respectable seven was in order. The woman frowned. “Eight is better,” she pointed out, superfluously, and handed me a card. “You will receive a survey,” it read. “Only a nine or a 10 really makes a difference.”