Reading a few posts, ethics, whatnot...my experiences.

[ryaan21]

I have been reading a few posts, one had to do with returning a class ring and it got me to thinking.

Why do people not want to return a class ring? I know most if not all on this site DO make the effort. My brother found a nice one and we have tried like heck to return it with no luck.

I also have read posts where people return an item and are treated with suspicion as to how they acquired it.

I posted this story before, so I will sum it up as to why I am hesitant to even get involved in the process of returning something.


I was working as a Customer Service Manager at Walmart. One of the kids who was a cart pusher comes in and hands me a wallet he found. Holiday season and all. As part of my duties included trying to reconnect lost property with its owner, I opened the wallet to look at the ID. When I did, the amount of money in the wallet was astounding. Several thousand if I remember correctly.

I locate the owner in the phone book, place the call and am met with the older 60+ woman who lost the wallet. I kindly ask if she was the woman on the ID. She gets super rude and starts acting like i robbed her.

"I KNOW I could have not lost it on my own, SOMEONE must have been near my cart, (the someone being me). I assured her I was only trying to return it as that was part of my job and she acted like a complete tool.


Now I know most people are grateful to get stuff back. Hell I lost a wallet one winter with over $200 cash in it and all my ID's and stuff. We get a lot of snow here and in the spring, someone dropped it off at my house with everything still in it. I called the people and offered them a reward and offered to come do some yard work for them and they wouldnt have it.

I guess my point is now when I find something I try to do the right thing. I am still trying to return the class ring actually but have hit dead end after dead end. But I also see the other side of the coin. I have been treated horribly for doing the right thing. To some that may scare them off for good.

I think it is all in how you carry yourself. I try not to let my bad experiences haunt me when it comes to someone elses obvious lost property. When I worked at walmart, I returned 100+ wallets, purses, id cards and only had a few bad experiences. I guess the point of this post is to tell people about my experiences and urge them to do the right thing.

Sometimes I think about how that woman treated me and I tell myself that from now on, everything is mine. But then I think about how a simple act of returning something can make a persons day, and I let the anger go.

Sorry for the long winded post. I just read the other post about the class ring situation and it got me thinking.

 

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[Tom_in_CA]

There's an aweful lot of lost jewelry where, quite frankly, the person doesn't know how or when they lost it. Like, they get home one night, get ready for bed, look down, and notice their ring is gone! So to them, they immediately start rehearsing their day, trying to remember when they last saw having it on. And they wonder things like:

"Gee, did I leave it on the sink in the public restroom, when I took it off to wash my hands?" (And if so, then the next person to walk in, see it, and take it, is a dirty rotten low-down scoundrel afterall!!).

Or "Did I accidentally leave it on the hotel night-stand of the hotel we stayed at last night? (if so, then the motel maid is a dirty-rotten low-down scoundrel afterall!!).

Or: "Did that person I shook hands with somehow slide it off in pick-pocket form??"

So when they go to make an insurance claim (or police report often required by insurance companies, to begin with), the cause will be listed as "lost/stolen", since they simply aren't sure how/when it went missing. And in their minds, anyone who has it NOW, is a dirty-rotten scoundral.

Sure, not everyone thinks the above way, and sure, they may know for a fact it slid off at a particular beach, etc.... as "Lost".

Fortunately, most people are nice, and the re-union stories are a part of the who-dunnit-mystery of our hobby