We were just shopping at Target, buying everything from dog food to throw pillows to laundry detergent. The lines were long, I was feeling crappy, and the bill was $142.78. The stuff was all loaded into the trunk of our car, a long walk from the entrance, when my wife noticed a tiny 25 watt light bulb—price: $2. 27— that had slipped into a crevice in the cart. “Ooooh, I bet they didn’t charge us for that,” she said.
Immediately, I was hit with a furious rationalization assault trying to kill my ethics alarms like Santa Anna’s men climbing over the Alamo’s walls:
- “Who cares? They won’t care. Let’s just go!”
- “It wouldn’t have been missed if the line didn’t make us late! Target deserves to lose the bulb!”
- “We can tell them about it next time!”
- “Nobody would go back and return this!”
- “The walk and the inconvenience are more trouble than the lousy bulb is worth!”
- “You think it’s stealing? Fine, leave it in the cart. Then we don’t get it either.”
- “This wasn’t my fault!”
We went back and gave the unpaid for bulb to the customer service clerk. She raised an eyebrow and said, “Really?” Not “Wow, you people are so ethical. I’m going to tell my children about you” really, but “Wow, you people are idiots. Nobody does this. It’s a lousy $2.27! I’m going to tell my friends about this, and they will laugh long and hard” really.
This is anti-ethics bias micro-aggression, and in its own, incremental, crummy way, it makes society more unethical and untrusting because it treats ethical conduct as aberrational. If I had been feeling better and my usual annoying, feisty self, I may well have said,
“Oh, is a customer being honest ridiculous to you? So from that I assume that you approve of minor theft, is that accurate? Does that mean you are lifting low priced items from the store, and allowing your friends and family to do so? Let me talk with your manager, please. I want to ask him if you reflect Target policy. I’d like it clarified myself. What priced items are considered so disposable that theft of them is expected to be shrugged off as trivial? Under five bucks? Ten? Twenty? Why stop at twenty? Fifty? A hundred?”
“Before I explain your reaction to your supervisor and ask if that accurately reflects the store’s attitude toward not paying for inexpensive merchandise, let me convey this for future reference. The proper response to a customer who returns an unchecked item rather than just leaving with it is ‘Thank-you!’ and a smile. Not “Really?” and a smirk. Got that?”
Dirty Harry would have added, “Well, do ya…punk?”
Ethics Alarms 
Hi Jack- several months ago I bought a pair of pants at Marshall’s along with several other items. When I got home and tried them on, they weren’t quite “right.” The next day, with receipt in hand, I went to return them. Oddly enough, there was no charge on the receipt that matched the price of the pants. The first cashier had simply forgotten to ring them up.
The second cashier had no idea what to do. She suggested I keep them. I told her I was donating them back to the store since I had not paid for them.
Unfortunately, companies simply have no “policies” for consumers who try to do the right thing!
I once did it a different store for a not so trivial item (around $25). The cashier was gracious, said thank you and rang us up; but I know we made an impression since she (now a manager) greets us by name and asks about my wife and kids whenever I see her at the store.
Yes! That’s happened to me, too! It’s aggravating as all get-out. It’s snide and nasty, and condescending. They have no company loyalty or pride in their work, and they don’t respect customers. It’s NOT cool to act as if stealing is no big deal, and worse to laugh at honesty.
You said it better than I would have, I’ll remember it for next time…this attitude really angers me!
She must work for Hillary and taken the pledge. Think of her poor husband and be mighty glad you’re not married to her.
The problem is our kids contemporaries are married to her or her equivalent and they are raising the next generation.
It’s a prescription for massive self-destruction. I think the tipping point has been reached, but my husband is more optimistic.
Is he the Eternal Optometrist, by any chance?
I wish! We’ve spent thousands of dollars at optometrists over the years.
He thinks electing a conservative could reverse the 8 years of progressive meddling, but I can’t see how any of the current crop of candidates could or would do that.
Vision problem?
That IS optimism.
My thought is, if I would complain about getting charged for something I did not get, I had better give back something I did not pay for.
Back when I was studying philosophy, I noticed we had not been charged for an appetizer. I pointed it out, over the objection of my fellow students. I told them they did not have to pay for it if they did not want, but it was going to be paid for. A few felt guilty enough to contribute. I decided to go into law after that, where people are honest and honorable.
Then, a few weeks ago, I left the grocery store with a 12-pack on the bottom of the cart. We never get them anymore and I had forgotten it. So, I went back in and paid for it at the self checkout because I did not want to look like an idiot.
And, I have also learned that sometimes bartenders don’t charge regulars for every drink. And, even if they missed one, they may comp you it just for pointing it out.
-Jut
My parents set the ethical example for my sisters and me in this regard, and I find it impossible to do otherwise. Most recently, I pointed out to a restaurant server that she had not charged me for a rather pricey dessert that my party had. She looked at the check incredulously, then thanked me effusively. Returning with the corrected check, she had a manager in tow. He also thanked me for my honesty and gave me a coupon good for a free appetizer on my next visit. When just doing the right thing can create such a stir, it must be evidence that its practice is on the decline.
+1 on parental influence.
A fairly early memory of my dad was buying a large jug of orange juice from a street vendor, counting how many glasses were needed to fill it. At some point during the transaction the lady got interrupted and when she got back to us she asked how many glasses we had so far my Dad honestly answered “five” (or something, whatever it was, it was the right count). She replied, “you could have said four and I wouldn’t have noticed”. His response, “that wouldn’t have been fair to you”.
I’m pretty sure Dad does not remember this exchange (I’ll ask him), but I do, which underlines the importance of being ethical in the little things.
I’ve never understood theft. I have many faults, but a total stranger could give me a bag with a billion dollars worth of gold to watch while he ran an errand, and it would be waiting for him when he or she got back. It’s not mine, simple as that. I couldn’t spend the rest of my days, enjoying the fruits of someone else’s labor. It would torment me to madness. I’m not claiming to be saintly; I’m just saying that I guess I have a different way of looking at this sort of thing. I guess I’d imagine someone stealing food from my kids’ mouths.
Exactly. (Although if someone asks you to hold a billion dollars for you, he most likely is engaged in money laundering. Just a FYI.)
In that case, if by doing so he was putting MY family in jeopardy, I’d beat the snot out of him with his money, and maybe call the cops.
Jack, every time you’ve encountered a situation like this — meetiing frustration, aggravation, hassles, distress — and then post here an ideal response to the cause of it, I was hoping that you sent the appropriate person or management a copy. While you may be able to marshall all your pragmatic, ethical arguments at the time of the incident (when not exhausted), I certainly am not. It occupies my mind as I grumble all the way home, not least knowing that I am going to waste a stamp mailing the reply that may take hours to compose. I find that it doesn’t have to include the details that might cause unnecessary harm (person’s name, date, exact item, etc.), nor need I expect a response, in order to be satisfying. Not that I have ever found a physical address, name, or department that will correct the error or assuage the rage at the higher levels of, say, any online service or corporation such as AT&T, Walgreen’s, Capital One, Safeway, and so on. I haven’t been in the new city Target yet . . . .
If this were the Quiki Mart, Apu would have sent you to jail
I was sent to McDonald’s to get a Happy Meal for my son. After enduring the miserable wait to get it, and having my order passed from employee to employee to employee, It was finally completed. When I checked inside it, there were two apple juices. I spent 5 minutes trying to get the attention of an employee to return the apple juice, to no avail, being pushed away from the counter by the lengthening line of people waiting for their orders to be filled. I admit that I just took it in disgust and left. Oh, and you bet I rationalized that one away ( I swore I would never go back to that McDonald’s because of all the times they shorted me and got my order wrong. They should throw it away anyway, since a customer handled it, I was getting the meal so I could take my wife out for a nice dinner for her birthday and we were going to be late, etc). However, how much effort should I go through to fix their mistake? I drew the line at missing the reservations my wife and I had for dinner ( I was not willing to fall on that sword). One of the neighbor kids ended up drinking the extra juice box.
This reminds me of the time — in the earlier days of ATMs — when I tried to put my card into the slot and the machine woudn’t take it. Ah! Whoever went before me had left a $20 bill in the cash slot. I took out the $20, took my own money, then went inside the bank. “I found this in the cash slot outside, and had to remove it to make my transaction. Can you find out who came immediately before me and return the $20?”
Furious reaction on the part of the bank staff. “Do you know how much work that will take us?” And even, “It’s only a $20, just keep it.” !!!!
I finally asked for the manager and basically said I was being abused by his staff for being honest. It wasn’t my $20, and “only $20” might mean alot to the person who didn’t retrieve it. Is the customer the honest party and the bank staff the dishonest one??? So, I gave him my name, ATM number, the time of my transaction, and told him I depended on him to be the one honest person his bank.
I was going to move my money to another bank (and told him so), but then the bank was bought, and and all the personnel changed. A completely different world, I don’t think banking regs changed with that sale so much as the people did. That time, it wasn’t “customer service” — it was basic honesty and ethics.