Tuesday, January 09, 2007

Come, sit awhile. . .

Anyone who has read anything I have written, or who knows me in person, understands how much individual responsibility means to me. I think that each of us is responsible for everything we do, and that as a consequence, we deserve either the rewards or the penalties that result from our actions. If I do something smart, I win. If I do something stupid, I lose. Elementary, no?

Apparently not.

That anyone might find fault with such reasoning amazes me. Increasingly, all of the things we were taught as children back in the dark ages of the 1950s are no longer valid in the eyes of many who were raised in more the recent decades of moral and ethical relativism. I find this alarming.

Let me set the record straight. I do not seek a return to sexually repressive eras of the past. This post is not about that. You can sleep with the neighbour's goat for all I care, as long as you don't expect me to pay for a room in the local No-Tell motel for you. I am more concerned with people helping themselves to what is mine, without so much as a "if you please," or "thank you very much, sir."

Knowledgeable business managers have a bad-debt or 'shrinkage' allowance built into their annual financial projections, and tend to shrug off any accumulated losses until and unless they exceed the projections. Then, they try to tighten controls somewhat, to bring the numbers back to more acceptable levels. At some point, the monitoring and scrutinizing costs will exceed what can be saved from prevented theft, fraud, and unpaid accounts receivable. Mangers tend to settle at that point, because beyond it there is no financial pay-back commensurate with the increased attention. For decades, my projected allowance for these categories has been 1/2 of 1 per cent of gross sales. It is a tiny percentage, but a large dollar amount. We rarely hit my allowed limit because most employees and associates I have had are honest, and my department managers keep our accounts receivable collections up-to-date enough so that any lost amount from bankruptcies and such are usually fairly small.

Every now and again though, there is a deliberate attempt to defraud. This is usually when someone 'needs' something that isn't important enough for him to sacrifice his beer and cigarette money, but that he feels someone else with more money shouldn't mind paying for, usually without the latter's knowledge or consent. I have a situation like that right now. The amount of money is insignificant, less than $2,000, but the principle isn't. A sub-contractor used one of our company credit cards for unapproved expenditures, without our consent, and then disappeared before we made the discovery. When we finally found him, and pointed out that his action was fraudulent and that we would proceed to co-operate with the police to have him charged accordingly, he was shocked. After all, he 'needed' what he paid for with the company credit card more than the company needed the money it would now have to pay for something it would never use, nor have any benefit from. As a practical matter, that is certainly true. My company won't notice the financial loss. Does that matter? No. What we did notice is that someone lied to us, defrauded us, took advantage of us. And by 'us,' I mean me, because I am the sole shareholder and the money comes directly out of my pocket as a result.

I'm not looking for pity or for anyone to take up a collection on my behalf. I would just like to see a more general return to honesty, integrity and responsibility.

For decades, I have had a very relaxed attitude towards this sort of thing, in that while I abhorred the theft and dishonesty, I have not usually gone after the perpetrators. I have finally realized now that all I have been doing is to encourage further such behaviour, and that my lax attitude is counter-productive. I will be a patsy no longer.



  1. Clearly the guy is rationalizing his theft. Many people do carry that sense of entitlement. As one who was raised back in those dark ages of the 50s, I do believe in individual responsibility. That is the root of mindfulness and will make this a much better world for all of us.



  2. Amen. The tone of the times is frightening.

  3. Good for you!
    No doubt many a goatee-bearded, Coke-bottle-glassed, effeminate-voiced she-male of the academic crowd would look on this post and mealy-mouth: "What a blatant case of decadent capitalist greed and selfishness", "How petty!" or some such tommy-rot. I commend you on your decision. There are too many little blood-suckers out there doing this that never get punished or even prosecuted, and legitimate, paying consumers end up footing the bill: The only money you have is what you get from your customers...Cost goes up (insurance premiums), price goes up (goods and services fees).
    Capitulation merely whets the avaricious appetites of the looters!

  4. He was 'shocked'?? What the hell is wrong with people. It's not his right, not his money, not his time, not his privilege, not his entitlement; it's not honest, it's not integrity, it's not good business, it's not decent... and, he was shocked. Wow.

    Why was he shocked? Because it was under 2K? Theft under 5? Well, the man who will steal your lawnmower will certainly steal your car. etc..etc..etc..

    What the hell is wrong with people?

  5. I am a perpetually baffled guy. I could write a book about the myriad ways in which I have been stolen from over the years. The thing that intrigues me is that in many cases, the thief works as hard or harder at the thievery than he would keeping a regular job.

    I had a warehouse manager once who would slit open boxes, take out one of whatever was in the box, then seal it up again. Recipients would figure it was a packaging error and the shippers always made good on the shortage, figuring that someone had been sloppy or had counted wrong. By the time we became aware that we might have a problem, the guy had stolen many thousands of dollars worth of computers, software, telephones, electronic gadgets, etc. When the police went to his home, it was filled with our stuff and goods from many other companies whose goods had passed through our warehouse.

    We fired the guy, but didn't press charges because all of the hundreds of items the guy had stolen would have had to be kept as evidence, according to the police, and the case would have taken months or even years to be tried. I ran into the guy a few months later. Where? He was in the shipping/receiving department of a major department store. I wonder how he fared there.

  6. here, here. and it's the betrayal, as well. trust is a relationship in itself.

    and hey, i'd give you $5.

    btw, your new intro page kicks butt.

  7. jen - I could have used that $5 back in the 70's. Ironically, my newest post touches on just how broke I was at the time. $5 would have bought a week's worth of beans and bread, or a record album, something I could never afford to get for myself at the time.