Tales of honesty

Last year I was renovating a house for this Transport contractor (loaded), I moved a wardrobe out of its niche and found a brown envelope with about 7000€ in cash . After a couple of minutes with the Devil on one shoulder and my Mam (Angel) on the other ,anyway I give it to the guy who owned the house, he was totally surprised and then he proceeded to tell me that he had completely forgotten about it and would probally never have missed it!
(B$%§&/&KS I thought)
But there again I can sleep nights.

Related topic: The cashier gives you back too much change

You did the only decent thing.

If you'd taken it you'd be haunted for years that he'd one day notice the loss and call the police.

I once went to a shop toilet in a big department store in Japan, and found a wallet stuffed with money on the roll dispenser. I didn't take it, (either out of honesty or fear of hidden cameras and a guest appearance on You've Been Framed, who knows) but I also didn't hand it in... I left it sitting there and ran. All I could think was that if I picked it up to hand it in but was intercepted by the owner or Japanese store detectives on the way, they would think I was stealing it - and with ten words of Japanese I'd never convince them otherwise. So I did neither right nor wrong, just took a prudent or cowardly way out. Often wondered what happened in the end.

In our country we have a proverb "You are a good man, because you never had the chance or courage to become a bad one" .

Anyway, my question is this to everyone reading this thread:

If I give you tomorrow a full-day of independance , which you can do anything , and no one will remember a thing you are going to do tomorrow, and you will never get caught and never have to answer to anyone, how many of the honest , nice people among us will behave the same?

During a trip to Australia to visit family I decided to go to a local market alone. On my way home I crossed the street and noticed an envelope lying on the middle of the road with a $50 note sticking out. I picked it up and counted about $800. Strangly enough it was right near the police station so I thought i should do the right thing (i was so tempted to keep it though) and went to hand it in. This was in a tiny town in Tasmania and the station was closed... So after calling the help line I had to wait around for about an hour until a police officer finally turned up.

A couple of days later I got a call from a man who owned a hotel in the region. Apparently he had a wine stall at the market and someone had dropped the money on the way home but didn't notice it was gone until the next day. He took my address as he wanted to send me something to say thank you. Selfish me, here I was expecting a cash "thanks" or at least a free meal at his hotel. However, about a week later I found a tiny display plate (about 10 cm) with a blue-bird on it stuffed into the mail box of where i was staying... including a card of course.

I would. I don't do things that I consider morally appropriate because other people will think better of me. It's all about the way I see myself.

I found a wallet lying in the middle of my local supermarket carpark and it had the guys whole life in it. I reckon he'd driven off with it on the roof. I found his address, on his identity card and drove it round to his home where his mother was standing anxiously outside the house! He'd gone back to look for it and she had no way of contacting him, so I just handed it over and drove away. I hope he came home again before he reported it missing!

I know the Japs do some tacky TV shows but, Shoppers on the Crapper is a bit nuff even for them.

As you say though there is always a little touch of doubt that good intentions will be taken the wrong way!
I find it a problem if a child falls down or is lost in the shops ,do you take their hand or help them up?
I've had the experience a couple of times, the child starts screaming or making a fuss and everybody in the place looks at you as if your trying to molest the kid, not a very pleasant way to spend time in the shops!

I have a story, not about me but a coworker that still irks me.

I used to work at a retail store, and one of my coworkers found a 100 bill on the floor. Being the sweet person she is she put in the register with a note so if anyone came back we had it. Well a month passed and the girl asked me, the manager, what we should do with it. I said she found it so I figured she could keep it, but run it by the owner (small business)So the owner gave her 20 bucks, keeping 80 for himself and said thanks.

a few weeks ago i did a delivery and was given 400e to much,so after re-counting it i told them.
well they didnt say much,but as their good customers , i thought it was the correct thing to do...
but would have been a nice bonus.

You are all too honest. We need some balance. Can I change my post now to read, "so I took the cash, flushed the ID, and blew it all on tempura, tamagotchi and prostitutes" ?

I think you're better off drawing the attention of one of the shop workers.

My son was about 6years old we were near the Hauptbahnhof ,walking through the snow ,I'd told him off 2 or 3 times cos he was kicking snow all over the place as he went anyway he did it again and under the snow he found a "dog collar" ,It obviously belonged to one of those little yappy dogs cos it was so small, the leather was soaked but there was a small ID plate on it which was was made of Silver . We took it home and I rang the telephone nr ... next day this little old lady came to our appt.. she was over the moon that she had got the collar back and told us how happy little Tiddles would be(name changed to protect the innocent) I was thinking nutty as a fruitcake, nice but definitley one sandwich short of a picnic,
She then proceeded to hand my son a 100DM note as a reward. (lucky little blighter).

Before it got cold this year, one Sunday my youngest kids were down the street selling watercolor paintings they were making right beside a popular walking path. They were asking €0.10 apeice.

A really old lady stopped and bought one she liked for €10.00. My kids asked her twice if she wasn't shifting the decimal point (or, in this case, the comma), and she said that she was sure and that she was pleased to be a patron of the arts.

Agree and disagree. I don't believe in the concepts of right or wrong or a general morality but I do believe in a behaviour being in-line with or contradictory to societal norms. In order to survive (arguably) you do have to curb your behaviour to some degree so that it fits in with society.

I would love to show up to work naked tomorrow and if no one found out or remembered I probably would. However as you said, my personal moral code does not change just because no one could find out.