Honesty Does Pay

Joanie Yoder once wrote:
...as I was putting bags of groceries in my car, I discovered at the bottom of the cart a greeting card I hadn't paid for.

My question to you:
What would you do? Walk off as though nothing has happen because it is just a greeting card? Or return to the counter to pay for it?

Yoder continues:
...I immediately went back into the store, waited in line, apologised to the cashier, and paid for the card. A man behind me, looking dumbfounded, challenged me, "It's only a card! Who would have known? Weren't you a bit silly to come back?"
For a split second I did feel silly. But then I thought of something to say. "Should you ever lose your wallet," I replied smiling. "I think you'll hope that somebody silly like me finds it!"

I read Proverbs 11 yesterday. It reminded me that the Lord delights in honesty and blesses those who do what is right. Yoder commented: "So even though we may give up what seems like some easy money, we gain God's approval. That's worth more than all the riches in the world."

After reading this, I was reminded of an incident which happened 2 years ago when I was working in MPH Gurney Tower. It was a weekend, and I was assigned to the cashier sounter that day. Around 4pm, a man approaced and paid for a book. He left in quite a rush. Then I sat on a stool a few feet away from the counter, resting and waiting for the next customer to come and pay.

As I was sitting there for more than 15 minutes, resting and staring at the small TV screen which showed the recordings on the CCTV in the shop, I noticed there was a bunch of papers, folded together, in the basket right underneath the cashier counter. I thought: Hey, I didn't put it there. As I looked closer at the papers, they looked like money, all RM50 notes, folded together, in the basket.

I immediately turned my head from the TV to the cashier counter and voila!, there was the money, a whole bunch of RM50 notes folded together in the basket. I quickly walked to the counter and took the money, and counted...50, 100, 150, 200... it was RM1200 in cold hard cash!!

I was delighted at first! Thinking to myself: Wow! Money had falled from the sky for me! Hehe...don't you dare laugh :P And then I got back to my senses and thought it must have belonged to a customer. I buzzed for my superviser. And then we rewound the CCTV recordings and watched it carefully. We found out that the money did fall from a customer's wallet when he was paying for the book at the counter. The problem was: How are we going to return tthe money to him? And then I remembered: He placed an order for a book and left his phone number with us!

We immediately contacted him, it was a house phone number though, and found out from his wife at home that he was attending a wedding dinner at Evergreen Hotel nearby. We informed the wife about the money and she agreed to infrom her husband when he gets home.

The next day, I was assigned to the cashier counter again. Around noon, the man came and he looked so happy. We returned the money to him and he said, "Thank you so much! If it happned elsewhere, I don't think I'll ever get the money back!" At that point, I slapped myself (virtually) for being so dumb for not keeping that RM1200. But I knew I did the right thing, and was happy that I did what I did for that man. So I just smiled to him and said, "Be more careful next time, and really no big deal for returning the money to you."

And guess what? That man gave me RM100 on the spot as a token of gratitude! Haha. I was happier than ever. The money? Well, I spent it on Starbucks coffee for my colleagues and paid for some books and magazines that I reserved for myself until I got the money to pay for it, which I eventually did :)

Honesty does pay!!