wow I am genuinely surprised. Maybe the OP should check craig’s list.
I had sort of the opposite happen to me yesterday. I had a sneaker stolen on the bus.
I kicked them off and put them under the seat in front of me. The kid in front of me put his sneakers under the same seat. When we crossed over the CT border the kid’s mom must have figured that we’d arrived, picked up one of her kid’s sneakers to put it back on him. Tap tap on her shoulder. No response. Tap tap again, even harder. She was wearing a heavy coat so maybe she didn’t feel it. TAP. TAP. She turned around. “Yes?” “You’ve got a sneaker there.” “Oh, si, si, sneaker, ha ha ha!” “Awesome. Is it yours?” “Si, si, is mine. Oh! So sorry, so sorry!” She put it back under the seat, but far enough away that I had to really reach to get it back with my foot.
Cartooniverse and Dante, I wish you the best of luck getting your stuff back! Just remember that some of us are very honest and go the extra mile to return found goods.
Nice!
Have you heard of bookcrossing.com? You register the book, write a unique ID inside, put a sticker on the outside, and make an entry on the webpage where you left it. The next reader can then report how he liked it, and where it’s going now.
Going by my personal experience with lost & found electronic devices (USB sticks, cell phones, Ipads, …) at my university, I’d say that 99,9% of the cleaning personnel, and maybe 90% of the aircrew or ground personnel, when finding an electronic thingie, will not turn it on to find info on the owner. I know because I’m the only one who does try. With USB sticks, most of them don’t have the owners info; with cell phones, there are dozens of different models from different companies, so I have no idea how to access the adress book and find the owner. Some people are smart enough to call their mobile phone from elsewhere, and if it’s not locked, I can answer and tell them where it is - but otherwise, sorry, I can’t spend hours on the web looking for 64 page pdf manual for that model.
Partly it probably comes from ignorance esp. with the elder people of how these things work, but partly it’s also a privacy issue: who knows what kind of stuff you have on your USB stick/ Ebook reader/ Ipad movie ?
I’d advise putting a sticker with scotch tape with your name and email on the outside, or maybe a phone number, so people can contact you without turning the device on.
Fuck the careless and irresponsible people among us?
Why reward them?
I used to work in a police station as a dispatcher. On my lunchbreak I sometimes walked across the road to buy drinks from a coffee shop in the petrol station. One day I found a mobile phone on the ground and on my way back, handed it in to the front desk of the police station.
When I got back to my post and told my co-worker, she said ‘Why did you do that? You could have kept it!’ In a police station! Where we would advise callers on a daily basis to hand lost property in to the police. I suspect this same woman would be outraged if she lost something and it wasn’t handed in.
Apparently if something is valuable, ordinary rules of ownership do not apply.
(I got an email the same day saying the phone had been claimed, and it made me feel good.)
I just don’t get that attitude. Even from a cost/benefit analysis, it doesn’t make sense. In my lifetime, I think I’ve returned four wallets and two ID badges. All these years later, I still feel good about that. That’s far more valuable to me than any gain that I could’ve gotten from keeping them.
Years ago we were on a vacation in Spain and realized hours later that about 10 postcards we had filled out to send to different friends and relatives in the US we had left on a bench at a local park.
When we got back home people were thanking us for the postcards. Someone had found them, paid for all the postage, and mailed them.
That is so awesome!
People rock!
That is so cool.
This sort of post is unwarranted in the Pit.
If the OP is in the area you could check out this shop to see if your Nook shows up. Granted you’d have to buy it back but it’ll be cheaper than retail.