I’m currently unemployed ie: very poor. A former co-worker rang me yesterday and asked if I wanted to go to lunch, her shout. That’s the kind of person she is, she’s kind, caring, thoughtful…and all round nice type. I worked with her for 4 years and discovered from a variety of situations that she is also scrupulously honest (I thought…well she is but…)
Anyway today we go for lunch, I had a bit of a weep so maybe her sympathy button was pushed or something, but we come out of the cafe and there is $5 on the footpath ( right next to several outside tables, one of which had a bloke standing right next to it).We obviously saw it at the same time, my immediate thought was “that bloke must have dropped that, I better ask him”. But before I could get the words out of my mouth she scooped down picked it up and said “You could do with this” and shoved it in my handbag…while we were less then 3 fucking steps from the aforementioned table!!!
Now she is a dear friend and she is right the $5 wouldn’t hurt, but SHIT I don’t know what was more embarrassing, her shoving the money in my bag in sight of who it probably belonged to…or her thinking (and saying!!!) “oh I feel so awful I normally would have returned that”.
I should have turned round and gone right back to the table but a) I was embarrassed and b) I didn’t want to embarrass her and c) she kept saying things that amounted to “poor you…look I feel so sorry for you I just broke my own moral code”
FUCK FUCK FUCK…I have been stewing on this for hours. She is a lovely woman with an absolute heart of gold and this is probably the most dishonest thing she has ever done but FUCK FUCK FUCK it was just one of those moments when you wanted the earth to open and swallow you up.
Would it make you feel better to give the five dollars back to her? Tell her that you appreciate her thoughtfulness but that you don’t feel right about taking the money. Maybe it will help her to reexamine her actions.
You are not crud and neither is she. Your integrity shows in your post.
I’m sorry about your situation. It must be particularly hard at Christmas.
Zoe and Larry THANK YOU. It was an ickily embarassing moment and I know she is the kind that will be having guilt attacks about it tonight the same as I am. She is soooooo NOT crud and I was just having one of those “I Hate Being Penniless ESPECIALLY when someone I respect is feeling sorry for me” moments. I still feel bad about the whole thing but thanks for understanding…Merry Christmas to you both, you both made me feel a tad better
Cheers… I know the feeling exactly. I can’t visit my friends lately without them insisting on feeding me… …which makes me disinclined to visit them, because it makes me feel, well, like crud. I know that it’s irrational-- after all, the folks who are the most insistant about it are folks that I’ve helped through hard times myself.
Pride… I suppose it’s there for a reason, but it can really mess with your head.
Another unemployed Doper, here. I have a few in my circle of acquaintances who treat me as their favourite charity case from time to time, and I hate that with a burnin’ passion.
I’d have taken the fiver, tho’. The person just wouldn’t have seen me again anytime soon. A fiver is a meal or two for me at the moment – cash is cash.
Just re-read my own post. That’s the trouble writing while half-tired.
If the person who dropped the fiver was there, and it was definitely theirs, then yes, it’s theirs. But, I meant that if a note was lying in the open street, and the acquaintance picked it up and handed it to me with that line – then, yeah, I’d take it.
Probably muttering under my breath as I walked away.
Yeah, but still a) you were already embarrassed and b) she had already embarrassed herself and c) she used your plight to assuage her own distress over her dishonesty.
Next time, follow your gut.
“Sir, I believe you dropped this.”
“Oh, wow, thanks! That’s my daughter’s. Here ya go, honey. Please be more careful. Say, I overheard that you’re unemployed. I don’t mean to be presumptuous, but would you be interested…”