Actually, I can think of lots of instances around here where serious advice was sought and followed. I’ve done it myself. Maybe I haven’t been to enough message boards, because I only belong to this and two others, and don’t post that often to the two others. The reason a lot of the folks around here recommend lurking for a while is that the SDMB tends not to be very much like other message boards. We don’t expect anyone to change what they think about something, but the fact that the Dope is, indeed, different, might just change someone’s approach to saying whatever it is they have to say.
In Australia, if you find something, you are legally obliged to attempt to find the owner before you are allowed to keep it. The way this usually works with anything valuable is that you hand it in to the police. If it is not claimed in 6 months or a year, I forget which, it’s yours. Now of course, if you find a $20 note on the footpath, you’d be pretty mad to go to that effort and I think the police would laugh at you.
I’ve found wallets a couple of times and called the owners myself, to save time. I would think it very wrong to keep any cash. It’s lost property, not your property.
I’d like to say that in every case I’d go back and tell the cashier, but to me it would always depend on how much money was involved. For instance, if they had undercharged me around £4 or under, I’d probably say nothing and give it to charity or buy a bunch of flowers for my mum (she’s not a happy bunny right now). If it was more than that, I’d have too much of a guilty conscience to spend it on anything.
One time I went to Wal-Mart and purchased, among other things a VCR, which I placed on the bottom shelf of my shopping cart. After I paid, I was nearing the store exit when I discovered that the checked and I had failed ring up the VCR. So, I turned around and told the cashier and she rang it up for me.
As I was walking thru the exit, the theft prevention alarm went off and a police officer appeared out of nowhere and demanded to see my receipt for the VCR. Man, I was lucky that day. I could’ve gone to jail had I not glanced down and saw the VCR.
Eric
glee I don’t consider a lack of adequate training on the part of a large retailer to be an accident. That is why I used that wording.
And on the subject of running over kids with your car. If you were to do that, who do you think would get the headline the next day in the local paper? You for running over a couple of children, or me for being given a free bathtub by the Home Despot? This is not even an apples to oranges comparison, more like apples to steel ingots.
Perhaps part of the reason my thinking is this way is due to my experiences as an auto technician. Here in California a written estimate has to be given to the consumer before work is done on the car. Many times over my carrer I have to work on a car for less that I should have made due to an error in the estimate. (boss doesn’t want to call customer back and admit error.) Also there have been times where I have mis-estimated jobs or run into trouble (broken bolt etc) and wound up doing extra work for no compensation. Comes under the heading of Shit happens. Funny thing is none of my customers ever came back to offer me more money because I worked so hard… I guess they did not read their receipt.
I’m reminded of a story: A woman goes to a lawyer and at the end of the consultation pays the lawyer with a crisp $100 bill (I guess this shows how old this joke is). After she leaves, he realizes that there were two $100 bills stuck together. Now he faces an ethical dilemma:
We agree that training is important for retailers. But I would have preferred ‘risks making a mistake’ rather than ‘chooses to make a mistake’. One is careless (due to lack of training), the other is deliberate.
You mention that:
‘Perhaps part of the reason my thinking is this way is due to my experiences as an auto technician. Here in California a written estimate has to be given to the consumer before work is done on the car. Many times over my career I have to work on a car for less that I should have made due to an error in the estimate.’
Surely you wouldn’t want me to reply that you and your firm were ‘choosing to make a mistake’?!
I think you are mistaken. Is your definition of ethics how many inches of newsprint you get?
Also you were not ‘given’ the bathtub. Would you use that as a defence in court, if you were arrested outside the store for shoplifting?!
Of course I would swerve to avoid your kids. I was trying to get you to retract the combination of phrases ‘it’s not your fault’ if someone ‘chooses to make a mistake’.
