Or Why I have gotten damned careful with who I do a favor for.
I only do favors for someone I know that can keep their damned mouth shut up about it. I make if clear to them that if I ever hear they have told anyone I will never again help them out in any way.
The other day some woman was blabbing on social media that a deli clerk (or someone) found out she had a sick husband on a special diet and schlepped her a piece of fish for no charge.
Maybe the deli guy had the authority to do that, but maybe he didn't. What if corporate found out about his good deed? It's a possibility he could lose his job over that.
So some guy does an old woman a favor and as a result loses his job.
When I was a kid working in a supermarket I'd sometimes 'forget' to ring up an item here and there for a poor old woman that did a lot for the community but I did it on the sly so she didn't realize it. I wasn't giving the store away or anything. It was something small and just occasionally. I didn't want her to know because I knew she'd say something and I'd get into hot water with the boss.
The manager, a sharp-eyed man caught me sliding a loaf of bread to her and hauled me upstairs. I admitted I had and why. His answer floored me. He knew she was old and having hard times since her husband died. She was still active in the community. He told me to Carry on but don't give the store away, and Oh...let a ham or something pretty good slide by over the holidays. Make damned good and well corporate security doesn't see you or I'll have to can you and I don't want to.
I made it a point to make sure she never saw me doing that for her.
Why? Because I didn't want her to say anything.
Word travels fast and people don't know when to keep their mouths shut.
Another reason I make sure favor recipients stay mum is because when the word get out and find out you are kind they will take it as a sign of weakness and descend on you asking for the same thing you did for someone else as a special favor. When you refuse then they get upset and you're the bad guy.
This is also true of teenagers. A couple of teens pushed someone out of the snow once and the woman said she wanted to find out who they were so she could publicly thank them. When I was a teen the last thing I wanted is to be held up as the shining example of youth.
I would have rather had a reputation as a greasy thug than be known as a goodie two-shoes. To a certain extent that still holds today.
When you thank a favor giver you thank them privately. What transcended between the two of you is nobody else's business.
There is a saying that no good deed goes unpunished and in an awful lot of cases that's true. In my case once the penalty for fixing someone's roof was being badgered by others to do things for them for little or nothing. That's because the person I helped didn't know better than to keep their mouth shut. It was also the last time I ever did them a favor.
I've written a post here a while back about the time over 50 years ago a little kid jumped off the dam at a nearby pond into water well over his head. He panicked and I simply grabbed an arm and hauled him out and sent him home where he promptly told his mother. She said she was going to write a letter to the editor of the hometown rag calling me a hero. I'd have never lived that one down with the guys.
I played hell getting that one quashed. I had to break out the heavy artillery (my father) and even he had a hard time getting that pigheaded stupid woman to shut up about it. He had to talk to her husband and tell him he would not accept responsibility for his son's actions if the letter got into the paper.
Publicly complimenting a business of some sort that went above and beyond is one thing. By all means let us know who runs a good business. Still, ask first. However before you publicly compliment an individual employee run it by them first to make sure you're not going to get them into any trouble. One never knows company/corporate policy.
I have kind of a bad feeling about the guy that gave the woman the piece of fish. I get a vibe that he was acting on his own and that if the who, what, when, where and how come gets out he could get into hot water with his/her employer. The old days of giving employees a little discretion is long over with. Today businesses are run by computers and bean counters and the human factor seem to have all but vanished.
Throw social media into the equation and all bets are off.
If someone does you a personal favor keep it under your hat. Besides getting the favor doer into a bind you insure that the favor doer will simply stop doing favor. Don't ruin things for everyone else.
If someone does you a personal favor then keep your mouth shut.
The piece of fish in question was likely marked down as 'waste,' or 'spoiled' - one of the few areas that corporate will accept a bit of employee discretion, especially with high dollar items, like meat and fish.
ReplyDeleteYou're probably right about the fish. Still, putting every favor someone has done you on social media isn't a very good idea.
ReplyDeleteExactly. The fish was likely 'written off' (read: stolen) by the employee, from his store. The lady needs to keep her mouth shut.
ReplyDelete