Today hopefully I’m going to challenge your perception of integrity. Our entire life we’ve always heard that we should keep our integrity.
When I was much younger, in a much different life, I was a bagboy at a grocery store. One day we had an onslaught of customers all at once (this was common), and one of the customer’s had a leaky milk jug. So the cashier had me run the leaking jug back to the dairy section to put in the dairy freezer and grab a new milk (the customer was waiting, so speed was of essence). Normally, I would drain the milk and then go back to the cashier line, I think I did, but I was not 100% sure (I couldn’t remember truthfully). But this day, it was so crazy that I believe that perhaps I put the jug down and ran back up to help (but this turned out to be wrong).
Later, I was told to go get carts because we were out (and I performed it quickly). When I came back inside the store, I saw the dairy manager chewing out a guy that always goofed up and was the likely candidate for leaving leaky milk jug in the dairy freezer. Since I knew I wasn’t sure if I caused the problems or not, I jumped in to take the blame (again, I wasn’t 100% sure that I drained the milk or not). This made the dairy manager (my friend) look bad in front of the cashiers and goofy bagboy.
Later I found out the Timmy (the goofy bagboy), also took a milk jug back to the dairy freezer, so it might have been his jug that wasn’t drained… After my display of integrity and believed honesty, the dairy manager no longer considered me a friend, and Timmy continued to do things that got him in trouble.
So in the end, my integrity wasted and costly.
The moral of the story is, before you jump in and become the white knight
- Give yourself the benefit of the doubt, in all likelihood, I did drain it but quickly.
- Weight if the situation requires integrity. Had I not said anything, nothing would have changed. But by taking action, I lost a friend.
- The person I help never said thanks for jumping in. So the effort was wasted on someone that wasn’t even appreciative.
- Timmy wasn’t smart enough to realize that I was sticking up for him.
Have you ever been in a situation where a great display of integrity caused more pain than not doing so?
MR
I think you did the right thing. In fact, you are better off now since you know what kind of a friend he would’ve been.
Having no friends is better than having caustic friends.
I believe that your mistake wasn’t the fact that you stuck up for Timmy, instead, perhaps it would have been better if you had talked to your friend in private instead of in front of others, so he wouldn’t lose face; though of course this was a long time ago. We all learn from experience.
As for Timmy, well, if you help him again and again and you never get so much as a thanks back, then at some point you don’t need to continue extending your hand. This is a lesson I’ve also learned.
Awe that sucks! I don’t really see how it might have made your manager friend look bad if you jumped in to take the blame… That’s too bad that he ended up with a grudge on you for that reason.
Integrity is a good virtue to have, and sounds like you have it. I think that integrity should be intrinsic, versus extrinsic- like you shouldn’t have to hope that others will appreciate your integrity. As long as you appreciate it yourself, that’s good enough. =)
@MoneyCone
True, but I still felt pretty bad ofter the fact. Especially when I made the Dairy Manager look bad in front of everybody. I didn’t think about that at the time.
@Kevin@InvestItWisely
Yep, lesson learned. I was a teenager at the time, and I didn’t know better. I definitely would have handled it differently today.
And as for Timmy, he was a pretty slow boy…
@youngandthrifty
Today, my tongue is smoother. I think I could have disfused the entire scenario and twisted it into something else. But back then, I just confessed and said I did it (even though later, I believed that I didn’t).
I still have a higher degree of integrity than my peer (or at least I believe that to be true). However, I’ve learned to be more tactful…
I definitely think you did the right thing. Had the other parties not been such dummies, your integrity would have been recognized. However, it appears you worked with a bunch of immature people so this event will stick in your head forever.
I think any time you stick to your morals, it is a good thing. It is what makes us who we are, and you kind of can’t help it. If you hadn’t stepped in and Goofy Bagboy Timmy had gotten fired, then you would have felt even worse.
@Everyday Tips
Thanks, yeah, as you can tell I never forgot that incident…
I think it’s just who I am… I can dance around and lead the direction of these these conversations now, but back then, I was a rookie…
Six billions of people make thousands of decisions on daily basis. You had no control of what your friend/manager decided to do. Hopefully he learned not to jump into conclusion quickly and humiliate his staff in front of everyone because he knew what it was like to be humiliated in public.
Oh well, just my thought.
So, you did more than just flirting with chicks when you were a bag boy 😀
@Bytta@151DaysOff
Actually, his face turned red when I spoke up, he was very embarrassed way back when 🙂
I was shy back then, they flirted with me, especially the older cashiers (late 20, early 30s)… There were some girls from my school that kept coming in and talking to me, but I was to shy back then. Big mistake on my part 🙁
Gotta say, LOL. Been reading literature about female sexuality and found out that women during their sexual peak (late 20s, early 30s) would go for anyone, especially virile young male like you were. It would have been easy for you if you had known this fact 🙂
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