In which the wrath of the Lord is invoked

[Smapti]

Saturday was mostly another day running the front end at the Store. I say "mostly" because I'd had a hell of a time before getting there. On Friday, I drove up to The Big City Nearby to go to a show, and just as I was getting off the freeway my engine started vibrating and the car went into limp mode. I wound up having to stay overnight, drop the car at a mechanic the next morning, and take a train back to The Place Where I Live, being three hours late for work in the process. (Fortunately my attendance record is solid enough that I won't get in any trouble.) Best case scenario is the repair costs a few hundred dollars. Worst case is that it costs more than the car is worth and I'm better off junking it and taking the bus for a few months until I can afford a down payment on a used sedan.

But I digress.

About halfway into my truncated shift, the self-checkout clerk radios me for help. I get over there and I find she's having a dispute with a customer. When I get there, this is the story I hear; the customer had walked up to one of the kiosks to ring up her stuff and noticed a $10 bill hanging out of the cash return slot. As she pulled it out, the clerk noticed it and told her she'd take care of it and took it from her. The customer, however, insisted that it was now hers because it was "found money".

The Store has an established procedure for lost cash - we have a special code we can use to ring it into the POS, and if someone comes back within a given period of time and we can verify via the security cameras (which we've got in numbers like a Vegas casino) that they're the ones who lost it, we can give it back to them. I'd never had a customer try to argue that they should get the money like this, though, so I radioed the assistant manager and asked him what to do. He told me to follow the established procedure and that, if the money hadn't been claimed in 10 days, the customer could come back and we'd give it to her.

She was having none of that. She proceeded to issue a diatribe at me about how she's lost money before and it was her fault, and if I found a hundred-dollar-bill in the parking lot I'd keep it to myself (I wouldn't, for the record, because I'd be more worried about losing my job than losing the bill), and whoever left that money behind, it's their own fault, and what would I do if she fished a receipt out of the garbage and said we owed her $20 cash back? My response that I have to do what my boss is telling me falls on deaf ears, so I radio him over to talk to her.

He, bless him, takes a moral approach. He tells her he knows she's a good person and that's why she let the clerk take the money, and that he hopes that if she lost some money another good person would turn it in. She doesn't take this well. She keeps arguing that she has a right to the money because she found it. He tells her that she probably wouldn't like it if someone found her wallet and decided they had a right to it, and reassures her she can claim the money in 10 days if nobody else claims it. (And odds are that's what'll happen; in general, either people don't notice that they've lost cash, or if they do, they figure there's no chance of finding it again and go about their lives.)

The kicker comes as he's taking her contact info, after he's told her that he believes in karma and that if you do good things then good things will happen to you. Her response, verbatim, is as follows; "Well, I hope you and I aren't ever on the same plane and God calls your number!"

I'm not a religious man, but geez louise, sister. It's ten bucks, and it's ten bucks that aren't even rightfully yours in the first place. I mean, I've been poor in the past, and I know that ten bucks can mean the difference between feeding yourself for a week and going hungry. But to threaten divine intervention? I sincerely hope God isn't that petty. I should hope He'd guide you to the food bank or the shelter before He takes to killing hundreds of people because one person on that flight denied a woman the cost of a large combo at Wendy's.

Bonus WTF: Read a newspaper, for cryin' out loud

Just a snippet of a conversation I overheard on the train.

A: Who the hell is Mark Zuckerberg?
B: The guy who owns Facebook.
A: How is there an owner of Facebook?

[Zeddi]

Here (Germany) there is a law that regulates the ownership of lost items.

Short: If you find something that is worth more than 10 € you have to give it to the person who lost it, to the police or to an official "Lost Items Office (Fundbüro)". They will keep it until someone claims it.

If the owner does not show up for six month, the finder can get it.
The finder on the other hand has the right to claim 5% of the value of the item as a reward.

If you don't follow these rules, and someone finds out, there is a fine, you might even go to jail.

[RealUnimportant]

"It's mine, I found it!" Okay love, try saying that to the security guard doing a bag check when that forgotten tin of peas you picked up doesn't appear on your receipt. Won't work.

I found hundreds of pounds in a brown envelope once on my station. I logged it as lost property, rather than stuff it in my back pocket and whistle a merry tune. Cut to the next day, I come into work to see my (nice, now retired) co-worker smiling a genuinely beatific smile. Why? Because the owner of said money had come back. And they were a nun. And they were absolutely besides themselves at the loss, and retracing their steps, and my colleague had been able to say "why yes, actually my colleague found it and here you go." It was the proceeds for some charitable event or other, a real-life "It's a Wonderful Life" type deal.

Another time, one of my regulars was in a hurry and accidentally gave me five £20 notes instead of four, and they were a bit sticky so I didn't notice until I was putting it away, by which time they'd already left me and jumped on the waiting train. I knew I'd see him again, so I put it aside. When he came back, I gave it to him and he was dumbfounded; he hadn't even noticed! He asked it be split into two £10s and gave me one for my honesty.

Could I have been better off keeping any/all of it? Not really, it was never mine and it would have gnawed at me, and I'd probably have blown it on something utterly frivolous which I'd never want to use for the same reasons - I'd know I hadn't earned it. Have I ever kept money? Sure, but loose change only; idiot taxes, paid with forgotten or abandoned coins. And half the time I just put those to one side & use them to help out people who're a bit short and in need.

We don't have that law about handing things in, but if you do take something to the police and it's not claimed within 3 or 6 months (I can't remember which) then it becomes property of the finder; I got a really nice walking stick that way, although 25 years later I'm still not sure how the former keeper lost it... It's serving me well though!

[Food Lady]

I do not understand how someone can justify greed and dishonesty. She's not a good person. It's obvious.

[smfrazier]

At my store, if someone turns in money that they found and no-one claims it, it goes to a charity that our company supports.

[Sulhythal]

I have a personal rule regarding "found money" well, several really but I consider it to be a context sensitive single rule. The value cutoff for "no one is going to bother reclaiming this" is about five dollars, anything higher than that I make an effort to find a lost and found or similar type. UNLESS I'm in a place frequented with a lot of children because children lose money easily but are absolutely devastated if it vanishes. Similarly, if I know the location is frequented by people who are often in need.

But no matter where I find it, or the amount, I keep it separate from the rest of my money and keep my ears open in case I hear someone looking for it.

A former place of employment was rumored to leave money around in prominent locations to test the honesty of their employees. If someone walked off with it, they'd get on the fast track to unemployment, but if they turn it in... nothing different, no reward, no pat on the back, not even a chance to claim it if it was "unclaimed".

I had dark suspicions that this rumor was spread intentionally by management so that any "found" money could be "claimed"...by the store.

[Nunavut Pants]

I once found a folded-up set of bills just outside the entrance of a grocery store. I brought it in to the customer service desk. The person (manager?) on duty asked, in a leading tone of voice, if I had found it outside the store? When I affirmed that, he said, "Good--because official policy is that anything found inside the store is the property of the Big S (the store)." He explained that if it went more than two weeks unclaimed, I could claim it.

I left it there, and came back a couple of weeks later. The first clerk had no idea what I was talking about, but a second clerk did. She brought the money out, and I was instantly richer by a handful of bills. I don't remember how much it was, now, but it certainly helped out at the time!

[EricKei]

In the US, at least, the cops will also provide this service -- If you turn in money and it goes unclaimed/nobody reports it missing/stolen for X number of weeks, it's yours. You (presumably) need to give them your info in order for this to work, of course.

[Tanasi]

A: Who the hell is Mark Zuckerberg?
B: The guy who owns Facebook.
A: How is there an owner of Facebook?

During his congressional hearing my middle son came in and asked why PeeWee Herman was before congress?
Since then we've referred to Zuckerberg as PeeWee Zuckerberg.

My policy on found money: It's not mine, I try to return it to the owner, if it can't be found I donate it to charity.

[MoonCat]

A: How is there an owner of Facebook?

This is exactly why Facebook gets away with mining your info and selling it.

Re: Found money - A CW and I once found about $150 on the sidewalk when we went out for lunch. She was convinced that the cops would just keep it if we turned it in. We split it and each sent our half to a charity (mine went to a women's shelter).

Then there was the time when I was walking home from the bus stop after work, and about two houses away from mine, noticed a bunch of $20 bills on the ground. Directly across the street was a house we had substantial reason to believe was the main drug house on the street. All I could think of was that someone in that house was probably watching me. The people living there were people I would never want to mess with.

I left the money on the sidewalk. I hope someone in need found it and was able to safely take it with them. I was just too afraid to.

[dalesys]

I found Leonard Bernstein's CC in the orange apron's parking lot yesterday and turned it in...

[Sulhythal]

I once found a folded-up set of bills just outside the entrance of a grocery store. I brought it in to the customer service desk. The person (manager?) on duty asked, in a leading tone of voice, if I had found it outside the store? When I affirmed that, he said, "Good--because official policy is that anything found inside the store is the property of the Big S (the store)."

Part of me wonders how well that policy would hold up in court. I'm sure it's be phrased to only apply to cash...

But if not, I imagine some lawyer might have a field day sometime.

Or you know, someone absent minded enough to accidentally leave an envelope of money meant for a high profile charity? Especially if they had the serial numbers of the bills. Bah, probably not ever going to happen.