I know I’ve been on a bit of a tangent these last few months, but this last week has caused me to question what has happened to society values.
Firstly, last week, I accidentally left my wallet on a counter in a shop. Now in the past in NZ, you would have been reminded that you had left your wallet by either the shop keeper (if they noticed) or a customer. In fact, that is what I would do today anyway.
However, this didn’t happen last week in my case. One of the 2 people behind me, picked it up and some hours later, took it up to the local supermarket and spent my cash – somewhere around 150.00. They then left my wallet somewhere near the supermarket where some law-abiding citizen handed it in to check out supervisor.
Now it just so happens a friend of mine is the duty manager at the supermarket, and when I told her that I would be unable to meet the next day as I had to replace my cards, she told me a wallet had been handed in. After my call, she checked for a name and sure enough it was mine. It was handed in at around 7pm. Now, I was at the supermarket that day at 13:58 to be exact (thanks to my Covid tracker diary). I used my wallet after that time, there is no way I was there at 7pm.
Another incident was where my daughter had asked me to pick up some groceries at another supermarket. She gave me her card to use as pay wave to pay for them. I got these items and returned the card to my pocket, so I thought, but it must have slid over the top and onto the floor at the check out. I realised this a short time later so returned to the supermarket to see if it had been handed in. Your right – no, it hadn’t.
Now fortunately, no money was taken out by pay wave in either case as blocks had been put on the cards fairly quickly, so I guess we’re both lucky in that way.
My question is this? What’s happened to our society? Why is it when people find something that doesn’t belong to them, and the item is clearly labeled with the owners name, do they not hand it in to the shop or the police? Why do they think it is their right to take what they can from someone else or attempt to take what they can from a person they do not know. Is this now COOL behaviour?
The same goes for stealing from residents or patients in our care. Theft is theft – game set and match. Oh, how I wish to return to the wonderful honest values of New Zealanders. While I do know there are still some good old fashioned honest people in New Zealand and I am realistic to realise that there have always been people who are opportunist theives. However, for me, I would never even consider not telling someone they had left their wallet on the counter or hand in a found credit/debit card on the floor and I’m sure there are still people like me. I guess I have been unlucky to have struck 2 incidents in one week where opportunists do not think like me.