Wednesday, June 22, 2011

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished - (1) Amy Persich and (2) Sam

Well, I guess I'm not really that much of a cynic, but there are ingrates in the world and here are a couple of examples of the types of things that caused the sentiment to gain popularity.

  1. Amy Persich

    If you've read earlier entries in this blog, you know that I sell various things online. One thing I sell a lot of is high school yearbooks.

    Amy Persich attended Pelham High School in Pelham, Alabama, in the early 1990's. At some point I acquired all four of her high school yearbooks and a seniors' "Memories" book.

    I had the yearbooks listed on a particular site for $39.99 apiece and she tripped over them one day. She contacted me through the site and asked me how much I would charge for all four of them.

    Now you might not know that some sellers, and I confess to being one, are enthusiastic about their items going "where they belong." I informed her that I also had her "Memories" book and that I would send the whole lot along for $75 plus $10 for shipping. I know you've done the math and realize that $75 was a little less than half price for the yearbooks, but let me add that I also knew that $10 was an inadequate amount for shipping. In for a penny, in for a pound.

    After a couple of false starts she finally did send a check for $85.00.

    Now I have sold several thousand items online, have always accepted personal checks as a form of payment, and have always shipped on receipt of the check rather than waiting ten days or so to be certain that the check cleared. Guess who was the very first person to burn me.

    Ms. Persich now has her yearbooks and "Memories" book, I now have a Post Office receipt for shipping and a $20 fee assessed by my bank for the bounced ("Not Suffiient Funds") check. And apparently she is not interested in having an email conversation about the bounced check or making good on the payment.

    I'll keep you posted if there are further developments, but in the meantime, for those of you in the Kimberly, Alabama area, if you have her over for dinner, count your spoons before she leaves.

  2. Sam

    At a small business, a friend and colleague, Brian, told me confidentially that another employee, Sam, was about to be let go. The impression I got was that I was to pass the information along to Sam without revealing my source, and this I did when I saw him the next day.

    Donnie: "I have heard that they are about to let you go."

    Sam: "Who told you that?"

    Donnie: "Let's just say that it's probably true."

    Now Sam knew that Brian and I were friends and made the not very difficult leap to the conclusion that my source was probably Brian. The next day, when he ran into Brian and I wasn't around, he said "Donnie says you told him I'm going to be let go."

    Now that is the behavior of a swine - putting my relationship with Brian at risk for the sake of satisfying his own curiosity about my source of information. He was in fact let go soon after and it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Re Sam - why the hell did you pass on the message in the first place?? If you could make the "not very difficult leap" then so could he - as well as the next link in the logical chain regarding Sam confronting Donnie. I mean, this is his job for chrissakes - of course he's gonna rat you out. Next time, think before you do something stupid.

BrokenDownProgrammer said...

Just why an uninvolved stranger should go into an apoplectic rage about this is not clear to me, but . . . .

The reason I passed the information on to Sam is given in the original post - I felt that this was what Brian expected. Thus Sam would receive the warning and if anything arose from his having that information then Brian could not be accused of telling Sam.

As for Sam confronting Brian, why "of course?" What could he get out of it other than satisfying his curiosity about my source?

Note that if Sam went to Brian and asked "Have you heard anything about me being let go?", that would be *very* different from "Donnie says you told him . . . ," which was 1.) a lie, 2.) ungrateful, and 3.)treacherous.

Oklahoma City Divorce Attorney said...

I not real sure, but it sounds like a breakdown in communication.

BrokenDownProgrammer said...

You can't mean the bounced check, so you must mean Sam.

I'm not very objective about it, I think, so I'll just say that you might be right or you might just be kinder than I.

Thanks for all the comments.