No Honor Among Thieves

When I was fifteen I was a fairly habitual shoplifter, and had been doing it for years. I wasn't so much a thief as I was fascinated that I could just walk out with something and completely violate the agreement that I would pay for it. Then I got stopped by security. A man had reported that he saw me pocket something and they wanted to check my pockets. I had a jumbo candy bar in my left pants pocket, but I just looked at the security guard with a confused look and said, "what do you mean by 'pocket' something?" He explained that he meant "steal," and I just glared at him like the concept was completely foreign to me.

I shrugged and told him that I respected his job and encouraged him to check all my pockets, as was his responsibility to keep the store safe. I gave him my jacket, and as he rifled through the pockets, the man who accused me of stealing kept his eye on me. While the man watched me, I calmly slid the candy bar out of my pocket, into my sleeve, and into the band of my jeans. I then pulled out my front pockets and showed him my sleeves. He asked to pat me down, so I slipped the bar of candy into my sleeve and held up my arms. He patted me down, apologized, and let me go, and I vowed to never steal again... it was just too easy for me to get away with it, and I knew I was heading down the slippery slope into a criminal lifestyle, which it seemed I would have been very successful at living.

In April, I made a boneheaded mistake at work and ended up costing someone hundreds of dollars. I prolonged the situation for months, and now our client is outraged that they were cheated out of money they earned. I made no conscious effort to screw them out of their money, and I profit in no way from it, but that didn't mean I wasn't responsible. I went straight back to the client and said nothing could be done about it, which was true, but of course they still wanted someone to blame. I explained the situation in full fact to both my supervisor and the client and at no point making any effort to defend myself, yet both of them are now walking away thanking me for going to such great lengths to try and make everything go right, and for helping them fix the mistake that they are now convinced I had nothing to do with.

Not once did I lie, I omitted no facts, and yet I have again been absolved of all responsibility for something I unequivocably made happen, and once again, I'm walking out of the store scot-free with the candy bar still in my pocket.

It's not always a good feeling to succeed.