{"id":135,"date":"2006-05-23T08:27:18","date_gmt":"2006-05-23T15:27:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.red-sweater.com\/blog\/135\/bank-error-in-your-favor"},"modified":"2006-05-23T08:40:59","modified_gmt":"2006-05-23T15:40:59","slug":"bank-error-in-your-favor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redsweater.com\/blog\/135\/bank-error-in-your-favor","title":{"rendered":"Bank Error in Your Favor"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jon ‘Wolf’ Rentzsch posted a fun essay<\/a> about his need to “iron out” mistakes that are made in his financial favor. I’m delighted by the analysis – especially the deduction that such corrections are ethical exercises: small quizzes that keep your everyday moral compass in shape for the inevitably bigger challenges that are bound to come.<\/p>\n

\nI relate to the compulsion to do the right thing. In many ways I also actively refuse to let the world make errors in my favor. I used to be almost as corrective as he is. But I’ve cured myself<\/em> of that disability, to some extent. The problem is, I’m a super-worrier to begin with. This means that at every minute of every day I’m probably compulsively analyzing the actions I may or may not take and how they will affect the world around me. With the weight of the world on my shoulders, the last thing I need to worry about it convincing the clerk that he did in fact give me an extra $1 in my change. Staying ethically aligned is harder than simply giving up the unearned benefit<\/em>. As Wolf observes, the world doesn’t really give a damn about your dedication to correctness.\n<\/p>\n

\nWolf’s friend gave him a mantra “I’m not going to hell for 35 cents.” A real beauty of a one-liner. But my interpretation is more along the lines of “I’m not giving a damn for 35 cents.” Bigger errors are liable to invoke my correction response. I also admit to applying different standards to different entities. For instance, I’m much more likely to give the 35 cents back if I’m at a small boutique business than if I’m at a chain supermarket. Part of this is the classic “they can afford it” argument, but more significantly, I’ve been ripped off many times by the supermarket, and I know it. I figure the law of averages will eventually make the errors in my favor catch up to the ones in theirs.<\/p>\n

\n For all the times they forgot to put something in my bag, even though I paid for it. Or charged the usual price for something clearly marked as on sale. For this, I keep the 35 cents.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jon ‘Wolf’ Rentzsch posted a fun essay about his need to “iron out” mistakes that are made in his financial favor. I’m delighted by the analysis – especially the deduction that such corrections are ethical exercises: small quizzes that keep your everyday moral compass in shape for the inevitably bigger challenges that are bound to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redsweater.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redsweater.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redsweater.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redsweater.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redsweater.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/redsweater.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redsweater.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redsweater.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redsweater.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}