Just read this article about the woman who left a bag of 31 diamond rings in the trunk of a cab. The cab driver, in spite of having received only a whopping 31-cent tip on the woman’s $11 fare, did the right thing and tracked her down to return the bag, all rings intact. His reward? $100. A HUNDRED DOLLARS from a JEWELER who’d just gotten 31 DIAMOND RINGS BACK. Is it just me, or is she officially the cheapest woman in New York? And believe me, when I say “woman” it is a euphemism for the much more colorful, four-letter female epithet that immediately comes to mind – a word I never use but couldn’t help but mentally utter under the circumstances. I'm thinking this guy deserved a MINIMUM of $1000. Personally, I would’ve given him his choice of rings. Certainly something better than $100 for what was probably, what, at least $50,000 worth of jewelry? I hope that woman loses her job for leaving the rings behind, or has some other equally horrible thing karmically kick her in the ass for being such a weenie. And I hope somebody with both a good heart and a big bank account comes forward to give the guy the reward he deserves. Yeah, I know, we should all always do the right thing because it’s the right thing, not because we might get a reward for doing it, but that doesn’t change the fact that this guy deserves better.
And speaking of cheap… this story was a few days back, but it stuck in my craw: in the wake of the storms that blew through south central Florida last week, killing 20 people and leaving dozens homeless and hundreds otherwise damaged, Disney made a donation to the Red Cross: $50,000. That’s fifty thousand, one “5” and four “0”s. For all the victims to share. Disney. By my math – and this is the quickie math they teach you in business school for the purposes of answering ridiculous questions in consulting interviews to prove that you’re quick on your feet and a good problem-solver – Disney makes $50,000 at DisneyWorld’s Magic Kingdom alone in about an hour, just at the entrance gate. (Assume an average $30/person entrance fee, processing about 1 family every minute or so at each of what, 10 gates? I get about an hour.) How generous of this bazillion dollar company to give the victims a whole hour’s proceeds from one theme park in one city, to the hundreds of people whose lives have been devastated. If the families of the 20 dead split the money evenly (on a per-person basis, even though some families lost more than one person), they’d each get $2500. Assuming it’s being distributed by the Red Cross among those who lost their homes and possessions, I’m going with a number more like 100 splitting the fifty grand, which is about $500 per person. Yep, that should help rebuild a house. Thanks, Disney. Very magnanimous of you.
