When BJ Thomas sang his 70's "classic" about "somebody doing somebody wrong" he was singing about lost love. I have that feeling of sadness but it isn't lost love but rather I feel that I wasn't made for these times.
I am not missing my baby but I am missing a culture that understands right from wrong.
We recently had a scandal within Willmar Electric.
We found out through a tip that we had employees stealing from Willmar Electric. The employees were doing several illegal things and were caught doing several illegal things. One of those things was taking scrap metal/wire, bringing it to a salvage yard, selling it and keeping the money.
It is a pretty simple case of stealing. Very striaght forward. Taking something that doesn't belong to you and keeping it for yourself is stealing. The issue is addressed the Bible. In fact the Old Testament list only 10 commandments. If you steal you are breaking one of them. Plain and simple.
It has happened to us in the past and we terminated the employees when we discovered the theft.
This time the scandal caused us to investigate the actions of some past employees. We found that several employees had stolen in other ways and other methods. So we decided to confront the wrong doers (ring of thieves really). A letter was sent to the people involved and we let them know if they thought they were being wrongly accused they could stop by and let us know.
Well, one of the letter recipients decided to come in and talk to us.
He came in and visited with my brother, Justin. He asked what of Willmar Electric's we thought he had stolen.
Justin explained that we had records that showed that he had sold scrap wire that belonged to Willmar Electric and our customers but instead of turning in the proceeds to the project he had kept to for himself.
He then admitted that Justin was correct. He said he had done just that.
You are likely thinking this is the point where the past employee admits his wrongdoing and/or offers an apology.
He didn't.
He told Justin that he didn't think he had done anything wrong. Justin says he actually seemed upset with us!!!
As Justin relaid the story on to me I could help but lose a little faith in my fellow man. Since the person is quite a bit younger than me I thought, "kids these days" and "what is the world coming to anyways."
So to be fair it isn't a generational issue but a cultural issue.
I guess I should know better since stealing is as old as at least Moses, otherwise God wouldn't have included in the ten commandments. Come to think of it Adam and Eve also took what wasn't theirs.
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