On honesty

At a fast food place the other day, the guy ahead of me ordered water. The cup he was given is different from all the other cups, so I know that's what he ordered. When I got my food, I went over to the drink dispensers, and there he was, filling his "water" cup with Dr. Pepper.
In a small way, it's just the same as insurance fraud or lawsuit abuse. The big problem is that it raises the price of everything for everyone. One little cup of Dr. Pepper isn't going to break the restaurant, and that's certainly how his thinking went. But multiply it by a few thousand people across the chain, and it adds up to a "shrinkage" line on the books that has to be covered.
The one time our house was broken into, we ended up with nothing missing. Our TV had been disconnected, and was sitting in the middle of the living room floor, like the crooks had intended to take it. In a way, I wish they had. It was old, it was not working well, and we ended up replacing it within a few months of the break-in. Someone joked that I should have hauled it to the landfill and reported it as missing to the insurance company. At least I hope he was joking. Any time something is taken and not paid for, whenever an expense report is padded, any time an insurance claim is added to ... we all pay.
Come to think of it, we all pay in more ways than just the cost of the shrinkage, too. Have you seen the number of security cameras at the new Wal-Mart store? I once counted. When I'm in the parking lot, I can see 21 security cameras from one spot. And inside, there must be hundreds. It makes the place look like a prison. (And feel like one, too. Whenever I go in, I want to drag a tin cup across a set of bars, and yell "Let me out of here!") We've all paid for the cost of those cameras, their installation, and the salaries of all the people it takes to watch them. Every measure that has to be taken to prevent shrinkage and fraud costs us all money, too.
Just another rant about something I can't do anything about. Have a good Monday.