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Bad friend

bad friend

I have a friend, well an acquaintance really, who did a pretty shady thing the other day. We were at a burrito shop ordering food. My buddy paid for his $5 burrito with a $20 bill. He collected his change and went to grab a table. As he went to put the change in his wallet he noticed something funny. He had a little over $24 in his hands. He had been given an incorrect amount of change back, $10 more to be exact. Yes, he is a bad friend.

So what did this acquaintance do. He bragged to me that it must be his lucky day and put the $24 in his pocket. Umm, excuse me dude, but isn’t that stealing? It’s pretty clear the guy meant to give you $14 back, but accidentally gave you a $20 instead of a $10. While homeboy was beaming like a middle school girl at a Justin Beiber concert, I was just angry. How could he put the money in his wallet?

Justin Beiber doesn't steal

So guess what I did, I confronted him. Kudos to me right? Wrong. I only get partial kudos. Sure, I confronted him for stealing and told him to go get proper change, but that is all I did. He argued with me saying “It’s not his fault they made a mistake” and “The shop gets so much business $10 isn’t gonna kill them.” He was either too stubborn or too STUPID to see his immorality. Instead of cause a scene, I just stopped talking about it and proceeded to eat my delicious french fry filled burrito of epic glory.

But now, I sit here wondering, Did I do enough? Should I have pushed my friend harder to do the right thing? Should I have told the cashier about the mistake so he could take matters in to his own hands? Should I have called the SWAT team and told them I was eating lunch with a big jerk face?

Instead of stand up for morality, I avoided confrontation. Well not any more! You hear that Mr. Burrito Shop Stealing guy? I’m not scared of you. Try and pull that crap again when I’m around and I’ll rat you out.

Have any of you ever received more than you should have (too much change, a large drink when you paid for a small, etc)? Have you ever wanted to confront someone who you know is blurring the line of morality? Have you, ever done anything sketchy like this?

I remember one time, when I was in middle school, I went to the local dollar store with a friend. This friend had sticky fingers and was in the mood for stealing some candy (I know, I have to get me some new friends). We got to the candy aisle and I made sure all was clear, yes I was the lookout for this epic heist. Although I was way to big of a chicken to ever steal anything myself, it didn’t stop me from pointing out the candy I wanted my friend to steal for me. That’s right, I’m responsible for the theft of a Kit Kat bar and a piece of Bubble Yum from the Dollar Tree in Seattle, WA. I hope the candy gods above will find it in their heart to forgive me, and if they don’t, oh well, it was one darn good candy bar. I have a feeling I’m not the only one who has Quasi-stole something. Care to throw yourself under the bus with me? Do you have any bad friends?

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44 COMMENTS

  1. I’m more intrigued by the fac that you can buy fry-filled burritos.

    When we visit California, I’ll be trying one of those. (Or more like the boy will, and I’ll steal a bite). He always puts chips inside his burgers…

  2. I think you handle the burrito bandit the best way that you could. He’s clearly aware of your dislike for his actions. I’m sure the thought about it differently after hearing your opinion on it. It was the shops mistake, but that doesn’t make it right. How did a kit kat, bubble yum combo taste?

  3. Did you by chance tell him that at most fast food restaurants that the cashier will take the hit, not the business itself? Having a teenager that works in fast food, if his drawer is off three times (either plus or minus), he will be fired. And of course he constantly have them pushing him to hurry because everything is timed.

    Your “friend” has some bad karma coming his way and he deserves it. A lot of those cashiers only make minimum wage and struggle financially.

    • Didn’t know the cashiers have to pay out of pocket. Makes some sense so they keep track of the money, but also sucks if they make a simple mistake

  4. That’s just bad Karma dude. Your buddy is going to lose that extra $10 in some other way. I always give money back.

    I left my purse at a restaurant one day in high school. It had $80 in it and the electric bill I was supposed to pay. I never carried that kind of money. When I came back to get it,my stuff was still there, but the money was gone. At that time in my life, it was a lot of money for my family. It really hurt and I swore to never put some other slob through that kind of pain.

    I’d probably would’ve told your buddy that it’s probably not the establishment that would have to pay the $10 but the poor cashier. I know when my register was off in high school, my manager made me make up the difference.

  5. I was given too much change back just recently, and I promptly gave it back. At first the cashier didn’t believe me, but I had a twenty and then I had twenty six dollars. After he looked in the register he was really grateful. Your friend is a jerkface, who could go on with that bad juju over your head.

  6. I’m always honest with change given back and I’ve driven back to a store when I was given too many postage stamps once (11 x 10-packs instead of 10). What surprises me is how grateful and surprised the sales clerks are when I do that. It’s obvious not everyone does it.

  7. I dont always check the change im given, but if im given more than im owed i give it back to the cashier. Ive had those kinds of jobs and they are terrible. On the other side if the cashier is consistently messing up the change you dont want them working either as a cashier or in your store any longer because they are effectively stealing from the company.

    I dont think i would have told my friend any different than you did. Though i might have tried a guilt story, or if i was feeling extremely bad i might have made up the difference out of pocket.

  8. I try to be honest in getting change, but I’ve been using my credit card for so long I forgot what it’s like to pay with cash.

    On the other hand, if I get an extra nugget in my 10-piece, I will brag about it to anyone, including the cash register guy. AND I’M NOT GIVING IT BACK EITHER!

      • While i worked in a service industry, i would regularly give more than required simply because its easier and quicker to give more, than give to little and have to go back and get more.

        And honestly soo much product is thrown away might as well give some to the customers. How much does giving a little extra cost compared to the happy customer that will come back, well in a perfect world at least.

  9. Not cool what your friend did.

    I had something happen a few weeks ago that I wasn’t sure if I should feel bad about or not. We went through the Chick-Fil-A drive thru and ordered just a few things. In the end, I was short a small fry and had an extra 12-piece nuggets. Mini, brief moral dilemma ensued, but in the end we just drove away with our 12-piece instead of going back in and giving them back (won’t they just throw them out?) and getting our fries. I know the value of the nuggets was more than the fries, but if they were just going to throw them out, I didn’t want them to get wasted. Plus I was lazy and didn’t feel like parking and going in.

    I also figured that the mistake probably caused someone else’s order to be wrong, which I felt bad about, but by the time I’d gone in and told them what happened, that car would have been long gone from the drive thru.

  10. I would have pulled out $10 and told my friend that if they weren’t going to give back the $10 I would pay it out of my own pocket. That isn’t what you should have done, that would have been probably social suicide. But, I agree with the poster above: that difference in the drawer can get a cashier fired or at the very least they take the hit. Having grown up with a single mom who had four kids and worked all sorts of crappy jobs to support us, I wouldn’t want to have someone lose their job because my friend was selfish.

  11. One time I was in a pretty rough neighborhood, and I was looking behind me every corner. I needed to go into a drug store to get some medicine for a friend. As I am walking up the store a group of “thugs” came up to the store and stole a bike that was sitting out front. I felt so guilty that I did not do anything, but I was afraid they were going to retaliate and do something to me if I said anything. If it were to happen again, I probably would say something, and I still regret my decision.

  12. Alright, I’ve got a different opinion here.

    Now, I’ve worked in fast food in the past. There were policies regarding how accurate my drawer had to be, but the enforcement of those policies lies on the shoulders of the manager. In my case, I had a good manager who would watch security cameras if someones drawer was off too often to make sure they weren’t stealing, but if they weren’t then he helped them get better at counting change. If someone is fired for their drawer being off every now and then, then they’re in a negative work environment anyway and they would be better off working somewhere else.

    Having said that, did you know the average cost of a soda is $0.10? And most of that is the cost of the cup itself. If you ask for a small and they give you a large, the company is still making a very very large profit from you. And this exists all over the restaurant, everything you buy is grossly marked up. Of course, the majority of these profits don’t go to the store, they go into the pockets of the executives at the top. These companies by policy will screw over customers 100 times before purposefully putting themselves in a tight spot. That doesn’t make it morally right to take extra change that was given to you, but it does make things morally grey.

    In the long run, what your friend did will make no difference. Nobody will go hungry or lose their house over $10. While you were well within your rights (and manners) to tell him your opinion, that’s about all you can do. I think you made a mountain out of a molehill.

    • I don’t know if I believe in the whole morally grey thing. The company is allowed to turn a profit if they so chose, and the only reason they can mark the soda up so much is because we are VOLUNTARILY willing to pay that amount for it. Supply and demand baby.

  13. When I was about 7 I succumbed to peer pressure from older kids and took a Pepsi (we weren’t allowed to drink soda). I was so scared I took it outside and hid it. Well when I got back (after going back to the store and buying something–felt guilty), someone had stolen it from me. Never stole anything again!

    I’ve lost money before and I’ve found money. I have a very strong conscious so I always return what I’ve found and if I get too much change, I give it back.

    I worked retail in school so I know what it’s like to simply miscount and be made to feel like you stole something. Thank God the person I gave change to came back and returned the change the next day. He didn’t realize until he got home that he had too much change. Funny thing is, my Manager never apologized for accusing me falsely. I vowed I’d never be the reason someone else get treated like that!

  14. Tough one Ninja. I once saw a friend put a fistful of embroidery floss (we made bracelets with this stuff as teeny boppers) and put it in her purse. I asked her about it, and she said she was just keeping it there until we got back to the front of the store so she could pay. I was skeptical, but as an 11 year old, you want to believe your friends. We got separated in the store (in retrospect, probably on purpose) and my friend told me she’d paid and was ready to go. I had a sinking feeling she stole the floss, but was not brave enough to stand up to her. I did avoid shopping with her thereafter though, because I had seen the episode of Degrassi (does this air in the US or is it a purely Canadian phenomenoN?) where someone got arrested for shoplifting when her friend stole, because you’re assumed to be involved (i.e., as the lookout). Scared me straight, that’s for sure!

  15. The other day was at a crowded bar in Boston. Bartender took drink order provided drinks and then went on to take someone elses orders and server their drinks. I waited. Said waitress went on to serve several other people without giving me any eye contact at all. After 10 minutes I walked away with two free drinks. I left a tip.

  16. This is a story of integrity…

    A few months back I was purchasing a new BBQ grill at Home Depot. In order to get the grill home I had to rent a truck from them. The friendly cashier let us borrow the truck for free… and loaded the grill in it for us. We took off drove it to our house and returned the truck. The service desk manager thanked us and said we were all said. Ummm… we never paid for the grill! We went on to purchase a few other items and while cashing out told the cashier we still needed to pay for our grill which is currently at our house. She laughed… and asked “Do you really want to do that? This store makes so much money they never would even miss it.” BUT I couldn’t live with myself stealing a $700 grill. We went to customer service and told them what happend. They too were shocked by our honesty and gave us a 10% discount when we paid.

    • Whoa, it’s like she was begging you to steal it. That’s a whole different concept 🙂 Kudos for being a Gold Star Sally of integrity

  17. I’m assuming your friend noticed before he left the store…if that’s the case, then he definitely could have brought it up to the cashier. I’m not saying “should”, I’m saying “could”, because it’s really up to him as to how to handle the situation. I totally agree with you giving your opinion, but there isn’t much you can do, short of dragging him back there by his ear (which would probably end your friendship?). Him bragging about it is pretty lame, though.

    Then again, my dad was given too much change one time, and when he went to hand it back, the kid somehow managed to give him even more. It got to the point where my dad was like “ok fine, I give up” because the kid behind the counter just couldn’t handle it. It would have been a great Abbott & Costello exchange, if it weren’t true. =/

  18. I going against the grain here. I actually don’t think it was your business to even get involved. Sure what he did was technically stealing, but honestly, hardly a big deal. Small peanuts.

  19. In general, I definitely prefer the HONESTY route, but I’ll admit that one day, when I was buying groceries, I forgot to pay for the diet coke at the bottom of my cart. It was the dead of winter, and I had a screaming, cranky, tired baby to get home, that I had JUST finished strapping into the car (anyone who’s had a baby knows that when they arch their backs while crying, it takes near super-human strength to get them to bend in half to strap them into a carseat!). After what felt like wrestling with an aligator to get my son strapped in, I went to deal with the groceries. When I was loading my groceries into the trunk I saw the 2 cases of diet coke. I thought about heading back into the store to pay for them, but the thought of unstrapping my infant and toting him and the diet coke back, just in the name of being honest, was too overwhelming to cope with, so I headed home and said a wee prayer of thanks to God for the freebie.

    • I feel like you had the honest mistake freebie rule.

      I kinda feel like theft is in the intent. If i find a 20 laying on the ground i make a good faith effort to find its owner, but whose going to say no i didn’t drop a 20 when confronted by it?

      • Don’t you think that’s a bit different than this situation? I mean, he knew who owned that $20 bill…the burrito shop.

  20. i was at target once, having had a terrible experience at *three* other targets trying to buy a gift on a friend’s wedding registry. when i finally got one and got it rung up, it came up at $39.99, not $199.99. for just a moment, i thought – dude, after all this? i deserve it! then i realized no, i don’t “deserve” anything other than maybe an apology for the bad service previously. this woman had given me great service! and chances are, it wouldn’t be discovered as an error for ages, if ever. but it was still wrong. so, i told her the real price and she had to get a manager to figure out how to charge me the right price.

    the other reason i told the cashier about the error? imagine if my friend tried to use the gift receipt to return the item! hah 🙂

  21. I have a jerk friend as well who “owned” two bikes, after selling one to a good friend of mine, I inquired how he managed to buy two bikes with his non-existent funds, my roommate revealed to me that our jerk friend stole the bikes from a rental shop. I was infuriated because 1. he stole the bikes 2) sold the bike for profit and 3) showed absolutely no remorse for his actions. A few months down the road he purchases two more bikes, karma steps in and all three bikes of his are stolen. I know I shouldn’t be happy about the circumstances and I should have been more confrontational when I learned about his shady actions but in the end karma gave him a good dose of his own medicine. However, I don’t think he learned his lessoned.

  22. I fall under the camp of the business made a mistake and it isn’t that big of a deal. Personally, I would have handed back the $10, but as a friend I wouldn’t enforce them to do the same.

  23. He should have returned it. Someday–hopefully–he’ll realize he wasn’t hurting the SHOP. He was hurting that EMPLOYEE (who will probably have to pay for that out of his tips). That said, you did what *you* could in the situation. Doing more would have been way over-stepping… At least now you know more about the dude’s character.

  24. $10 is a lot of money. The people I hang out with, I’m comfortable enough around (and pushy enough, I guess) to keep bugging them until they returned it. Then again, my friends would return it without me pushing them to. You need to weed through your friends better. 😛

    Shady things I’ve done… I’ve shoplifted from various chain stores. When I was a kid, I was at the mall with my cousin and we were browsing Claire’s (an acessories store). She told me she had stuck a pair of earrings in her bag. I was both appalled and annoyed: appalled because it was wrong and annoyed because my cousin is so damn stupid, if she could get away with this, so could I. Then I stole a necklace. Lame.

  25. I don’t drink alcohol and am actually quite freaked out by the crowd that does, call me a social retard but the drinking scene makes me really nervous. I do however do all the cooking around the house, and a recipe called for some wine to cook with so I went to the only liquor store in my city. I was very nervous, bought the wine I needed and left. Turns out they gave me the wrong change (maybe they were sampling their wares) and I had to go back and bring all that attention to myself when fixing the mistake…I dunno why I launched into this story but stealing is wrong!

    I did steal 14$ worth of candy (including Kit-Kat’s and Bubble-Yum) from a gas station when I was about 9, over a couple days..my dad found all the candy wrappers and made me go back and pay for everything…I learned my lesson!

  26. Its wrong! You should have pressured your friend more and you should really consider this friendship toxic! You don’t need friends like that! From experience as others mentioned I know the cashier would not only be responsible for the money but also in trouble. I always give money back if given wrong change, even if its a dollar, its bad karma otherwise and I’ve been on the other side when your drawer is off and it ruins your whole day. So next time stand up for what you believe in NINJA!

  27. When an error is made, I do what I can to correct it – whether I’ve been given too much change, or not enough. To take more, is stealing. To let a store/person/corporation have more than that to which they are entitled, is to let them steal from me. Either way, it is theft.

    Recent true event: shopping in Costco I find money on the floor (bills, a not insignificant amount of money). My assumption is someone had money shoved in their pockets and forgot it. Then pulled their hand out of their pants to pick up something, and the money fell out. I picked it up, when to customer service, and after talking with about three levels of staff, no one knew what to do with it. So, they told me to take it. But, because to me it wasn’t my money, I gave it away to someone I knew could use it.

    Standing in line at the bank (for one of those rare need-to-see-a-real-person transactions), and found money on the floor. Again, the bank staff didn’t know what to do with it; I put it into a charity box.

  28. Once I took a paid parking ticket that someone left, and I could have literally ran after them to tell them they left it, but the guy was kinda douchey so I figured he deserved it. I think that kinda makes it worse, because I judged him AND stole his paid ticket! My boyfriend was appalled, and I still feel guilty about not running after the guy. (To be clear, he would have had to pay for parking again, due to losing his paid ticket.)

  29. The times I catch the mistake, I give it back immediately and the clerks are grateful. There has been two times that I had no idea what happened until I got home and emptied out my pockets that night (I know, I should always check my change, but sometimes I just shove it into my pocket and don’t bother…). I didn’t drive back and just wrote it off as good karma from all the times I corrected the mistake, lol.

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