Why ignore the consequences?
When I wrote a blog post recently about the credibility gap in Internet marketing, it got me thinking about WHY some people do the self-destructive things they do.
I figure that it comes down to them being so blinded by the short-term gain that they completely forget about – or deliberately ignore – the long-term consequences.
Thinking about people like that reminded me of something that happened nearly 40 years ago.
I worked in a small but very prestigious advertising agency called Michael Robinson Associates. Our offices were on the 2nd floor of an iconic building in London’s Regent Street – right next door to the famous Cafe Royal.
On the 3rd floor was the accounts department of what was then a huge national recruitment consultancy called Alfred Marks Ltd.
For some reason, the postman kept delivering bags of their mail to our reception. There were no lifts, so I guess he was just too lazy to walk up another flight of stairs.
Anyway, we had a young receptionist, a very pleasant girl who was always helpful and became popular in our small company. She turned out to be rather more enterprising than any of us suspected. And a lot more stupid.
One day, a whole gang of policemen burst into our offices, shouting at the top of their voices. They arrested both the receptionist and our Managing Director.
He was soon released with no charge, but the receptionist was charged with all kinds of financial misdealings.
Apparently she had quickly learned to recognize which items of the misdirected Alfred Marks Ltd mail contained checks. She took them home, steamed them open, and separated out all the checks that were paid to simply A. Marks. The rest she resealed and returned.
Somehow she had created a new identity as Amelia Marks and opened a bank account in that name. I don’t think you could easily do that today, but back then things were a lot ‘looser’.
You guessed the rest.
I don’t know how many checks she cashed, or how much she stole, but apparently it had taken 2 years for her to be caught.
The last I saw of her she was marched out of the office in handcuffs, crying her eyes out. I heard later that she went to prison for 18 months.
She saw short term gains and forgot about the consequences. Until they bit her!
