When I was a child going into my teenage years, there was a saying that I heard often. When it came to dealing with my family, my friends, neighbors, teachers, classmates, and in the everyday practical things of life, at least once a week I was taught: “Honesty is the best policy.”
Now granted, the 1980s and 1990s were much simpler times, prior to the Internet and many other drastic changes we have experienced in the past few decades. But does that make honesty no longer the best policy? Is that an outdated saying and doing in this high speed, super-sized, and instant gratification time we find ourselves in?
Recently, I needed a simple service done to a machine I own. I spent some time looking around my own town for a person who knows about the machine and could repair it at a reasonable price. I enjoy patronizing small businesses that may not receive a whole lot of foot traffic, so I also took that into consideration when making a choice. I ended up finding a little dingy, hole-in-the-wall kind of a place, the kind of place that desperately needs a power-washing and wouldn’t be the first choice by eye alone. It’s set back and hidden behind other structures, humble to say the very least.
The gentleman at the counter treated me with the utmost respect. He was the least bit hesitant to look me right in the eyes and tell me which piece the machine needed replaced. He didn’t stutter or tango with words when it came to a final price. He didn’t offer an open-ended answer that allowed him to backtrack later. Just an honest man of business that gained my respect and a new customer.
He not only gained me as a customer though. People since have asked me how my experience went at that specific place. “Excellent, he did right by me, and I recommend you give his service a try,” is what I say. Whether he was looking for new customers or not, a trail has followed me to his counter since I first visited.
As I’m sure you have had, I’ve had just the opposite experiences as well. More recently, I walked into a store to buy something simple. There were no price tags on the items, which often sets off a red flag or two. When I asked about a price the employee quoted me nearly double the average selling price of the item. I did purchase the item without question because I needed it immediately, but I knew the business wasn’t a completely honest one. I wouldn’t go back, nor could I honestly recommend the store front to a friend. They did make a few dollars extra off my initial purchase, but that’s where my patronizing came to a complete halt.
After all these years, honesty does happen to still be the best policy, especially for the first business owner mentioned. He may have made less profit initially by being honest, but in the long run, he’s profiting in many ways. I sure hope we all return to these traditional values that, at one time, seemed to be so deeply and thoroughly engrained in our society. As I used to hear often in 1988, “Honesty is always the best policy.”
