Archive for January, 2007
You probably think this story is about The Red Carpet and diamond-studded celebrities, it certainly would be my first guess. Well, this story is about diamonds, but they were nowhere near The Red Carpet, they were probably closer to a rubber floor mat in a taxi cab. An NBC news story tells about a passenger taking a cab to the Los Angeles Airport (LAX) in California and leaving behind a brown bag with $350,000 worth in diamonds. (I usually save the brown bags for lunch. Then again, you never know, he might of had his lunch in there as well, especially now that in-flight service rarely serves anything but peanuts or chips).
This passenger must have been quite in a hurry to catch his flight. I mean, why else would you forget the brown bag? The honest Afghanistan-born taxi driver, Haider Sadiqi noticed the bag, found a business card in the bag and called the owner. According to the story, the owner of the diamonds hadn’t even noticed he was missing the bag of diamonds. Honest Haider Sadiqi didn’t even think of keeping the diamonds; his honesty was worth much more than $350,000 worth in diamonds.
(Photo Wikipedia)
January 26th, 2007
An experience in Finland during my undergraduate program at the Helsinki School of Economics truly brought new insight to the meaning and practice of honesty. My first and most surprising encounter with just how honest people were at my university was in the hallway student-run kiosk.
Part of the responsibility of the student body was to make sure a designated area in the hallway (the kiosk), where most students hung out during their breaks, was well stocked with snacks. This area had everything from gum (with Xylitol), 
apples, candy bars and certainly their famous salty liquorice candy called “Salmiaki” (definitely an acquired taste). The prices were on the front of the box or basket that had the snacks. Everyone that took a snack would simply leave the money in an open box next to the snacks (it was open in case you needed change). There never was anyone watching the snacks, everyone just knew that for this to work, everyone had to be honest and pay for their snacks.
I have to admit it was strange just dropping my money into this open box the first time I purchased a snack . At the same time, it really felt good being part of this honesty system and knowing I was doing my part to keep it working.
(Photo Wikimedia Commons)
January 29th, 2007
Taxi drivers often only get recognized for the bad reputation of their driving, especially in some of the larger cities around the world. If you go to Latin America, in some cases, you could consider it a substitute for a rollercoaster ride. They do deserve some positive mention though. This story shows another side of taxi drivers you might have not know about. Last week, I wrote about the honest taxi driver in L.A. that returned $350,000 in diamonds. This week, I’m writing about the results of a very interesting nine-country survey involving 900 taxi drivers. The results might surprise some of you.
This study was conducted in 2005 by PointSec and focused primarily on lost mobile electronics. Surveyed were taxi drivers in Australia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Great Britain and the United States. The sampled cities
in their survey were Sydney, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Paris, Munich, London, Great Britain and Chicago. The most staggering number of lost items was found in the Chicago company’s taxi fleet. There were 85,619 mobile phones, 21,460 PDAs and 4,425 laptops left behind by passengers. Only London’s sampled taxi fleet had a higher incident rate of 0.21 of lost laptops per taxi cab versus Chicago’s 0.18. Pretty amazing figures!
The great and very compelling part of this survey was that thanks to the honesty of the taxi drivers, globally 80% of passengers had their mobile phones returned to them and an amazing 96% of PDAs and laptops also made their way back to their owners. This week, taxi drivers definitely took the lead in demonstrating honesty.
(Photo Wikipedia Commons)
January 30th, 2007
During the end of our business trip to Buenos Aires, Argentina, my colleague and I decided to do some sightseeing. We were truly impressed by what he had already seen in this beautiful city and wanted to make sure we made it a point to see a few more of the city’s top attractions. So we made our way over to one of the popular areas called Recoleta. On Saturday and Sunday the Plaza Francia hosts an open market called Feria de Plaza Francia.
At this Recoleta Fair vendors sell all sorts of arts and crafts as well as souvenirs. Here we found a lot of great gifs to take back home. At one of the stands, I found these great 
Tango coasters I thought would make fun gifts. When I paid the woman, I noticed I didn’t have exact change so I gave a $10 peso bill (I believe) and figured I would let her keep the change. My colleague and I continued walking down this plaza towards the fountain. There were dozens of vendors neatly displaying their goods throughout their stands. All of a sudden we looked and saw the woman that had sold us the coasters standing next to us breathing heavily (she apparently was running looking for us) and said I had overpaid her. She offered me either the $2 pesos change she had in one hand (today’s FX rate .64 cents USD) or another coaster she had in the other hand. I looked over to my colleague in amazement. I thanked her and told her I had purposely not asked for change, and there was no need for her to give me another coaster.
It really blew me away that this kind woman would have left her stand to find us when she noticed I had overpaid her. She could have easily rationalized it was only a couple of pesos that I could certainly do without. I think for the rest of the day I walked around with a huge smile thinking about this honest woman. It truly was inspiring and encouraging.
January 31st, 2007
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