Mark
Twain (Samuel Clemens) is quoted as saying, “Suppose you were a member of
Congress. And suppose you were an idiot. But I repeat myself.” Abraham Lincoln had
a slightly different take and is reported to have said, “Politics, as a trade,
finds most and leaves nearly all dishonest.”
And
we certainly have a lot of dishonesty in the political arena these days. It is
not limited to one political party, even though the following two examples are
both Democrats. I saw recently that Bernie Sanders claims he is for the common
man, but he himself had an income in excess of $1,000,000 this past year. And
Elizabeth Warren says the same but she has a history, before she entered
Congress, of working on behalf of some very large corporations.
Thus,
it is always enjoyable to me when I get to deal with someone who is an honest
and trusting individual. One example from just this afternoon was when I picked
up one of our vehicles from our local mechanic, Ron Detwiler.
We
had originally scheduled the van for some work last month because we had
learned that one of the back springs was broken – even though the vehicle was
still drivable. But before we took it in, we had another problem with it that
was more critical when one of the cylinders began misfiring. He corrected that
problem and asked that we drive it for a while to ensure that the problem was
truly fixed and then he would take care of the other problem later. He gave us
no bill at the time.
In
the meantime, he checked on the pricing for the new springs (you have to
replace both at the same time) and so we scheduled the rest of the work for
today. At the end of the day we went to pick it up (he only lives about two
miles from us). The van was done, it had a new inspection sticker, and was
ready to go.
When
I pulled out my wallet, he said, “We just finished the work a short while ago
and I don’t have the bill ready yet. I’ll call you tomorrow with the total and
you can stop by to pay me.”
How
neat is that? I trust him to do the work in an honest fashion and to charge me
appropriately, and he trusts me to pay him later!
All
our relationships should be like this. It used to be common that a man’s word
was his honor and a handshake would seal a deal. But now what used to be common
unfortunately no longer is. That makes it so refreshing when Ron and I can have
that trusting relationship. Would that other things in life were the same!
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