The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Honesty

  • When honesty cures man of poverty

    When honesty cures man of poverty

    A HOMELESS man set to get $US145,000 for returning a woman’s diamond engagement ring is uncomfortable at the attention he got and worries for a world shocked by his honesty.

    Sarah Darling accidentally dropped her diamond engagement ring into Billy Ray Harris’ coin cup in Kansas City and he kept it safe and gave it back to her when she returned to his patch a few days later. Her grateful fiance set up a website which has already raised $US145,000 ($A141,622) for Mr Harris, who frequently begs on Kansas City’s Country Club Plaza.

    Mr Harris, though grateful for the donations from strangers from around the world, is uncomfortable with all the attention his kind act has received but insists the ring simply wasn’t his to keep.

    Billy Ray Harris said he doesn’t think he deserves all the attention he’s getting.

    “What I actually feel like is what is the world come to when a person returns something that don’t belong to em and all this happens?,” he said.

    Speaking to a local TV crew, Mr Harris said he knew the ring had sentimental value.

    This is the ring Sarah accidentally dropped into the coin cup.

    “I could tell just how much it meant to you, the moment I held it up like that,” he said to Ms Darling re-enacting for the cameras her reaction when he showed her that her ring wasn’t lost.

    News of the story has also led to Mr Harris being reunited with his family. His sister Robin saw him on the local TV news at her home in Texas and contacted the reporter on the story to help arrange a reunion with all of his siblings.

    “Sixteen years later and we just now found out he’s still living. I want him to come home, but I can’t make come home. But I want him to know we love him and we miss him,” Robin said.

    Mr Harris described the upcoming reunion with his family as “a gift” and even though he hasn’t seen them in years he insists he and his sisters remain his best friends.

    Mr Harris, who lives under a bridge, admits he doesn’t think he deserves all the attention he’s getting but he is now considering an offer to move in with his sister. He doesn’t want to be a burden and said he finds being a cause celebre stressful.

    “It’s more stressful than what I’m doing right now,” he said. “Does Tom Cruise have to be all that? I could never be an actor.”

  • Why honesty is important

    The importance of integrity in real estate transactions cannot be over emphasised. It is always good to foster a climate of honesty and morality, failure to do it can have unintended and unexpected consequences.

    To underscore its importance, an extensive study by a group said: “Honesty and trustworthiness is ranked the most important factor when choosing an agent to work with or in any business concern for that matter.”

    It is, therefore, relevant that we pay attention to some of the intriguing and occasionally disturbing issues confronting those in the sector. Once a client notices a slip from an agent or a business associate, he will be on his guard while nursing the feeling that he may probably be dealing with a rogue agent.

    As a matter of fact, he will pursue that line of thinking except there is a clear departure in terms of attitude change and confidence building in future engagements. “Faking it” – exaggerating or being deliberately misleading about one’s status – and engaging in other acts of dishonesty is not in tandem with property business.

    The sad thing about this business is that most people are willing to be somewhat dishonest in order to better themselves.
    The reward does not even have to be significantly large – it might be just a little higher than the agreed margin or figure.
    It should also be noted that most people will not be grossly dishonest or engage in blatant cheating even if the prospect of being caught is clearly zero.

    People who engage in fakery about themselves show a much greater than normal willingness to be dishonest and usually it will just be a matter of time before their real selves are discovered by a greater majority.

    Somebody related this story to me of how he saved all he had to buy a piece of land at Ibafo, along the Lagos /Ibadan expressway.
    He said: “I meet this agent who mouthed his prowess in buying properties for clients along the axis and trusted him with all l had. He even showcased pictures and numbers of those he had worked for – all that took me in and l fell for his sweet talks.”

    The summary of the story is that l was in a kind of fix because l was under pressure to get a piece of land and start the project to move myself in. After dribbling me for a long while we finally settled on a piece of land and l lost the time l so much desired to gain.

    All his promises that l will get the property in two weeks extended to over six months after taking me to several properties with encumbrances. At the end of it l was left not only exhausted but completely devastated as l spent more than l planned to do in settling several landowners.”

    From my experience l learnt that in property business transactions, the bottom line is that we should not view a single act of dishonesty as just one petty act.
    We should also realise that the first act of dishonesty might be particularly important in shaping the way a person looks at a property agent or business associate himself from that point on… that is why it is important to cut down on the number of seemingly innocuous singular acts of dishonesty.

    The truth is that immoral acts in one domain can influence our morality in other domains. That being the case, we should focus on early signs of dishonest behaviours and do our best to cut them down in their budding stages before they reach full bloom.
    It is not too hard to apply these lessons to the real estate business. It is understandable, but regrettable, that agents – and companies – will frequently engage in puffery, not just about their properties but about themselves.

    In the never-ending quest to gain market share there is a constant temptation to fake it – to say or claim a bit more about ourselves than may actually be true.

    Unfortunately, a lot of people exaggerate about their job performance, education, past experience, etc. And there is a tendency to say, “What harm can there be in that? Everyone does it. No one gets hurt.”

    It’s always better to pay heed to those little hunches before you go all the way. Good luck!