An Important Lesson

Today I learned a good lesson from a hotel guest. He was so humble and ready to set a good example for all of those following him.

What happened is that he was here for a conference for law enforcement officers the past couple of days at the hotel. Everyone checked out this morning and it was very busy. He was helping others check out and then left the hotel and (luckily for him) hung around town to eat lunch and let his wife go shopping.

Well a few hours later the housekeeper came down from his room with his badge and weapon!! OOPS! That's not a good thing to leave behind. We immediately tried to call his cell phone but his mailbox was full so we called the people in charge of the conference and they were able to get ahold of him. He came by about a hour later to pick it up since he hadn't started the drive home yet.

Of course he will never be able to live this down. It's a very serious thing to leave your weapon behind - you never know who could find it. I was so impressed with his attitude though. He said he had just talked with one of his officers about doing the exact same thing and if his officer couldn't get away with it neither could he. So when he returned back to his office he was going to write himself up.

Most people that I see come through the hotel would have just blown it off and found themselves lucky they were able to get it back before they got home. No need to tell anyone, just brush it under the rug and forget about it. So what impressed me was that he was willing to take responsibility and do the right thing - even if it meant consequences that weren't so great.

Of course, we should all do that but sometimes we don't want to deal with the consequences so we wiggle our way our of the situation or pass the blame onto someone else. I was glad to witness someone with such integrity today.