I got a nice surprise this holiday season which reminded me that there are decent people out there who will strive to do the right thing, even when it requires time and energy above and beyond their “job description.”
Earlier this week, our marketing manager, Kathie Pillard got a call from Michelle Hopp, an employee at the Hilton Garden Inn in Sioux Falls South Dakota. It seems that Michelle noticed a digital camera that had been laying at the back of a filing cabinet for several months with no one claiming it. Not knowing from where it came or to whom it belonged, but wanting to return it to its owner, Michelle applied some crack detective skills and solved the problem by paging through the pictures in the camera’s memory.
She recognized the ballroom of her own hotel in the most recently dated pictures. From there, she checked who had rented the ballroom that day. Discovering that Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Dakota held a meeting there that day, she contacted them and asked if they knew who might own the camera. It turned out that their keynote speaker that day happened to be me. She was able to return my camera and all the pictures that I thought were gone for good.
Since the topic I was speaking on that day was from my book,” Absolute Honesty: Building A Corporate Culture that Values Straight Talk and Rewards Integrity”, I thought Michelle’s action was a good example of Absolute Honesty’s principles put into action. And she didn’t even hear the speech. Thank you Michelle and Hilton Garden Inn.