Honor Among Thieves

The "honor system" is not an effective strategy.

Perhaps I’ve become cynical, but I don’t believe that the honor system is a viable solution anymore. Apparently, the system is still in use, at least with respect to roadside farm stands, and likely with other remote sales locations as well.

There are three specific applications of the honor system I have experienced: Halloween trick-or-treating; remote work opportunities; and newspaper honor box sales, and I have noted violations of the honor system with respect to each application. Does this mean that we are surrounded by thieves, miscreants, and ne’er-do-wells? (either one of those would be a great name for a band - metal bands, probably). Well, the temptation is certainly to bemoan the loss of ethics and moral values in today’s society, but I don’t believe that people are less trustworthy than the previous generation, it’s just that our role-models have changed: We used to look to heroes such as Charles Lindbergh, Harry Truman, and Joe DiMaggio; now we have Johnny Depp, Pete Davidson, and the Kardashians. Not an upgrade, in my opinion.

Perhaps it would be instructive to closely examine the dynamics attached to each of the three honor system scenarios highlighted above:

• Halloween trick-or-treating - when I was a youth, and fully engaged in Halloween trick-or-treating festivities, I recall encountering large plastic pumpkins, ensconced on a homeowner’s front porch, theoretically chock-full of candy for neighborhood trick-or-treaters. Perhaps the homeowner was out of town, or out for the evening, or, and I’m neither confirming nor denying that this has been a specific strategy adopted by my household, the resident was cowering in the darkness of his home, simply avoiding the intrusion of neighborhood youths. If it was early in the evening, there might be a bunch of candy to choose from (and, I would only have grabbed one of them. . .maybe two, but not all of them); but, if the house had already been visited by one of my greedier contemporaries, the large plastic pumpkin might be completely empty. The honor system, indeed!

• Remote work opportunities - (Ed. note: a review of recent Rule of Three columns reveals an astonishing number of columns which snarkily report on the topic of remote work - we think the award-winning columnist is merely jealous of those who work remotely.) remote work (a/k/a “Work from Home,” or “WFH”) has blossomed during the pandemic era, and is likely here to stay, in some form or another. I’m quite certain that there are many WFH-ers who are quite productive, and I do not have the desire to either hover over staffers, in an attempt to ensure their productivity, or to have someone hover over me, in an attempt to ensure my productivity, but, some of you who do work from home have admitted to me that time and energy devoted to such work may not in all cases add up to a 40-hour workweek. And, no, I am not willing to name names, in the event you are an employer, seeking to document worktime gaps, and to identify potential position savings. That information was provided to me in confidence, and my word is my bond. . .unless the monetary benefit you will provide to me is significant enough to outweigh that whole “word is my bond” nonsense. You can sense in this ethical waffling in which I am engaging the tremendous elasticity of the honor system.

• Newspaper honor box sales - for those of you who have not spent thirty years in the newspaper publishing business, as I have, those contraptions located on street corners in downtowns, from which you are able to purchase copies of that day’s newspaper by inserting quarters into them, are known as honor boxes, because, you know, there is a stack of newspapers inside, and you’ve purchased but one copy, so, you’re on your honor to retrieve just one copy. These boxes are a dying breed, not only because of the lack of honor extant in society today, but also because fewer people buy newspapers than they used to, and, given price increases, a reader must pump many quarters into the machine, requiring sturdier pants pockets to contain that change, and, some newspapers are no longer selling copies every day, instead directing readers to digital products - in any event, this column is not designed to review the challenges of the newspaper business today - I’ll save that for another time. I think the best way to illustrate the honor system at work with respect to honor boxes is to share with you a story of a meeting I attended, more than twenty years ago:

I was working at that point in time for the publisher of the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News, in its circulation department. One of our senior executives, a guy I became quite fond of, named Charlie Tramo, was conducting a meeting in his office, on the mezzanine level, with a view out the window onto Broad Street. Tramo was a South Philly guy, whose parents had emigrated from Sicily, and was prone to talking loudly, and punctuating his conversation with wild gesticulations with his hands, sometimes with quite color language - Tramo inspired passion. You may wonder why I am not referring to Tramo by his first name; some guys are just naturally “last name” guys - Tramo was one of those guys. While we were meeting (perhaps considering a single copy rate increase, which, as we have discussed, would have the ripple effect of requiring sturdier pants pockets), Tramo was watching out the window, as a man in a wheelchair rolled up to an honor box located on the other side of the street. This man stood up from the wheelchair, and appeared to insert quarters into the machine - back then, it may have only required two quarters (and, less-sturdy pants pockets). The man standing up from the wheelchair didn’t seem too concerned with destroying the illusion of being wheelchair-bound. Tramo watched as the man grabbed the entire stack of newspapers, and placed them in his wheelchair, and placed a blanket on top of them. Tramo sprang into action, and yelled, to one of my colleagues: “Tommy, get out there and stop that guy - he’s stealing our newspapers!” As Tom raced out the office door, the rest of us stepped towards the window, and watched as Tom dashed out the front door of the building, below us on the street, and ran across the street to confront the apparent thief. We couldn’t hear what Tom was saying to the man, but we could see him pointing angrily at the man, and pointing to the stack of newspapers in the wheelchair, and grabbing them, and putting them back in the honor box, and gesturing to the man that he should leave the scene immediately. After the action on the street corner concluded, Tom returned to our meeting, having restored honor to our honor box on Broad Street.

I’m not sure what is being sold, in the photo atop this column. The most amusing example I can concoct right now is that nothing is being sold - the seemingly gracious request for money to be placed in the red box is nothing more than a hold-up - quite a genteel hold-up, to be sure, but a hold-up nonetheless. Even if that were not the case, I am a bit bewildered by the fact that, in this particular honor system, a padlock is used - where’s the honor in that?

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