The Canadian thing to do.

On Thursday I went to Chinook Centre with my lovely lady and one of her friends. The girls made two huge mistakes when they took me to the mall: they left me alone, and they left me with money in my wallet!

I really wanted to get a new gym bag that I had seen in Lulu Lemon previously. It must have been my lucky day - I found the very last one in store. Without any hesitation I bought it. As I was paying I noticed that the little compartment that it had for water bottles wasn’t going to fit mine, so that only meant one thing: I had to buy a bottle from there too.

I asked the young lady at the till to hold off on my payment as I was going to shop around for a bit longer for a new water bottle. After finding the one I wanted and making my way back to the till, I paid and walked away. As I got to Banana Republic, I added up in my mind how much I should’ve paid and compared it to how much I actually paid. At this point I realized they mischarged me, and I had to go back and notify them of their mistake.

I walked in, got the attention of one of the girls from the floor and told her, “I think you mischarged me”. She was very apologetic and asked if they had over-charged me. I just giggled and said, “No, you didn’t charge for my water bottle. I just want to make sure I do the right thing and that the girl who helped me doesn’t get into any trouble because she’ll probably have to pay for it”. The clerk looked me in the eyes and said she was surprised that I came back, when most people would’ve walked away. She then asked me for my receipt and for the water bottle. I gave them to her and I pulled out my debit card to pay the difference. She was punching buttons on the till, then handed both the water bottle and my receipt back to me and said “Thank you for your honesty”. This caught me off guard; I asked her again “how much do I owe you for the water bottle?”. I got an answer I wasn’t expecting: “It’s free. Thank you again for your honesty”.

I walked away in disbelief. A happy surprise! I guess that nice actions are rewarded.

Would you walk away or would you go back and try and do the right thing? I'd like to think that what I did was the Canadian thing to do.