Throwing away money

A few years ago, I made an unfortunate mistake, a little like this woman.

I work at an investment firm where checks come in and go out as part of a normal routine. One day, we had received a FedEx. I opened it up, took out the documents, threw away the FedEx envelope. A week or so later, we called up the person who sent us the documents; we couldn't find the check that was supposed to be coming. We asked if they had sent it...when I heard that it came in the same package as the documents, my heart sank and my stomach twisted into 39 different knots. I'm thinking, 'You mean, the envelope I threw away?' If you can imagine losing a huge sum of money...ugh, I shudder just thinking about it. And this was way more than the $188K the woman in the story lost.

I panicked. I didn't know what to do, and I was sure that my bosses were going to be piping hot mad about the situation. If I were in charge, I would be! Frantically, I began sorting through stacks on my desk, hoping that I hadn't thrown away the envelope. There was a nagging thought in the back of my head that said, 'You know you throw away those envelopes whenever you get them...'

Then, brilliance struck. It had been a busy week that week, and I hadn't had time to take out the garbage. I remember even thinking that I should do that the Friday before this realization came to light, but the days had gotten away from me, and that task had been continually moved to the bottom of the to do list.

I made a beeline for the garbage can under my desk. As luck would have it, the check was there, in the discarded FedEx envelope at the bottom. A wave of relief washed over me, and I almost wanted to kiss the dang thing. Everyone breathed a little more easily after that.

I learned a lesson that day...a dumb one, probably: ALWAYS double check the envelope before you throw it away. Who knows what's sticking to the side of it when you chuck it in the garbage can? Maybe someday that tidbit of hard-earned knowledge will come in handy.