I don’t think think anybody is interesting until they’ve had the shit kicked out of them — Jim Carey

This quote has been bouncing around my head for a month since I heard it on a doco about Jim Carey.

It says something about a persons character. Can I go through nasty times and retain my principles. How will life’s disasters shape my character.

Well losing a million bucks at 27 can be character forming. I decided to do the right thing by people whenever I can. I point out when I get too much change from a checkout operator.

I also paid holiday leave loading for an employee who quit (that is not an obligation in NSW at the moment). But that former employee could have taken holidays (and got the loading) then not returned. I hear many businesses complaining about this sort of behaviour. The employee gave me fair notice and helped with the transition. So I asked the remaining staff what they’d expect in the situation. They all said they’d expect the loading. I agreed, yet it was a good experience to have staff input.

So Jason got paid a leave loading he wasn’t entitled to. But had he done the mercenary thing he could have guaranteed his entitlement. I paid him because he did the right thing.

Interestingly if I ran a public company a different set of corporate governance rules kick in. I could only have paid the loading if it was part of official company policy. That makes my head hurt to think about.