Every few weeks, a story appears in the newspapers about a taxi-driver being given a reward for having handed into the police something of value that he has found in the back of his car. Less often, one hears of an item being found in the street and handed in.
There must be plenty of occasions as well when the item that has been lost may have something in it, such as a business card, that gives a contact number for the owner, so that they can be telephoned and they can come and collect their lost property from the finder.
There are, I expect, occasions when such items don’t get handed in. After all, for taxi-drivers, they’ll generally represent much more in financial terms than their monthly income. In these days, when CCTV cameras are almost universally present though, honesty is probably the most sensible approach, as well as being the morally correct one to take. Nonetheless, each time I read such a story, my faith in mankind receives a little fillip.
I’ve always taken it for granted that someone who has had lost property returned to them in this way might consider giving a little reward or that they would, at least, express their gratitude. Such, however, is not always the case.
Last Friday, an Emirati colleague found a purse on the ground just outside the building where he lives. He looked into it, found around Dh 6,000 in cash, an Emirates ID card, a driving licence, several credit cards and various other bits and pieces. There wasn’t, though, anything that would allow him to contact the owner, and, since he didn’t recognise the name on the ID card, he took the purse to the nearest police station.
They thanked him and took his phone number, in case the owner, once reunited with her property, wanted to call him, and he went on his way.
When he got home, he asked the watchman of his building if anyone had been to ask about a lost purse. On being told that this was, indeed, the case, he told the watchman that if she came again, he could tell her that it had been found and given to the police.
On Saturday afternoon, my friend called the police station to see if they had been able to track down the owner.
Yes, they said, the details on the ID card and driving licence had allowed them to get hold of her. She had come to collect her property and they had given her my friend’s phone number, they informed him and, as far as the police were concerned, that was the end of the story.
As I write this column on Monday afternoon, nearly three days after the woman concerned had been reunited with her purse, she still had not had the courtesy to call my friend to thank him for finding it and for handing it over to the police.
He was somewhat bemused, rather than offended, when he told me the story, clearly puzzled by the fact that the purse’s owner, who, he told me, was British, hadn’t managed to find the time to call and thank him.
He wasn’t – and isn’t – expecting any reward for his good deed, which arose simply out of a sense of good citizenship, coupled with the knowledge of how inconvenient it must be for anyone to lose all those useful documents. He just simply thought that a call to thank him would have been the normal thing to do.
He shouldn’t worry about it, I said. It’s just an example of bad manners and one which, moreover, might come from anyone of any nationality.
It is, though, rather disappointing to hear of stories like this. I much prefer to hear about honest taxi-drivers than about people who lack the basic courtesy to thank a total stranger who had found, and handed in, their lost property.
Peter Hellyer is a consultant specialising in the UAE’s history and culture