“Honesty is the best policy”, and even more valuable the rarer it becomes.

In today’s account, a retail worker shared how being honest and making small sacrifices can pay off.

Let’s read this positive experience.

How I won a whole family’s trust…

An elderly gentleman came in one day and patiently waited for his turn to be helped.

As soon as I got to him, he told me he had an older TV that wasn’t cable-ready and that he needed a cable converter box to make it work.

He asked if we had one for sale.

“Sure,” I told him, “right over here. They cost [around] $80.”

“Okay, what else would I need to make it work?”

I showed him our area with the adapters for antennas, the cables, etc.

“How much will this all cost?”, he asked me.

“Well, altogether with tax included, probably about $100.”

“Okay… ”

He had the look of someone crunching the numbers in his head-the look was one of “Can I afford this?”

The retail worker did something unexpected in today’s world.

Then I said, “-But before I ring any of this up, let me ask you something; Do you have a newer VCR that’s cable-ready? One with digital tuning?”

“Yeah, but I’m not using it.”

“Okay, here’s what you can do…”

I then walked him through the process of hooking the VCR to the TV and using that as a cable converter box instead.

He looked at me and said, “God, why didn’t I think of that!?”

Then he asked if we worked for commission at my store. I said that we did and he said, “So you just talked yourself out of a sale?”

Yup!

“Well,” I told him, “it wouldn’t be right to sell you something that you didn’t need.”

We chatted a while longer and he went on his way.

About a week later, a customer came in and sought me out personally. Later he told me he only wanted to deal with me because I’d been honest with his dad.

Over the next month, any time his family members needed anything, they came to me.

Believe it or not, there were actually experiences that made me feel good while working retail.

This was awesome.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this.

Exactly!

A retail worker shares a similar experience.

I agree.

Another reader chimes in.

Interesting perspective.

His honesty and kindness paid off.

If you liked that post, check out this one about an employee that got revenge on HR when they refused to reimburse his travel.