On February 26, 1981, Joey Coyle, a Philadelphia longshoreman, was driving behind an armored car when the doors of the armored car opened up. Two bags full of $100 bills fell out. Joey Coyle picked them up, and then spent the next week trying to figure out what to do with $1.2 million. In that week, he gave some of it away and spent some of it. He was arrested a week later at JFK Airport, trying to board a plane to Mexico. His story was later made into a movie (Money For Nothing) and a book (Finders Keepers).
I was 19 years old at the time. I remember talking to friends about what we would do if an armored car opened up in front of us. I don’t remember saying “I would notify the police immediately and return the money to its rightful owners”.
*****
Theresa and I moved in together sometime in 1988. One day while opening our mail, we learned that our credit card company had mistakenly issued a credit to us for $1500. My first reaction was “Monopoly: Bank Error in Your Favor: Collect $200”. My second reaction was “Shopping spree!!”.
Theresa’s first reaction was “that is a mistake on the part of the credit card company. We must notify them of the error. They probably know it already, but we should notify them. That is not our money”.
*****
In 2002, I was working for a company that had issued generous stock options to me. Those stock options were worth a lot of money (ironically, about the same amount as what Joey Coyle found in 1981).
I was invited to a meeting on a Friday morning in July 2002, where a group of about 75 people were informed that a scientific paper was going to be published the following Tuesday morning. That scientific publication was going to negatively impact our company stock, and the value of our stock options would decrease, and maybe evaporate.
The Head of Legal then explained that this counted as insider information, and we were not allowed to discuss or communicate about it with anyone, and that we were not allowed to act on it in any way. In other words, we needed to stay completely silent until after the information was published, and after the stock markets opened the following Tuesday morning.
My $1.2 million in stock options was enough to pay for our 7 year old’s college tuition, our 1 year old’s college tuition, pay off the remainder of our mortgage, and put away the remainder towards our retirement in 2025. I was asked to be silent about the loss of all of that.
That following Tuesday morning, I purchased a very large cup of coffee, stepped into my office, closed the door, and opened a website that showed my company stock price. I looked at my watch, 9:30 passed, and my company stock price dropped that day (and following days) from $58.48 to $28.25. I waited until about 9:45, when all of my options were underwater (had lost all of their value), and I called Theresa. I let her know that our plans for our stock options were finished.
Theresa handled it a lot better than I did.
We both handled it better than two people who worked at my company, who acted on the insider information, and sold their company stock. They later had to deal with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
*****
My Honesty meditation for today:
How do I act on “following the rules”? Do I pick and choose the rules that I follow?
Am I doing the right thing because I want to do the right thing, or am I doing the right thing because someone is watching? If no one is watching, would I continue to do the right thing? And if so, would I do it gladly? Would I do it if there was a substantial cost to me (time, money, energy)?
Am I living a moral life? And if so, is living a moral life reward in and of itself?
