“When I was 19, I worked in an old man’s bar. The old men of that era were mostly WW2 vets and one of them told me that if you wanted to bribe someone, you’d have better odds approaching the older person rather than the younger one. He said the reason was because young people were idealistic and old people tended to be more jaded. He added that he had learned this in the army.
I was surprised when he told me this and deeply disturbed. I had been taught to respect my elders for one and I also thought that I was young and quite flaky. Weren’t old people supposed to be wise? My grandfather had total integrity so this is all I knew.
He said it was the other way around. A young person had a spotless record and a desire to keep it that way. He said that people compromise that as they age and the older person was far more likely to take the dirty money. It was the guy with the black hair there, who told me that. His name is (was), Larry. Later, he wrote one of the letters that got me out of the bar business but anyway, what do you think about this?
I think things have changed. For one thing we have old people who are so idealistic, it’s like a lobe of their brain is missing…and they would still take the bribe! Young people would also take the bribe because they were raised by the old people?
I also think very few have any motivation to maintain a “clean slate”, though he was right about my generation. This mattered back then. Your reputation and such. You certainly weren’t going to put your crotch on the internet for example.
Considering all this, if you had to bribe someone, who would choose and what are your impressions and experiences along these lines?
To learn more from old men – see tag – old man’s bar
Not all old people will take the bribe? I have a friend who is in his eighties, he spent his life as a solider and in his psyche he is still a solider, sharp as an eagle, self contained plays by the rules, no under the table stuff with him. He’s a cap sun.
To elaborate, this was part of this guy’s training. He said that sometimes it was necessary to bribe someone, so they were trained how to do it. Your friend, Merlene, may very well have been specifically trained NOT to take a bribe.
I know if a woman shows an interest in my husband, he immediately thinks she is trying to seduce him to be killed. This is his training and there is no way to approach him in that way without him figuring there’s a plot.
I don’t think I’d bribe someone. My head is swirling on this one.
I used to try to bribe Phatty with cupcakes and chocolate because he’s Taurus/Taurus rising, moon in Cancer/4th.
This is the premium shit! Perhaps he would have appreciated something homemade, but I sent him gift cards so he couldn’t accuse me of trying to poison him!
Anyway, I have no idea if he ever used them or gave them away, or even spent them on his gf (which I was unaware he was seeing someone at the time).
Screw bribes, next time its blackmail.
For myself, depends on what I’m being bribed for and what kinda currency they got.
I was probably bribed as a child “Don’t tell your mother/father about this!”
I can understand being against offering/taking bribes in your professional life, cuz it’s unethical and you can lose your job. Or trying to bribe a cop or judge etc. But how about when you slip a $20 to the host at the fancy restaurant. That’s a bribe, because it ain’t a tip til after you’ve been served.
That said, I’ve never actually done it.
My comment disappeared. I have 2 gold coins for whoever can get it back, shhh. 😉
If I were going to pick a man, I would pick the most macho acting out of the group.
If I were going to pick a woman, I would pick the one with a chip on her shoulder.
It wouldn’t enter my mind to bribe someone with money in real life though.
I am the sort to have never considered the need to bribe someone until this question was posed. 🙂 Thinking it over, I think I’d choose a person who seemed the most opportunistic. If I wasn’t given time to determine who that person might be…I guess I’d go with person who seemed most ready to help/intervene without a bribe, thinking they might need additional motivation. But, wow, otherwise, I have no idea. None at all.
Would i consider taking a bribe?
I might have twenty years ago, but not today.
I have learned a great many lessons, one of them being, skulduggery always backfires. Not pretty, not nice.
Who is more likely to take a bribe?
How about; I don’t know and I don’t care.
Takes all kinds to fill an army in wartime.
When I was married we moved house from France to Italy. I knew we wouldn’t get the furniture van through the border without a bribe and my ex totally mishandled it hahaha! The Italian border guys found some spurious reason to reject our paperwork and sent the whole van back. I’d specially chosen the removal firm because they were Italian immigrants and would know how to do it. Turned out they had the aged parents in the back, sitting in our armchairs – they’d wanted a free trip back to the old homeland 😉
Disaster all round
What an amazing story!
Great story!
Goes to show you have to let someone who knows the ways of the land, let them do what they do.
I’ve lived places where bribes are pretty common place… it depends on a persons circumstances at the time & how much they need what you’re offering.
If you’re good at bribing, you can suss out where they stand pretty quick… then you either get to work softening ’em up, or move on to the next guy…
Bear in mind, there are all sorts of bribes. It’s not just the envelope of cash under the table. It’s the office politics, where, for a little favor in the schoolyard politics, you shun or mistreat the “outsider.”
It’s in the office politics where you play a game of survivor and ally with someone stinky for the prize of being a winner. Anytime you sell ethics for even a little favoritism, it’s bribery. I mention office politics, because a whole lot of people look at the movies of heroic people during war who hid Jews or something, and say that would be them.
These are many of the same people who’d sell their co-workers up the river bearing false witness or something else unethical so they could win the Shark Tank reality show of their mind. To me, it’s not been so much age linked. I will say that younger people do not have many fictional heroes. Sure, comic-book mythical heroes. But not whistleblower heroes or heroes they want to be who did social change at a cost to themselves. People who give up the buck or the camera for ethics are termed schumcks in the reality show culture.
It would be soooo much better if we could just be able to tag these skanks by some visible category. But in the last few years, I’ve been slimed by olds as well as youngs. Slime is slime.
The non-American. More likely to have a working knowledge of cash type bribes, aka tea or chai.
They consider it the fee for the paperwork etc. etc. and nothing other than what is normal and due.
this is very interesting, so weird that it’s backwards for a lot. This story reminds me of what happened to a close relative of ours, they are 14-15 years old taking the bus, maybe I told this story before but the story remains the same, he left his wallet with ID and what little money he had in there in the bus; he was going home taking the bus from school. it was a public bus, because the school bus didn’t ride his direction. When he left his wallet there, an older woman, middle aged found it and gave the ID/wallet back but took his last 20 dollars in there that was his allowance. She was kind enough to return the wallet, probably thinking, aw this boy needs his school ID ect, but took the money as her reward. lol he was upset cause he only made money from allowance. I don’t know if he would have given her a tiny reward money, maybe 2 dollars? lol he’s just a kid. Anyway told him never mind, she was probably super poor and needed it.
Or did someone else find the wallet first, take just the money, and leave it empty? Later the woman found it and returned it to the boy?
Older people learn to discern.
Younger people today generalize to a point of insanity, or of boredom which is worse. Generalizing is also irresponsible and dangerous for all. It is de-humanizing and ignores humans as individuals.
Discernment means you look a situation in the face, behind, and all around. Then if you want to ‘borrow’ that thing you need without asking, you do so with a clean conscience and no one is hurt.
Choose the person who Most needs/wants what you can offer, AND has the Most to lose if exposed, more than you do, since you obviously can’t trust someone who can be bribed.
Wanted to make a comment on ‘old men’s wisdom’.
I have a neighbour who had a pile of rich garden soil delivered. It was dumped on the public walkway in front of his garden. I walk past several times a week, then one day I made a comment about how lucky he was that no one had tampered with the expensive soil. He said – he knew it wouldn’t be touched, because if it’s one thing thieves don’t like it’s hard work!
I don’t think young people today think at all about keeping a clean slate! I am 65 and I wouldn’t take a bribe. I have six children and am around 20 somethings quite a lot these days. Times have changed for sure!
Seriously, I believe many young people today are not familiar with the word ‘conscience’ or its concept. It does not exist in their vocabulary.
Conscience is natural, needs no religious or moral context – but only in healthy human beings. Which is sadly no longer the case…