Cheating the system

When I worked as a waitress at a country club during the summer one of my years in college, we clocked in and out on one of the computers where we placed orders.

The clock rounded to the nearest 15 minutes. So 3:07 would round to 3:00 and 3:08 would round to 3:15.

People would stand in front of the computer waiting for the clock to get to the next minute that would round up so they would get paid for those few extra minutes.

Now, I don't clock into a system, but I am supposed to keep track of my hours to the closest 15 minutes as well.

I am not one of those people to get off at 4:53 and count is as 5:00 though. If I say 5:00, I will work until 5:00. I'm not going to say I'm perfect and then I've never taken off two or three minutes early, but I really try to stay until the exact time that I write or make sure that I work a couple extra minutes tomorrow if I work a couple minutes less today.

It might not seem like a big deal to grab a few extra minutes, but I think about it as more than just a day. Let's say you take off 5 minutes early every day, and round that to the nearest quarter hours.

Five minutes times five days a week means 25 minutes you took advantage off that week. Twenty-five minutes times four weeks per month means you took 100 minutes that you didn't work. One hundred minutes times 12 months a year, means 1,200 minutes. Your work is paying you for 20 hours that you didn't actually work.

As Christians, we should hold ourselves accountable to not even steal a few minutes here and there. Not stealing is so important to even be one of the ten commandments.

Even if everyone else is grabbing five minutes here and there, you don't want to steal money for 20 hours that you didn't put in each year. You don't want to steal anything.

So, even something that looks small right now can add up if you think about it in the long run.