I bought a bedside table at a used-furniture store. While cleaning it out, I discovered $700 of Treasury bonds from the 1970s in a drawer. I tracked down the registered owner, which took considerable time. I called to verify her identity and get her current address, and I mailed the bonds the next day. A week later, I received a stock thank-you card. She signed her name but didn’t bother to write a message. I think she owed me a personalized note, and a finder’s fee wouldn’t have hurt. Is it fair to feel slighted? —E.
YOU ARE ALWAYS ENTITLED to your feelings. You were a good Samaritan and an impressive sleuth, and the owner of the bonds thanked you with a greeting card. I see this as a happy story. But you don’t. So before you undertake your next good deed, consider that you may not feel properly acknowledged or compensated for it.
—Adapted from “Social Q’s” in The New York Times Magazine