Sometimes you just had it coming…

When you purposely do something you KNOW is wrong, you had it coming when you finally got called out. You knew how wrong what you were doing was from the moment it crossed your mind to do it. In this case, this friend knew that the cookie recipe that she was using to make the cookies she sells was her friend’s. She also knew that saying that it was an old recipe passed down through generations from her grandma would make the product more appealing, but that it was a lie. She never doubted that what she was doing was a scheme. And she did it anyway. Some could argue that the degree of the scheme is minimal and it didn’t hurt anybody, as the friend had no problem with her using the recipe, but she did have a problem with her lying about it being her grandma’s cooking and that she had passed away. The grandma is alive and doesn’t cook. So the problem with this deal is not the recipe or the degree of the scheme. It is the lie in itself that bothered the real creator of the recipe. 

Here is where the debate starts for me. Was it incorrect for the friend who invented the cookie recipe to demand the truth over a post exposing the recipe? I see that act as two things: on one side, it could have gone without anybody noticing, is just a post, people may not see it, and nothing comes of it. Or, on the other hand, it was publicly exposing the friend instead of talking directly to them to explain that the issue bothered them. I would much rather talk than expose my friend. Yes, scheming is wrong, and taking advantage of people by selling them a sad story so they buy your product is really bad. I know that. You know that. The friend knows that. But the issue for me is not talking. Why don’t you just say something about it? Exposing is going the extra mile in the wrong direction. You can simply talk. After all, this was a friend. Couldn’t you have told them that what they were doing was wrong and that you didn’t agree with it?