There was in Babylon a keeper of ledgers named Daniel, set over the accounts of the king’s hundred kitchens; and among his books he kept the tips ledger, wherein was written every coin left for the riders and the servers and the washers of pans. And the stewards came to him with soft faces, saying, Write that the riders were paid in full – it is one line. And Daniel said, So is a crack in an oven.
They reasoned with him: wilt thou perish over pennies? And he answered them with the sentence every workplace should frame: The pennies are the point. The mould beginneth not with the treasury; it beginneth with the tip, the corner coin that nobody defendeth; he that will falsify a farthing hath agreed in principle to falsify a famine, and waiteth only to be promoted.
So they threw him to the den of critics, who read him all night, margin by margin, seeking the padded figure whereon critics feed – and found nothing to pan; for his ledger was true, and truth is well seasoned. And he came up without a tooth-mark, and the king decreed the tips ledger be read aloud monthly at the kitchen door, in the hearing of the riders.
Beloved, thy integrity is not tested in the famine; it is tested in the line item. The timesheet rounded down, the invoice padded up, the tip pooled into the till – these are the first spots. Keep the small truths, saith the Resistance, 9:25, and the great lies find no lodging. Guard the lines. Amen – and pass the pizza.