"Suppose it is? Look at it this way, Tom. If it's phoney, this will
scare him off, and you'd be saving the Company the expense and
embarrassment of paying off a fraudulent claim. If it's legitimate,
he'll resubmit it--at a time when, perhaps, we won't be so busy.
Meanwhile that's one more claim handled and disposed of, for our
progress reports to the Home Office."
* * * * *
I stared at him unbelievingly. But he looked back in perfect calm,
until my eyes dropped. After all, I thought, he was right in a way.
The mountain of work on my desk was certainly a log-jam, and it had to
be broken somehow. Maybe rejecting this claim would work some small
hardship in an individual case, but what about the hundreds and
thousands of others waiting for attention? Wasn't it true that no small
hardship to an individual was as serious as delaying all those others?
It was, after all, that very solicitude for the people at large that
the Company relied on for its reputation--that, and the iron-clad
guarantee of prompt and full settlement.