No one gets away with anything and everything. You might think that’s true. But it’s not.

My favorite cartoon is Scooby Doo. It’s mostly because I like mysteries and secret passages.

One of my favorite moments during an episode is at the end when Fred, Velma, Daphne, Shaggy, and Scooby tear off the mask of the ghost, zombie, or witch.

“Mr. Jones!”

They’re shocked the bad guy has turned out to be the friendly hotel owner or ship captain.

“Yes and I would’ve gotten away with it too if it hadn’t been for these meddling kids.”

I’ve never gotten away with anything, even if people think I do.

When I was getting divorced, I had to go to court, stand by myself in front of a judge, raise my hand, and tell the county my marriage was indeed finished. Not every person going through a divorce has to do that. But the way my paperwork was filed and put together via a mediator meant I had to do this.

I told my manager about the court date, plus other things related to my divorce. She was nothing but accommodating and told me to take whatever time I needed to get through turmoil.

I tried to keep things low-profile. The day of my court appearance, I came to work, left for court, and returned to work afterward. In fact, I stayed an extra hour to make up for the time I missed.

Eventually, the divorce began taking a toll on my psyche. Once I had a whole bunch of paperwork regarding my house. I asked my manager if I could leave after producing a newscast tomorrow and not return.

She said “of course!” I also asked her to not say anything about the reasons for my departure. She agreed.

The next day I left after my newscast and didn’t return. My manager was not at work, but the second-in-command was.

I returned to work on Thursday. The second-in-command called me into her office and shut the door.

“We’ve had complaints from the other producers that you’re leaving early.”

I was flabbergasted as she told me this was unacceptable.

I wasn’t even sure what to tell her other than the manager had approved it and that I had an appointment.

She responded that if I ever had appointments, I needed to alert her and the producer for whom I wrote after my own newscast.

I remained flabbergasted.

My co-workers thought I was getting away with something.

The reality was I was watching my whole life torn asunder.

As time went on, I continued to see the same people complain often about what they perceived as preferential treatment to others. They groused about fellow producers of course but also anchors, reporters, and frankly the rest of the staff. “I couldn’t get away with that,” they said when something would happen that seemed ignored by management or elsewhere.

Truth is, you might think someone is getting away with something. But you do not know what is happening behind closed doors or in someone’s soul.

Nobody in this world gets away with anything forever – unless they truly deserve to.