I'm not going to take it anymore

Several months ago, I wrote about an editor who had been told by his boss that the services of one of the freelancers with whom he had had a long and positive relationship was going to be terminated sometime over the next couple of months.

It was understood that he should not let the freelancer know about his pending demise before his boss decided it was time to tell him. The editor decided to wait.

Once the news was delivered to the freelancer, the editor did recommend names of other potential outlets for his work, one of which did pick up the writer's work. Technically, the editor did nothing wrong. Still, he wondered if he should have let the freelancer know as soon as he learned the freelancer's days were numbered.

I believed the editor displayed professional courtesy and kindness by staying true to the company and by subsequently offering assistance to the freelancer. Any other action by the editor would have meant violating a trust with his boss.

But a reader found my advice to be questionable.

"Usually I agree with the advice you give," he writes, "but I don't think it fits today's reality. Companies aren't loyal to us anymore. In terms of disposability, 'human capital' ranks right up there with toilet paper.

"It is incredible how difficult it has become to find and retain any kind of employment," he continues, observing that it can take months to find even a part-time minimum-wage job.

"If I found out a close colleague had months of lead time on me losing my job and said nothing, my reaction would range somewhere between never speaking to that person again and outright physical assault," he says. "If I were the one with the knowledge, I wouldn't be able to sleep or eat until I had warned the person.

"To heck with the companies - we need to start looking out for each other."

My reader is correct about how hard it is for many people to find work today. The search can be harrowing and wreak havoc on an individual's and a family's ability to make ends meet.

But by helping the freelancer writer make contact with other potential employers, the editor did believe he was doing what he could to look out for the freelancer. Others might have decided to go against their boss's wishes and risked their own jobs to let the freelancer know as early as possible. In either case, it wasn't as if the editor treated the freelancer without compassion.

Granted, you can't eat compassion. And the freelancer could have benefited from those couple of extra months to find a new home for his work. But rather than resort to physical attacks or the silent treatment, he chose to take the editor up on his offer to help him find work elsewhere.

I still believe both the editor and the freelancer did the right thing. Regardless of how warranted it might seem, anger can blind us from responding in a way that allows us to move forward positively. It's our responses in such challenging situations that help us determine if we're capable of being the type of person we always believed we wanted to be.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal
Responsibility in Today's Business and The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart, is a lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School.

Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net.

(c) 2012 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by Tribune MediaServices, Inc.

Readers share stories of sharing

A few weeks ago, I wrote about people who were trying to give back or show care for others. Whether it was paying off a stranger's layaway bill at a department store or donating through a micro-lending website to nascent entrepreneurs far afield, I noted how people found ways to give back even in small ways. And I asked readers to send me their own stories.

As soon as that column ran, those stories started arriving in my inbox.

A reader from California writes that in addition to her regular contributions to charitable organizations, she takes a small amount of money every month and spends it at a local store where she typically doesn't shop. She buys inexpensive items from these shops - a bookstore, a tea shop, a music store, an art gallery - to give as gifts or to contribute to charity. "I get to know the storekeepers and contribute to their livelihood," she writes. 

Fifteen years ago, a family in Ohio decided it was "silly" for the adults in the family to exchange gifts at Christmas any longer. So they pooled the "adult gift dollars" and each year take turns choosing a worthy recipient. Some years the money has gone to a charitable organization. Of late, it has occasionally gone to a neighbor family where a parent has lost a job. Some of the recipients have contributed to the family fund to be donated to someone else the following year.

Another group of 15 "average middle-class Midwestern empty-nesters" decided to pool their resources to provide clean sources of water to people in developing countries. To date, they have contributed more than $30,000. Three of the group plan to travel to Sierra Leone later this year for the dedication of the six wells they helped fund as part of their efforts.

A business owner in northern California contacted a local military coordinator to find out how to buy Christmas presents for the children of local active duty families with a parent deployed overseas. He received the wish lists of eight children from five families, all of which employees at his company filled.

Another man in the Midwest discovered Kiva.org (a micro-lending website I mentioned in the earlier column) just over three years ago. He started out with $300 seed money, doling it out in $25 increments over several months to various small business efforts. He fully expected that some of these loans would never be returned. "I haven't lost a single penny from any recipient defaulting," he writes. He reinvests the money as it gets repaid. He made his 74th loan last week.

Finally, a reader from California worries that such stories reflect a "tokenism." "To 'do the right thing' means caring for your neighbor and demonstrating basic respect without placing a priority on selfish hidden agendas," she writes. "When people do the right thing as part of their daily lives, then they have shown they care."

She's right. The majority of the readers who wrote me their stories asked to remain anonymous. Their giving appears to reflect ongoing and thoughtful efforts to give back or show care, regardless of the nature or size of their contributions. Their stories are strong reminders that there are many people who strive to do the right thing every day with no hidden agenda.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal
Responsibility in Today's Business and The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart, is a lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School.

Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net.

(c) 2012 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by Tribune MediaServices, Inc.

Smart application of comparison shopping

About 30 years ago, I decided to buy myself a new electric typewriter. I slogged through the snow onto the subway and traveled to an independent retailer that was running a good sale. I chose the box from a stack on the floor, paid the cashier, and headed home. When I unpacked the box, I was surprised that tucked inside was an old manual typewriter that a customer had presumably returned for a refund after buying the newer electric version.

I returned to the store and, without many questions, the customer service department took back the machine and gave me a new one in its place. (This time, they checked out the contents while I was standing there.) A hassle, but a crisis averted by a responsive customer service team.

Large signs over the customer service desk promised customers a 10 percent additional discount if they could find the same item they purchased at a lower price within 10 days of their purchase. Since the store prided itself on its low prices, it was rare to see customers taking advantage of this challenge. But when they did, it was honored.

Those were pre-smartphone days. Today, it would have been simple to scan any item's barcode in the store with any number of price comparison apps to see if the price was better elsewhere. 

This past holiday shopping season, the question arose of whether it's fair for customers to use such price-comparison apps at their local retailers. Is it wrong to use a local retailer as a way to sample products you might want to buy, but then buy your product elsewhere, including online, if you can beat the price? Is it wrong, for example, to go to the local bookseller and peruse a book at your leisure and then scan the bar code on the book to see if it can be purchased less expensively from an online bookseller?

There's nothing wrong with shopping around for the best price on a product, even if your comparison shopping is enhanced by the latest technology. Retailers may bemoan customers scanning items, but that's just smart shopping. The challenge is for retailers to remind customers the value they bring to a purchase that online retailers may not - such as not having to wait to receive their product or better customer service.

Online retailers can be just as vulnerable to the peruse-here-buy-elsewhere phenomenon. Just as a customer might buy online after examining a product in a store if the online price is better, customers could decide to download an electronic book for free from their local libraries after perusing its pages on an online booksellers' site.

The right thing is for retailers to do the best they can in providing value and service to their customers and for customers to make the smartest purchasing decisions they can. I'm not sure that personal technology would have made it easier for me to detect the wrong product was in that typewriter box 30 years ago, but it could have helped reassure me that my trek across down to get the best price was well worth the trip.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal
Responsibility in Today's Business and The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart, is a lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School.

Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net.

(c) 2012 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by Tribune MediaServices, Inc.

The better angels of our workers

To avoid bankruptcy of the U.S. Postal Service, Patrick Donahoe, the postmaster general, announced in early December that the USPS needed to cut $20 billion in expenses by 2015. Among the immediate cuts announced to save an initial $3 billion were closings of thousands of local post offices and hundreds of mail processing centers. The cuts will result in roughly 100,000 employees losing their jobs.

Initially my reaction to these and other cuts such as the possibility of eliminating mail delivery on Saturdays was less than outrage. A day without catalogs and solicitations for donations to not-for-profits or politicians would not kill me. Plus, I wouldn't have to worry about the mail piling up on my front stoop if I had to be on the road for a long weekend.

But in the midst of my indifference, I remember Ed, the guy who's been our local postman for the better part of 15 years. (He took a year or so off to take a desk job at the USPS, but missed the beat and returned.) When Ed is on vacation, his substitutes invariably can't figure out the correct addresses for some of the houses in our neighborhood (our next-door neighbor, for example, has our same house number but lives on a different street) and we end up having to redeliver the mail to the appropriate neighbor.

A couple of years ago, after a shipment of three boxes of books I'd written had been "misdelivered," Ed spent months tracking the package down and finally found the boxes on the porch of a neighbor several blocks away.

My indifference to the USPS is not shared toward Ed, my mail carrier.

Pollsters don't find this disconnect all that unusual. Labeled the "halo effect," it's common for people to loathe the education system but adore their kids' teachers, despise Congress but appreciate their local congressperson, complain about the postal service but appreciate their local postman. The abstract is easy to dismiss. When it's personal, that's a different story.

Of course, it makes sense to try to shore up businesses or agencies when they are bleeding money. But in doing so, it's important to remember the effect that shoring up will have not just on the abstract but on the tangible people involved.

Layoffs happen. Jobs get cut. Economist Joseph Schumpeter observed that the economy consistently rebuilds itself through the process of creative destruction. In the process, jobs are lost, but new companies are launched that ideally will create new jobs.

The right thing, however, is to never forget that the people caught up in this creative destruction are not abstract figures. They are our postal workers, our teachers, our favorite salespeople, our neighbors.

Making layoffs the go-to solution without remembering the individuals who might be affected by the loss of their livelihood makes it too easy to consider before all other options are exhausted. Given the severe financial condition of the USPS, it does seem that it will take many options to right itself.

Ed deserves to be thought of as someone who tries to do good work, day in and day out . . . and so does your mail carrier. And so, too, do the vast majority of workers whose businesses are facing economic challenges.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal
Responsibility in Today's Business and The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart, is a lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School.

Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net.

(c) 2012 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by Tribune MediaServices, Inc.

People can and do show they care

Several days ago, stories started appearing about anonymous benefactors who were paying off the balances on layaway purchases that customers had made at Kmart.

An Associated Press article written by Margery Beck suggested that these payoffs took various forms. Some benefactors sought to pay off items that were about to be returned to the shelf because the purchaser had missed several payments. Others wanted only to pay off layaway purchases that consisted chiefly of children's items. Still others decided to pay off most of the layaway, but left a few dollars balance on the account so customers would be surprised when they went to settle up their bills.

No questions asked about whether particular items are appropriate for the children. No judging about whether it's right to have $200 worth of toys and clothes on layaway when they might not be able to pay for more essential items at home. No desire to stick around or be identified as the person paying off the bill. No need for a charitable tax break or the thanks of an adoring recipient.

Just one giant Secret Santa effort seems to have blossomed for whatever motivation the benefactors might have had.

Helping others in need gives people the opportunity to show they care. Every year, a number of prominent newspaper columnists devote a holiday column to listing charities seeking donations. And the Web takes such efforts a step beyond the local Kmart and allows benefactors a much longer reach.

Right around Thanksgiving, for example, my son and daughter-in-lawd gave their nephew (my eldest grandson) a gift certificate to Kiva.org, a microlending organization that allows users to loan money to entrepreneurial projects in impoverished areas of the world. He chose to help fund Luciana, a food vendor in Paraguay, and Caroline, a cereals seller in Kenya.

Opportunities exist throughout the year to do some good act to express care or concern. Such acts might not involve cash, but instead involve assisting a neighbor or giving time to a local school or not-for-profit.

If ethics is how we behave when we decide we belong together, then it seems appropriate to reflect on whether or not that coexistence should involve some effort to help others who might be working hard but finding themselves falling a bit short.

Aside from those who believe tithing is an obligation, there's no set prescription on how or how much to give or when. The right thing is to give thought to whether it's important for you to do so and then find a way, even a small way, to express such care for others in the community, whether neighbors shopping at the local strip mall or those further afield connected through the web.

Tell me your stories of how you've decided to give back or to show care for others in your community. What motivated you? And how did you decide it was the right thing to do?

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal
Responsibility in Today's Business and The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart, is a lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School.

Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net.

(c) 2011 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by Tribune MediaServices, Inc.

A blue uniform is a blue uniform

The nursing students in a licensed practical nurse program in the Northeast are required to wear a specific color uniform to their classes - a basic royal blue set of medical scrubs consisting of a top and bottoms.

An owner of one of the area stores selling scrubs has discovered that one of the program instructors is telling students to purchase a brand of scrubs only sold at a particular store. The store to which the students are being directed is not the one owned by the reader who found out about the instructor's directions.

"The color is what is important," the reader writes, not the brand. "Our store carries the required color, but we are losing business to the other store as she (the instructor) is partial to that business." Other shops in the area that sell scrubs may also be losing out on sales to these students.

The LPN program takes place as a public school.

"It does not seem ethical that a public employee should be able to influence where a student purchases a uniform," the reader writes. "The scrub shop getting the business has not bid on supplying the uniforms to the school."

The reader believes that students have no idea that other vendors in the area offer medical scrubs and uniforms.

"I have spoken with the head of the nursing program about my concern that, as business owners, we only wanted to be treated fairly," the reader writes. "She did not seem to think there was anything wrong with the instructor being partial to only one local business.

"I have no way of knowing if perhaps this instructor has some sort of vested interest in the store she is recommending. Maybe she does. Maybe she does not. Regardless, we are losing a lot of business because of her, not to mention future sales."

The reader would like to know my thoughts.

If the instructor does have some vested interest, she is clearly out of line and likely breaking some law. But, as my reader points out, there is no evidence that this is the case.

If it truly makes no difference what brand of scrubs the nursing students wear, then the right thing is for the instructor and others in the program to let students know they are free to buy their scrubs wherever they like as long as they are the required style and color. If the instructor truly believes that the quality of a particular brand of scrubs is better, she has the right to let students know this, but it's wrong for her to suggest that there's only one place to buy them if that's not the case.

The right thing for the reader and other vendors in the area is to market their scrubs to the students as aggressively as they desire to let students know that they have a choice in where they make their purchases.

But a recommendation is not a requirement and if the instructor is simply recommending a particular store because she likes the quality of the goods and the service of the sellers, that's her prerogative. It's up to the other owners to convince their prospective customers that their store is a better selection than the instructor's merchant of choice.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal
Responsibility in Today's Business and The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart, is a lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School.

Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net.

(c) 2011 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by Tribune MediaServices, Inc.