Sunday, January 31, 2021

What to do with a gift containing an undesirable message

In distant years past, there always seemed to be a flurry of last-minute in-person shopping leading up to Christmas. I often found myself in downtown Boston on a cold Christmas Eve night searching for a gift from one of many department, jewelry, or independent (and often quirky) stores. 

But as online shopping became simpler, my last-minute in-person trips grew fewer. As the pandemic limited the desire to be among crowds, I found online shopping to be even more attractive within last year.

Apparently, I was not alone. Online sales during the holiday shopping period of Oct. 11 to Dec. 24 were up 49% over the previous year according to Mastercard. Overall, online sales accounted for 19.7% of all sales during that period in 2020, up from 13.4% in 2019.

Unfortunately, everything, even convenient e-commerce, has a flip-side. With the ease of online shopping came the ease of making what turned out to be ill-advised purchases on a whim, in the middle of the night, without paying particular attention to the details of what was being purchased.

"I received a beautiful yellow print scarf for Christmas in the mail from an old acquaintance," writes a reader we're calling Chris. But when Chris took a closer look, she discovered the print on the scarf was a replica of a flag used during the Revolutionary War which had more recently been used as a banner by political groups whose political views she vehemently disagreed with.

"It's beautiful," writes Chris, "but there's not a chance I'm going to wear it."

Chris doesn't believe her acquaintance is a member of any of the political groups using the flag as an emblem. She has no desire to ask her friend, "What were you thinking?" She suspects the acquaintance knew Chris wore unusual scarves, saw a print that looked unique and purchased it online since the present came directly from the online store, wrapped and with a printed note from her acquaintance.

"I don't want the scarf," Chris writes. Initially, she put it in a pile of clothing she plans to donate to a local shelter. But Chris had second thoughts.

"I don't really want to encourage anyone else to wear the scarf either," she writes. "It seems a waste just to throw it out."

"Thoughts on the right thing to do here?" she asks.

Chris has a few choices. If she doesn't want to wear the scarf, she certainly shouldn't. If she doesn't want to encourage someone else to promote something whether it's deliberately or inadvertently then she's right not to donate it. She could, however, contact the return address of the online vendor from which the package was shipped and ask if she could return it to them. Or if she wants to have one less flag she finds offensive in circulation, the right thing might be to simply take it out of public circulation by finding a use for it around the house where only she sees it. (Surely, Pinterest users have posted some ideas. Cloth-wrapped hangers?)

The right thing is not to wear the scarf if it promotes a cause she doesn't support. As for the rest of us, including Chris' acquaintance, this should be a reminder to take the time to scrutinize the gifts we buy closely even if we purchase them online. 

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a senior lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com. 

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin. 

(c) 2021 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Sunday, January 24, 2021

Relieving the headache of a self-checkout gone awry

It's safe to acknowledge that many people have felt a bit distracted since this past March when the pandemic threw their routines, schedules and lives into a bit of disarray. Adjusting to working remotely, managing children's in-person and online education, timing shopping trips to avoid crowds, and generally learning to live safely while avoiding exposure to the novel coronavirus has resulted in many instances of unintended forgetfulness.

A reader we're calling Johnson wrote of one such instance of recent distraction that leaves him in a bit of an ethical quandary.

"I had to make a quick run to the store to pick up some items," he writes. "Batteries, vitamins, lightbulbs, paper towels, Band-Aids and Tylenol were all on my list."

As was his practice to avoid as much contact with others as possible Johnson took his goods to the self-checkout area to scan, bag, and pay for his items. He figured it would be a quick trip.

"After I got home and checked the receipt, I discovered I hadn't scanned the Tylenol or the scan didn't go through," he writes. "What should I do to make good on the error? Or given that it's only about four bucks, should I just forget about it?"

Deliberate self check-out theft costs retailers a bundle. An article in "The Atlantic" magazine a few years ago suggested that about $850,000 worth of items leave stores without being paid for every year. Even though he might not have intended to, Johnson's taking of the Tylenol home without paying for it adds to that loss.

"I heard about companies like Amazon doing these returnless refunds where you can get a refund for an item you don't want but you can keep the item," Johnson writes. "If big companies do that, should I worry about going back and paying for the item I inadvertently took?"

Johnson shouldn't equate what companies like Amazon might do in terms of refunds with his situation. For one thing, he's not trying to return anything. But more importantly, whether or not he pays for his item should not be up to him, but to the retailer who made it available to him.

He also shouldn't assume that because the small bottle of Tylenol only cost about four bucks that it doesn't matter as much as if he, say, inadvertently neglected to pay for a $400 flat-screen television. What matters at the end of the day is that he left the store with an item he didn't pay for.

If Johnson is embarrassed to admit his mistake to the store's manager, I suppose he could return to the store, scan in another bottle of Tylenol, pay for it, and then leave the item at the store. That, of course, is likely to affect the store's inventory, but on Johnson's end, it would definitely settle things up.

But that approach is not the best, most transparent way to resolve his issue. The real right thing is for Johnson to return to the store, let a manager know what happened, and offer to pay for the Tylenol he brought home. People make mistakes and the store manager should thank Johnson for his honesty and for making things right. Getting square with the store will likely ease any guilt Johnson may be feeling about his error. 

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a senior lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com. 

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin. 

(c) 2021 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Sunday, January 17, 2021

Can I request mileage reimbursement for miles not technically traveled?

A reader from Canada we're calling "Winnie" works full-time at a company located about 40 miles from her home. Winnie also has a part-time job near her full-time place of employment for which she takes one hour of unpaid time off during lunch time to facilitate an early childhood music program. 

Both her full-time and part-time employers know about her two jobs.

The pay Winnie receives for the part-time job comes from a grant that also includes a budget for mileage reimbursement.

Winnie wants to know if it is ethical for her to ask for money from the budgeted mileage reimbursement allotment if she already has to travel to the location for her full-time job.

Winnie also wants to know if it would be ethical to consider offering the music program during a paid lunch break and still receive compensation for facilitating the class instead of taking an unpaid hour off as she is currently doing. "Would this be a conflict-of-interest with my main employer?"

As I mention regularly when responding to workplace issues, I am not a lawyer so I am not qualified to offer a legal response to Winnie's questions. But I can respond to what seems to be the right thing for Winnie to do.

Let's take her second question first. If Winnie wants to get paid for a lunch break and get paid to run the music program during said lunch break, her best course of action would be to let each employer know that is what she is doing. She may not be legally obligated to do this, but to maintain a good working relationship with each employer the best course of action would be to keep them informed. A question as simple as "Do you have any issue if I facilitate this program during my lunch break?" should suffice.

Her first question about mileage seems a little trickier at first, but because of the order in which she does her jobs, the appropriate course of action is actually pretty clear. If Winnie was offering the class before her full-time job, then asking for reimbursement from home to that job plus mileage from that job to her full-time place of employment might seem fair. But since Winnie is traveling to her full-time job first and that job does not offer mileage reimbursement, then requesting reimbursement for the entire mileage from the part-time job is inappropriate.

Based on how Winnie currently structures her workday, what does seem appropriate is for her to request a mileage reimbursement for the one or two miles she drives before and after lunchtime from her full-time job to her part-time job. Those are miles she wouldn't have had to drive for her full-time job.

An alternative would be for Winnie to simply talk to whoever manages the grant at her part-time job and ask them for advice on handling mileage reimbursement.

That may not be the legal answer, but it strikes me as the right thing for Winnie to consider. That she continues to put in the time to teach young children music also seems a pretty good thing, too. 

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a senior lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com. 

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin. 

(c) 2021 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Sunday, January 10, 2021

Take as much as you want but eat as much as you take

The last time I grabbed a container of yogurt and a cup of coffee at a complimentary breakfast buffet was slightly more than a year ago at The Inn on Third in St. Petersburg, Florida. We were in town for a wedding along with more than 100 other people when such gatherings were still the norm. Because it was winter, we extended our stay for a few days beyond the wedding because, well, winters in St. Petersburg are a tad warmer than those in Boston, Massachusetts. Although it seems a fading memory now, the innkeepers on Third Street went out of their way to make the stay enjoyable.

Perhaps anticipating the day when travel including hotel stays featuring complimentary breakfast buffets again becomes as normal for many of us as it was in pre-pandemic times, a reader we're calling "Robin," because that's her name, emailed to ask whether it was OK to bring food from a hotel's complimentary breakfast back to your room.

"The price of the breakfast is built into the room cost," she wrote, but she wondered if it was acceptable to consume whatever you selected any place other than the area where the breakfast is set up. Beyond that, she also asked, "Can you take extra for lunch, snack or meal later in the day?"

In some instances, the answer to Robin's question seems clear. When we traveled with our oldest grandson to Cooperstown, New York to visit the Baseball Hall of Fame a few years ago, we stayed at a small motor lodge on the way into town that set up its breakfast choices on a window ledge in the tiny registration office. There was no choice but to take what you wanted and return to your room or to one of the picnic tables in the motor lodge's backyard. Other times, it might not be so clear what the hotel's rules are about where the consumables are consumed.

I recall one buffet several years ago featured a sign that read: "Take as much as you want but eat as much as you take." That resulted in a chuckle, but it was still unclear if they meant to eat it right there and then or if it didn't matter as long as it was eaten and not wasted.

As Robin notes in her email to me, you can reasonably assume that the hotel is fine with and expects guests to take food back to their rooms if they provide disposable containers to carry the food. If you pack up a piece of fruit and a biscuit and end up eating it a bit after the breakfast hour that hardly seems to violate the spirit of the buffet. I'm fairly certain an apple doesn't care when it's eaten and neither should the hotel staff.

The right thing, however, is for the managers of the establishment to make clear what the rules are. If there is a sign asking guests to refrain from taking food or drink back to their rooms, they should. If no such sign is posted, then it seems fair to assume it's OK to do so. Some people simply want to enjoy  their first cup of coffee of the day alone. 

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a senior lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com. 

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin. 

(c) 2021 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.