How critical is it to keep a confidence?

How obligated are we if we agree to keeping a confidence?

A reader we’re calling Willa recently traveled out of town to spend a few days minding her teenaged grandchildren while their parents were away. While there, Willa’s teenage granddaughter whom we’re calling Addie told her that she had recently solved a trigonometry program in her high school math class that her teacher had never seen before.

The teacher told Addie that he would try to help her publish her solution in an academic journal but gave Addie just a few days to decide if she wanted to do it. Addie told her teacher that she’d think about it, but feared that if her parents knew, there would be even more pressure on her to succeed in school, including possibly summer school. Willa writes that Addie is already an excellent and conscientious student, but she believes that “enough is enough” when it comes to doing extra work in school.

Addie asked her grandmother not to tell Addie’s parents or anybody else about her dilemma. Willa agreed, but when she returned home she told her husband and asked his opinion of how she might advise Addie. Willa writes that her husband thought Addie deserved their support and suggested language for her to use in a text to her that urged her to consider trying to publish her solution.

Addie thanked her grandmother, but now Willa thinks Addie is upset with her because she violated her confidence. Willa’s husband isn’t convinced a teenager should be allowed to let her short-term concerns, however legitimate, determine an action that could potentially impact her life positively in the long run. But what Willa really wants to know is if she was wrong to tell her husband about the situation.

While Willa’s husband may be correct that publishing a solution to a math problem might be a boon to Addie’s high school record, so too might trying out for a sport or activity at which an adviser believes she would excel. Not seizing every opportunity, even the rare ones, might seem myopic, but ultimately, if they trust that Addie knows it would be too much pressure, it seems wise to trust her as she considers her choice.

When asked to keep a confidence, before agreeing to do so, the right thing is to get clear with the requester what they are asking and if you agree to be as clear as possible what you’re agreeing to.

It would have been wrong for Willa to agree not to tell her husband and then to do so. Willa could have told Addie she wouldn’t say anything to Addie’s parents but that she doesn’t keep any secrets from Addie’s grandfather. That way, Addie would have been prepared for the text from her grandmother when it arrived. All bets would have been off if Addie has confided something that was likely to put her in a dangerous situation, but that’s not the case here.

Willa clearly cares about Addie and wanted to give her the best advice possible while still providing her room to make her own decision. Addie might be upset with her grandmother for violating a confidence, but she also might be upset because her grandmother is giving her advice to consider doing something she might not want to do. That Willa offered that advice should send Addie the message of just how much she cares about her.

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) 2025 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Not every disagreement rises to unethical levels

When someone disagrees with us, are they unethical?

Over the past 27 years, I’ve addressed all sorts of ethical issues in The Right Thing column. Mostly, I try to look at how people make ethical choices when faced with multiple options.

It’s important to remember that there is no one right thing to do when faced with a day-to-day decision or a particularly thorny conundrum. In his book “Defining Moments: When Managers Must Choose Between Right and Right," Joseph L. Badaracco, the John Shad Professor of Business Ethics at Harvard Business School, points out that when we are faced with multiple right choices, our goal is to make the best right choice that most aligns with our values. I’ve long found Badaracco, who teaches a course on ethics where he uses examples from literature to guide students through making ethical choices, to be a wise man.

Making a choice can be simple. But making a thoughtful choice where we take the time to examine the implication of our decisions and what affect they might have on others can be hard.

When we make such decisions between right choices, we also would be wise to do so recognizing that someone else when faced with the same choices might end up making a different decision. That doesn’t make us or our choice superior to someone else. We should be able to disagree with someone without unleashing our wrath on someone else simply because they think differently.

It is timely to bring this up again now. Threatening judges because they don’t rule the way we’d like them to is wrong. Defacing or burning automobiles because we disagree with the company owner’s political views is wrong. Harassing someone online because they don’t agree that dating us would the best decision of their life is wrong. Bullying someone to get them to think like we do is never good.

Don’t get me wrong. Disagreeing vociferously and strongly with those whose views we find morally questionable is not only acceptable, it is essential if we want to find a way to live in the world together. It’s good to let others know that their decisions are not made in a vacuum devoid of consequences. When someone makes choices that conflict with our own values or that are likely to have a dire outcome on others, the right thing is to challenge these choices.

Not everything, however, rises to the level of catastrophe. What someone wears to a Cabinet meeting may annoy us, but that alone doesn’t make the person reprehensible. A mayor telling congresspeople to do their job rather than try to run a city may irk a congressperson, but it doesn’t indicate the mayor isn’t following federal, state and local laws.

In her essay, “The Insidious Ethic of Conscience,” the writer Joan Didion wrote that “when we start deceiving ourselves into thinking not that we want something or need something” but that it is a “moral imperative that we have it,” that is when “we join the fashionable madmen,” and that “is when we are in bad trouble.”

She wrote that in 1965. Sixty years later, the right thing remains to avoid joining the fashionable madmen and to work hard to identify decisions others make that are worth fighting over vs. those that simply differ from our own.

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) 2025 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

How far can I go to get past the job screening algorithm?

Is it wrong to tailor a resume to a specific job opening to increase your chances of getting considered for the job?

Companies, particularly large companies, have been using some sort of Applicant Tracking System (ATS) for decades. At first the systems that helped companies sort resumes were done manually, but as technology progressed, ATS began to make use of software applications often using algorithms to screen out applicants for jobs. Some surveys, particularly those done by companies that offer such ATS services, suggest that more than 98% of Fortune 500 companies employee ATS software in their hiring process.

It's reasonable to guess that companies that post job openings online and allow applicants to apply through some sort of online portal use some sort of software to dismiss those who are deemed not to meet the qualifications for a job and to move along those who do to the next phase of consideration for employment.

Even among companies that vigorously use ATS software, at some point, an actual human being engages in the process of reviewing resumes and applications for further consideration. But it can be frustrating to try to break through the algorithmic mishigas to get to that stage.

While the temptation might be to embellish or even fabricate experience to make it to a human being, fight that urge and never lie on a resume, even if you convince yourself you could correct the deception later.

It is fair game and wise, however, to use what a company provides you in its job advertisements to enhance your chances. Most any software algorithm being used is driven by the human being who decides what criteria the company most wants in an applicant. As a result, there are specific words in job ads that are smart to replicate in a cover letter or resume so they most likely match up.

The English language can be a curious beast and there are often multiple words used to describe the same thing. If a company describes a job function using particular words and you know you have experience with those functions but use different words to describe them, then it’s smart to edit your resume and cover letter to mirror the language used by the company.

There is nothing dishonest about rewording application materials to increase your chances of being positively screened by a potential employer, as long as whatever words you use are true. If companies are going to make it more difficult to get your resume to a human being who might be better equipped than an algorithm to grasp how suited you might be for an open position, then it’s totally fine to do what’s necessary to increase your chances of getting to that human being.

In their effort to streamline the job application process by using algorithms, companies might be missing out on exceptional employees simply because they don’t meet the exact screening criteria. Occasionally, people who were ruled out by screening software later get hired after someone at the company who heard about them and handed their resume and application materials to a hiring manager.

Until companies get back to a more human approach to job application screening, however, the right thing is do what you can honestly do to enhance your chances of getting employed.

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) 2025 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Do newspapers do their jobs?

Should we verify a complaint about media before making it?

Fewer and fewer Americans prefer print publications for getting their news. In an August 2024 survey, Pew Research found that only 4% of those surveyed preferred getting their news from print publications. Thirty-two percent preferred television. By far the top preference was to receive news from digital devices with 58% preferring this method of delivery.

Granted, many of those news reports on digital devices are drawn from print publications, albeit often just a headline or snippet posted to followers. When people rely on social media to get their news (as 54% of the respondents to the Pew survey indicated they sometimes do), what they often get is the news posted by people or groups they choose to follow. It hardly provides them with full reports of the news or even a broad array of all that might be going on in their world.

Newspapers, whether international, national or local, still provide broader coverage of the news than most other options, especially if people read the articles. Receiving headlines on a social media feed rarely gives someone a full scope of the news being reported. Getting those headlines without actually clicking on them to read the articles too often results in users not having a clear understanding of the details of whatever is being reported.

Nevertheless, there seems to be a growing tendency to complain that newspapers aren’t covering events of importance to an actual reader. And these complaints are too often lobbied by people among that 96% who prefer to get their news elsewhere.

Before complaining about an absence of coverage, however, users would do well to make sure their complaints are valid. It’s OK to gripe that a significant event wasn’t covered, but doing so without verifying that it actually wasn’t covered feeds into a growing tendency to blame the media for things that are more likely to result in selective filtering of where you decide to get your news.

Granted, with more outlets from which to receive news, circulation of newspapers is way down. In 1990, the circulation of weekday newspapers was 63.2 million. By 2022, it had fallen to 20.9 million. Nevertheless, the reporting is out there if you want to find it. (Full disclosure: Since my column is carried in newspapers, I have a vested interest in keeping them alive by having readers subscribe to them.)

Before complaining about a newspaper not covering an event, the right thing is to make sure it really wasn't covered. I have a friend on social media who does this fairly straightforwardly by posing a question to her followers if anyone has seen particular coverage. She relies on those of us who still subscribe to provide her with this information before she levels a complaint about coverage. While I’d prefer everyone would subscribe to a newspaper, my social media friend’s solution is sound.

Before adding to the whirring whine of blaming the media for its shortcomings, regardless of political viewpoints, take the time to become informed. The information is out there.

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) 2025 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Offering thanks when thanks are due

Should customers be thankful when a company that often provides hours of frustration when trying to resolve an issue comes through with solid customer service … even if that should be the norm?

The volume on my old Android cell phone had been failing for a while. I hadn’t been able to turn up the volume to hear phone calls for months. No matter how many online hacks I discovered, none of them seemed to fix the issue. I could hear phone calls when I had them on speaker mode or when I Bluetoothed them through the car’s radio, but these solutions were hardly practical when I was trying to have a routine conversation with someone. It didn’t help that my phone was so old, the manufacturer no longer provided operating system updates for it.

I finally decided I needed to buy a new phone rather than live with a phone where I really couldn’t hear most of the conversations I was having with people. When I got to the store, which was in a shopping mall, I told Maurice that the volume on my old phone wasn’t working. He asked me some personal information so he could look up my account. Rather than try to sell me a new phone, he mentioned that I had been paying $4.15 a month for an extended warranty. Because nothing was physically wrong with the phone, Maurice told me that I might be eligible for a free replacement.

Unfortunately, warranties were handled by a different division so Maurice couldn’t handle it, but he gave me the number to call to check. I left the store, walked into a relatively quiet and untrafficked area so I could put my phone on speaker, and called the number. The representative asked a bunch of questions and then offered to send a replacement phone for a $52.06 “replacement fee.” Given that that amount was significantly lower than the cost of buying a new phone, I agreed. The representative ended our call by telling me she would call me three days later at 10 a.m. to help me transfer the data after I received the replacement phone.

I walked back to the phone store, gave a thumbs up to Maurice who shouted “win.” I received the phone the next evening. But the promised phone call at 10 a.m. never came. Typical frustration with my cell phone company began to set in and erase any of the good will Maurice had built. But I found the number he had originally given me, made the frustrating way through the automated response, and then was connected to a technical support person named Jane who patiently spent the next 21 minutes and 43 seconds with me walking me through the data transfer.

When I thanked Jane for her help and patience, she responded: “Patience is a virtue.” That wasn’t the first time she used that phrase on our call. In spite of the annoyance of a broken phone, the lack of a promised follow-up call, a charge of $52.06 for a “free” replacement, and a history of frustration with the phone company, Maurice and Jane did what they could to help me. When a company representative actually tries to help a customer, the right thing is to thank them.

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) 2025 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.