Lil, a reader who prefers I not use her real name, works
for an organization that allows its employees to accept small gifts from
clients or families of clients, as long as they do not exceed $25 in value.
Often these include baked goods or other homemade treats.
Last December, Lil received banana bread that was baked
by one of her client's mothers. Lil knew the family well and writes that she
was concerned about the "cleanliness" of the kitchen in which the
banana bread was baked. Rather than decline the gift because of her concern,
Lil decided to accept it and graciously thanked the grandparent.
Lil writes that she hesitated about whether to dispose of
the banana bread by throwing it away. It seemed "a waste of food" to
her to do so.
Lil decided to leave the banana bread out in her
workplace's common area for any of her colleagues who wanted to have a slice.
"None of them knew the family, so they had no reason
to be concerned about cleanliness," Lil writes.
Within an hour, the banana bread was consumed.
All these months later, Lil wonders if she did the right
thing by accepting a gift she knew she found suspect. She also is nagged by the
thought that perhaps it wasn't entirely fair to her colleagues to offer them
the banana bread when she had concerns about its origins.
"Should I have handled this differently?" Lil
wonders.
Yes. Yes, Lil should have handled this differently.
There was nothing wrong with being gracious about
accepting the gift when she knew she would never eat here. Many of us have
received gifts over the years, food or other, where we knew on impact there was
no way we would use it, display it, or consume it. But there's no need to
embarrass a gift giver by refusing their gift or questioning their taste.
Expressing thanks for a gift is appropriate and takes little effort.
Where Lil went wrong was to foist the suspect banana
bread onto her colleagues without disclosing her concerns about its
"cleanliness." If Lil was concerned and refused to eat it because it
might have been prepared in an unclean setting, it was not OK to risk her
colleagues' health by putting it out for their consumption -- and, given the
history of shared food in her workplace, she was confident it would be
consumed.
That no one got sick after eating the banana bread is a
good thing, but doesn't make right the wrongness of Lil's choice. The right
thing would have been for Lil to accept the gift and then, if she believed the
banana bread was not fit for consumption to dispose of it when the gift giver
was not present to witness its burial.
If Lil was unwilling to tell her colleagues about her
concern about the cleanliness of the gift giver's kitchen because it might
color their perception of the banana bread and its giver, then she should have
taken that as a sign to toss it rather than share it. No one should put the
health of colleagues at risk, even if the perception of that risk proves to be
ill-founded.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a 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 answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net.
Follow him on Twitter: @jseglin
(c) 2015 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.
4 comments:
It's people like 'Lil' that prevent me from eating at potlucks and buffets...you never know how food was prepared or if the cat helped make it.
The right thing would have been to throw it away quietly after accepting the gift. Given it's likely condition it was really no longer suitable for eating, thus food was not being wasted.
Lil did the wrong thing. She had several choices, and she did one good thing by accepting the bread and thanking the gift giver for her thoughtfulness. But with her concerns about the cleanliness of the bread, she should not have foisted it off on her co-workers!
What to do with the bread? Take it to a park, where squirrels, birds, and chipmunks could enjoy it.
If Lil had any misgivings, particularly regarding the banana bread's preparation and consumption, she should have accepted and discarded it, as opposed to providing it to coworkers, who could have been suspected to illness or worse. If not appropriate for you, sanitation wise, it's likely not for others.
Đơn vị chuyên đặt mua hàng giúp nước ngoài
Đơn vị nhận đặt mua hàng giúp quốc tế
Đơn vị chuyên đặt mua hộ hàng nước ngoài
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