Who is responsible if a cashier deliberately undercharges?

After the breakout of COVID-19, a reader we're calling Olive worked from home for three months and limited any trips to stores to an every-other-week visit to her local supermarket. She would wear a mask into the store, make her purchases, return home, put the groceries away and then wash her hands copiously. Washing her hands copiously throughout the day became routine.

After three months, Olive decided to expand her outside-the-home activities to an occasional pickup of takeout food from a local restaurant or a trip to her favorite garden center. It was planting season, she writes, and if she was going to be cooped up at home she wanted to be able to get outside and work on her modest garden.

"I went to the garden center last week to buy some clay pots," writes Olive. "There was one in particular I liked, but it was one of the few pots on the shelves that didn't have a price tag." Olive writes that she looked at a smaller size version of the pot and noted it had a $5 price tag on it.

She picked up a few other items at the center and made her way to the checkout line, making sure to pay heed to the marks on the floor that indicated six-foot distances checking-out customers should keep from one another as they went to pay the cashier.

"When I got to the cashier, I told her that the pot was the only one like it on the shelf and that it didn't have a price tag." The cashier took out a three-ring binder and began to look up the price for the pot, but was having trouble finding it. Olive then told the cashier that a smaller version of the pot was labeled as costing $5.

"Since you told me that other pot cost $5, I'll charge you $4 for this one," the cashier said.

Olive was a bit taken aback given that in her experience larger pots generally cost more than smaller ones, but there was a long line behind her and she felt foolish about arguing that it should cost more. She paid up, grabbed her purchases, and left the store.

After she unloaded her items and as she was washing her hands, Olive wondered if she did the right thing by not questioning the cashier's decision to charge her less than the pot likely cost.

"Should I have said something when she told me the price?" asks Olive.

Years ago, I wrote about a reader who knew she was undercharged for an item but the cashier had no idea that the item rang up as some other item that cost less. In that case, bringing the discrepancy to the attention of the cashier would have been the right thing to do.

But Olive was concealing nothing here. She did the right thing by pointing out what the smaller version of the item cost. The cashier may have had discretion about how to charge for non-tagged items, but it's more likely that she simply didn't want to take the time to find the right price for it. If the cashier couldn't find the right price for the clay pot, she could have asked an associate or a manager to help her find it. The cashier fell short on doing the right thing. Olive did not.

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.

Follow him on Twitter: @jseglin

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

(c) 2020 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Should we take free stuff intended for those who need it?

In early May, dairy farmers in Boston were prepared to give away about 8,600 gallons of milk to families who were in need. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, dairy farmers had found that demand for their product had been far lower than typical. Rather than throwing away the excess milk, as part of a project called "Farmer's Feeding Families" the dairies set up areas where people could pick up up to two gallons of milk. Anything that remained would be donated to area food banks.

I live less than a mile from one of the spots where the milk was being distributed. After more than a month of seeing next to no traffic on roads since many people were working remotely from home, dozens of cars lined up to claim a gallon or two. Others walked up on foot. The only requirement was that each recipient must be wearing a face mask when they approached the distribution site. The milk was to be given away by the end of the day on a first come, first serve basis.

In addition to dairy farmers finding themselves with more milk than they could typically sell, as restaurants and other food providers have been working to provide meals to healthcare works, school children, and others affected by the virus, it has become a semi-regular occurrence to see posts from providers indicating that they needed to give away excess food before it spoiled.

In cases such as the milk giveaway it was made clear that the offer was for families in need. It is clear that the primary motive was to provide sustenance for those who need it and might not be able to afford to pay for it.

"My neighbor told me about the milk giveaway," one reader emailed me. "She can afford to buy her own milk, but she waited on line and grabbed two gallons anyway."

The reader tells me that the neighbor told her she would put the milk to good use with all of the baking she's been doing while working from home. Besides, she told her neighbor that she figured it was better to take advantage of the milk than to let it go to waste.

"No one asked her if she needed the milk," the reader writes. "She just drove up and they gave it to her. That doesn't seem right."

The dairy offer made clear that any excess milk wouldn't go to waste, but instead would be donated to local food banks. The volunteers distributing the milk didn't check to make sure everyone claiming a gallon was "in need," but worked hard to distribute as much as they could.

There might be nothing illegal about claiming goods meant for those who truly need it, but the right thing would have been to honor the intention of the giveaway. Getting free stuff can be great. But doing so because of a sense of entitlement or satisfaction in getting something for nothing at a time when others don't have the luxury of being able to afford to purchase milk or food as an alternative is both selfish and wrong.

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.

Follow him on Twitter: @jseglin

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

(c) 2020 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

When peaceful protests and a pandemic collide

On Sunday, September 15, 1963, the 16th Street Church in Birmingham, Alabama, was bombed. The church, whose congregation was predominantly Black, was also where civil rights leaders regularly met. Four young girls were killed. Their names are Addie Mae Collins (14), Cynthia Wesley (14), Carole Robertson (14), and Denise McNair (11). Several others were injured.

Dudley Randall's poem "Ballad of Birmingham" references the church bombing. In it, a young girl pleads with her mother to allow her to "march the streets of Birmingham/ In a Freedom March today?"

Concerned for her daughter's safety, the mother refuses her request: "'No, baby, no, you may not go/ For I fear those guns will fire. But you may go to the church instead/ And sing in the children's choir.'"

The mother hears the explosion, rushes to the church, "claws through the bits of glass and brick,/ Then lifted out a shoe." The mother's closing lament is heart wrenching: "'O, here's the shoe my baby wore,/ But baby where are you now?'"

Today, we find ourselves in the midst of a pandemic where early data suggests Black communities are suffering from COVID-19 at a disproportionate rate. "Social conditions, structural racism, and other factors elevate risk for COVID-19 diagnoses and deaths in Black communities," concluded the writers of "Assessing Differential Impacts of COVID-19 on Black Communities," in an article in Annals of Epidemiology.

As coronavirus lingers, peaceful protestors have taken to the streets to protest the racist murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and other Black Americans. Many protestors face the decision of peacefully protesting injustice while recognizing that by being in such close proximity to other protestors they could be putting themselves and others at risk of catching or spreading the virus.

They also face the risk of a peaceful protest turning violent. And once again parents find themselves being asked by their children for permission to march the streets in spite of the risks.

"'But,mother, I won't be alone'," said the girl in Randall's poem. "'Other children will go with me,/ And march the streets of Birmingham/ To make our country free.'"

It wasn't until 2000 that charges were brought against two of the white men long suspected of being responsible for bombing the 16th Street Church. Each eventually was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

Certainly, parents should worry about the safety of their children. That's the right thing to do.

But parents should also recognize that there are some injustices that are impossible to isolate to one particular setting. A church, a parked car, or an apartment may be no safer than a protest march for some Black Americans. For some parents, it can seem impossible to keep their children, regardless of their age, safe.

It is reasonable to decide not to engage in peaceful protests out of concern of contracting or spreading coronavirus. For those who choose not to protest peacefully, however, there remains substantial work to do to combat racism, to be anti-racist. Doing nothing or hoping to find a safe haven where racist behavior doesn't exist is not a viable option. Calling out racist behavior among family, friends, classmates, or colleagues when it occurs is a start. But it will take actions rather than merely words "to make our country free."

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.

Follow him on Twitter: @jseglin

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

(c) 2020 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.