Should we always vote for our friends?

Is it OK to vote for your friends or yourself even if you believe someone else is a better choice?

When I was in graduate school and living in graduate housing, the choice of who would serve as dorm proctor the following academic year was left to the vote of the current dorm residents. The dorm proctor was mostly charged with keeping track of keys and being the direct line of contact for the dean of students whenever an issue arose. The main attraction was that the proctor didn’t have to pay for his or her room for the academic year.

While there were no formal campaigns for the position, there were always several people vying for the position. In trying to weigh who would do the job the best, a friend of mine held firm that the choice was obvious: “You always vote for your friends.”

I was reminded of her admonition when I received an email from Phil Clutts, a long-time reader of the column from North Carolina. Phil had received a notification that a caption he had written for the New Yorker cartoon caption contest was accepted as a finalist and was among the three submitted captions to a blank cartoon that readers would choose as the best for the week.

“I can vote for myself, as can others whom I have encouraged to vote,” wrote Phil. “What if I or the others think that one (or both) of the competing captions is funnier than mine? Can I/we ethically vote for mine?”

Humor, as I’ve written here before, can be a funny thing. If Phil indeed thought his caption was simply awful, he likely shouldn’t have submitted it and tried a little harder. But if his was equally strong, as the screeners at the New Yorker seemed to think it was, then he might ask himself if he simply enjoyed the other entries a bit more because they were new to him. He had likely read and re-read his entry many times before submitting it, so beyond the excitement of learning it was chosen as a finalist, could it be that he was unsure if it was the best of the three simply because it was the most familiar?

I don’t believe Phil should have any qualms about voting for his own work and encouraging others to do so as well. Ultimately, the right thing is to let his friends know about his good news, encourage them to consider his entry, but recognize they might or might not vote for his comedic pearls.

Which brings me to my friend’s admonition that you always vote for your friends. In principle, I understood her reasoning since I was in the running for dorm proctor and I believed it was her way of telling me I had her vote. Of course, she might have been telling me that she was going to vote for another of her friends who might be running. I’ll never know, but unless she believed someone was woefully unqualified to do the job, she was free to use whatever criteria she chose to decide her vote.

I ended up being chosen to serve as dorm proctor. And it turns out Phil won that week’s caption contest with or without his own and his friends’ vote. Nicely done, Mr. Clutts.

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) 2024 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Listening before interrupting may yield better understanding

Is it wrong to correct someone if you’re not certain they’re wrong?

In the early 1970s, when I was a sophomore in high school, I was enrolled in a class called “PSSC Physics.” The other students in the class were seniors with far more science and math classes under their belt than I had. I never knew what the PSSC stood for until about a week ago when I looked it up and found that it was an acronym for the Physical Science Study Committee, a group that grew out of a 1956 conference whose mission it was to produce curriculum for high school physics classes.

I recall few things about the course. I do remember that we had regular standardized tests that were used to measure our progress throughout the term. I remember heavy use of steel ball bearings. There was also a lot of discussion about electricity and currents. But mostly I remember being in way over my head and rarely having a clear grasp of the material. On the rare occasion when I did understand something, or at least thought I understood it, a wave of momentary confidence washed over me.

On one such occasion when I was absolutely certain I knew what was going on, I interrupted our teacher, Mr. Wittman, mid-sentence in his lecture and blurted out, “That’s wrong.” Mr. Wittman was an institution at my high school – older, demanding, revered and not to be messed with. Upon my interruption, without hesitation, he stared me down and responded: “You’re interrupting me to tell me I’m wrong.”

And then he proceeded to lay out how I had been rude in interrupting him, and also laid out clearly in excruciating detail how I was wrong about him being wrong. He ended by looking directly at me from behind the lab table at the front of the room and asked: “Are we clear now?”

I did not ask for clarification on whether he wondered if I was clear on the material or clear about how rude I’d been. I suspect he was referencing both.

That experience with Mr. Wittman has never left me. There have been dozens of incidents since where I have seen others interrupt speakers to correct them before giving them a chance to complete a sentence. It’s been all too common an occurrence to hear someone choose to correct rather than to ask a question or two to make sure they understood what was being discussed. There is a rush to be seen as right and someone else wrong instead of a patience to make sure we are.

Students should question their instructors if they need clarity on a topic. They have every right to challenge what’s being presented if they believe they have something to offer that can advance the discussion.

But the right thing is to make sure we listen to others, whether in a classroom or workplace setting or in life, before we rush to correct. Not just because it’s rude, but because by listening closely we might gain a clearer understanding of what someone is trying to say and it might help us sharpen out own views that may differ from the presenter’s

Mr. Wittman never seemed to hold my interruption against me, and I was able to pass his class. But please don’t quiz me on physics.

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) 2024 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Are you foolish not to maximize your company expense account?

Is it wrong to spend as much as allowable on a business expense report?

According to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners’ (ACFE) 2024 Report to the Nations, one of the most common “occupational fraud schemes” in the United States and Canada involves expense reimbursement. Internationally, roughly 20% of businesses with fewer than 100 employees and 12% of business with more than 100 employees are affected by expense fraud according to the ACFE report.

Filing a fraudulent expense report is wrong, both legally and ethically.

But how careful should employees be expected to be when following the rules of spending their company’s money while doing company business?

A reader we’re calling Tuppence asked if she was being foolish because she tries to be as frugal as possible when traveling on her company’s dime. Whenever possible she eschews an overnight stay that would incur hotel costs and instead books an early flight to her destination and a late flight home. Tuppence also rarely spends the allowable amount on meals or other incidentals while traveling.

What caused Tuppence to ask her question, she says, is that colleagues regularly tease her for being so careful about incurring allowable expenses. Partly she believes they can’t understand why she would care about limiting how much of the company’s money she spends. But she also worries that they think she’s making others look like they might be spending too much.

If Tuppence’s frugality is getting in the way of her doing her job as well as possible, then she might reconsider her approach. If, for example, she regularly is exhausted at meetings while on the road because she arose at an obscenely early hour to catch a flight, then her efforts might not have the best outcome for the company. She also shouldn’t do anything that results in her being personally out of pocket for any expenses that should be legitimately reimbursed. And neither should she be expected not to eat a decent meal while away on company business. Vending machines might be handy, but Tuppence’s health is likely better served by finding something better to consume.

But if Tuppence’s frugality while on company business results from her belief that she doesn’t want to spend more of the company’s money than she has to, even if it’s allowable, she should have no second thoughts regardless of the teasing of colleagues or a fear of somehow not behaving as a hard-driving employee should behave.

The right thing is for Tuppence to do her job as best as she can while on the road and to continue to act in what she believes to be the most responsible way for her company. The right thing for Tuppence’s or anyone’s company is to make sure that when it asks an employee to be away from home that it reimburses them for whatever personal expenses they incur and develops an expense reimbursement policy that is fair, clear and helps ensure that its employees are safe while on the road.

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) 2024 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

It’s time to share your stories of kindness

How do you choose to behave when no one is looking?

Around this time of year, the leaves that once hung from the trees in our yard find their way to the ground. It generally takes two or three days to rake up the leaves, bag them, and bring them to the town compost site. Since the compost site is only open on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, I try to time the raking just right so I can get the bags of leaves to the compost rather than have them sit in the yard or in the garage.

Some of my neighbors use a leaf blower to blow their leaves into a large pile in a corner of their yard, chop them up with their lawnmower, and let them decay. But I prefer not to do that. Others hire a crew to come and rake up the leaves. But I prefer not to do that either. I figure the exercise is good, and as long as I’m capable and can find the time, I’ll continue raking.

A few years ago, when the woman I’d eat bees for and I were away, we let a young couple we know stay at our house for a few days around this time of year. They were looking to get away from their apartment for a few days and our empty house was an affordable option.

When we drove up to the house and opened the garage door, we noticed that the garage was packed with several dozen filled paper leaf bags. The young couple had taken it on themselves to rake up most of the leaves in our yard. All I needed to do was to drive the bags to the town compost site.

The young couple never said a word but instead left the raked leaves as a surprise thank you for us. We didn’t expect anything from them in exchange for staying in the house. Nevertheless, they chose to make this expression of kindness. We were touched.

A few years ago when I shared a similar story of strangers or friends engaging in acts of kindness and asked readers to send me stories of their own, I received an email from a reader in Columbus, Ohio, urging me not to read too much into it if I didn’t receive a lot of responses.

“Please do not think there are not nice people doing kind things out there,” he wrote. “They might just not want to be recognized for it.”

The reader’s point made sense. Sometimes we simply do the right thing when no one is looking because we believe it’s the right thing to do. Nevertheless, many of you continue to share your stories with me of kindnesses given or received. And I will continue to share those stories not because you expect the recognition, but because it might continue to provide encouragement to others to do kind things when given the opportunity.

So tell me the small or not so small things you’ve done for others or others have done for you when no one is looking. Tell me who and where you are and send your stories to me at jeffreyseglin@gmail.com. If it’s OK with you, I may share some of your stories in the weeks ahead.

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) 2024 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.