The Right Thing: March 2026

Sunday, March 15, 2026

Does getting our name wrong warrant anger?

Is it wrong to get angry when someone gets our name wrong?

On June 2, 1969, while sitting in folding chairs in front of John Hill School in Boonton, New Jersey, at an assembly along with my seventh-grade classmates, I received an honorable mention for an essay I wrote for the American Legion safety essay contest. New Jersey’s America Legion has been running the contest for more than 80 years. I didn’t win the local branch’s contest. That honor went, as I recall, to Melanie Cox, a classmate. But getting honorable mention felt like a big deal, especially since it was announced in front of my whole class and I received an official certificate.

They spelled my name wrong on the certificate.

On it, in all capital letters is typed “Jeffrey Siglin.” Close enough, I guess, so my classmates would know it was meant to be “Jeffrey Seglin,” but incorrect nonetheless.

I was disappointed as were my parents, but we didn’t say anything. As I recall, while we’d been told about the essay and the topic ahead of time, we wrote the essays while sitting as a class in the school’s auditorium, so it wasn’t as if I’d spent days researching and writing it.

I didn’t want my parents to make a big deal over the misspelling. Perhaps it was enough to know that I received the certificate. More likely, as a 12-year-old, I didn’t want to anger whoever it was we might have to tell about their mistake.

If the same mistake happened now that I am an adult (and it has), I don’t hesitate to correct whatever it is my name happens to be misspelled on. I don’t get upset if they use “Jeff” instead of “Jeffrey” on something without asking which I prefer, but if they spell my first or last name wrong, I ask them to correct it.

But I don’t get angry about the error. My assumption is that while they didn’t take the time to check the facts and get the spelling right or that they simply made a typographical error, they didn’t do it with any malice intended. Exuding ire over the mistake as if it’s a deliberate slight accomplishes nothing other than to make them feel worse about their error or make me look churlish, something I try to avoid when possible.

Nevertheless, the right thing to do when someone gets our names or personal information wrong is to correct them, but to try to do so in a way that doesn’t suggest they are an evil human being for making the mistake.

Today, I treasure the American Legion certificate for a different reason than being acknowledged in front of my classmates. I use it to remind myself of the importance of humility. No matter how hard we work or how much effort we put into some task, none of us is so important that someone won’t get our name wrong from time to time. And the world won’t end.

Today, the certificate is framed and up on my office wall along with a framed thank you letter from the White House mistakenly printed upside down on White House stationery. But on the latter, they spelled my name correctly.

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.

Sunday, March 08, 2026

Is it wrong to make campaign contributions to someone who doesn’t represent you?

Should we be allowed to contribute money to a political candidate for whom we are not a constituent?

That was the question posed to me recently by M.F., a reader from California. M.F. wanted to know if I considered it ethical to make such contributions, such as donating to a U.S. senator’s campaign when one is not a resident of that state.

M.F. does not indicate why she is asking or if she takes issue with U.S. citizens making contributions to candidates for whom they can’t vote. She may be OK with it. She might believe that it should be considered wrong for someone to donate money and possibly try to influence the election in a jurisdiction outside of where they vote.

Currently, it is not illegal for any individual to donate to someone running for office in a jurisdiction outside of where that individual is registered to vote as long as the individual is a U.S. citizen or permanent resident and as long as they don’t exceed any donation contribution limits. (For federal elections such as the hypothetical U.S. Senate race that M.F. raises, those contribution limits are laid out by the Federal Election Commission (FEC) here: https://www.fec.gov/help-candidates-and-committees/candidate-taking-receipts/contribution-limits/.

Some might make the argument that it’s wrong for non-constituents to stick their noses into another state’s politics. But others might argue that while they can’t vote for that out-of-state candidate, they can show support for someone who might have influence over national policies that ultimately affect all citizens.

While it might be legal to donate to candidates they cannot vote for, contributors shouldn’t expect that their donations will or should in any way shift that candidate’s responsibility to represent the voters who might put them into office. Contributing to a candidate because you believe they might do a good job governing wherever they happen to be governing is OK. Contributing to a candidate to try to buy influence crosses ethical and legal lines, but that’s true whether you are a constituent or not.

There could be occasions when a good deal of money from individual contributors for an election flows in from a particular region outside of a candidate’s prospective jurisdiction. This may raise flags that outsiders may be exerting undue influence where they have no business doing so. The right thing for candidates to do is to make sure they know where the money is coming from and reject money from those whose views they know to be abhorrent.

If you’re going to contribute to a candidate, the right thing is to make sure you are doing so legally and make sure you have no expectations for anything in return other than the hope that the candidate will do their job well. Candidates should commit to not letting any money purchase their votes if they make it to office.

When only 53% of people in the United States believe their elected officials are honest according to a recent Pew Research Center poll, it might be easy to dismiss the expectation that candidates running for office will do what’s right. Nevertheless, they should and voters should hold them accountable even if it takes waiting until the next election cycle to vote them out of office.

Sunday, March 01, 2026

When do loud talkers on the train cross the line?

Are loud conversations on electronic devices on public transportation wrong?

I live in Boston, and it’s often simpler to travel from here to Manhattan by an Amtrak train rather than fly. The train involves fewer changes and less waiting around. It also gives me a concentrated 3.5 to 4 hours of reading, napping or catching up on email since the Amtrak Wi-Fi is generally pretty reliable.

The Amtrak Wi-Fi is so reliable that several others who were traveling on the train broke out their laptops and phones and used the journey as an extension of their workspace. That seems smart and productive, although some phone conversations could sometimes grow loud and distracting.

I hadn’t purchased tickets for the quiet car or business class on Amtrak, so such conversations were to be expected. Amtrak rules though are that these conversations must be one-sided and require passengers to use earbuds or headphones if they are going to talk on their phones or do video calls.

Again, it may be distracting, but there is nothing wrong with someone using their phone or talking while on the train as long as they aren’t deliberately trying to be rude or obnoxious to fellow passengers. There is, however, an exception that should be considered by any passenger doing business while on the train. My observations are based on my most recent train trip from Boston to New York City.

For most of the trip, a passenger had her laptop out and engaged in business via FaceTime or cellphone throughout. All well and good and something I could have avoided had I tried to grab a seat in the quiet car.

Where this passenger crossed a line, however, was when she was speaking to a colleague or supervisor to register complaints about a colleague. Most of these complaints had to do with that colleague making the passenger feel dismissed or not listened to. That’s OK, too. What’s not OK is that the passenger mentioned the colleague by name – and by full name, presumably because there were others who shared the same first name, and then by name repeatedly through the elongated airing of grievances.

The passenger had to have known we could all hear her. What the passenger didn’t know was if any of us knew the person about whom she was complaining or if we worked for the same company or if we were customers. If the passenger wanted to register such complaints, the right thing would have been to make sure they did so in a way that did not risk violating the privacy of the person about whom they were leveling the complaints.

Even though we can stay connected far more easily now than in the past, I believe that some conversations are better had in private and ideally in person. My aggrieved passenger might have taken a more thoughtful approach by finding a time where their side of the conversation was only heard by the person being complained to.