The Right Thing: October 2026

Sunday, October 18, 2026

Saved from trouble with a pocketknife

What is your responsibility once you realize you’ve made a mistake?

A nor’easter was bearing down on us in late September in Boston. We had tickets to a Ray LaMontagne concert that had been postponed from the previous year because of the singer’s health. The venue for the concert was an outdoor pavilion on the waterfront in Boston that is covered by a large canopy. If rain hit while we were at the concert, we’d likely remain dry unless the winds picked up.

The forecast of when the storm might hit the strongest kept changing. We decided to risk the elements and made our way by public transportation to the South Station subway stop and then walked the roughly mile-and-a-half to the venue. On the walk from the station, I realized that I still had an old pocketknife in my pants pocket that I had used earlier in the day for yard work. We arrived at the venue early and I asked the bag check workers if they could hold the pocketknife for me during the concert. They told me they couldn’t, but also told me I wouldn’t be able to get inside with it.

The pocketknife had no sentimental value. I had found it about 20 years ago and found it useful to carry around when I was doing chores around the yard. It wasn’t particularly sharp, and had some chips in the blade. That I didn’t care if I lost it was precisely why I carried it around. Nevertheless, I thought someone else might find it useful. Rather than cause a ruckus at the security check-in, my wife, Nancy, remembered we had passed a Massachusetts state trooper about a block away.

I approached the trooper and told him that I had a pocketknife on me that I would like to surrender to him so I could get into the concert venue. He asked me why I had a knife on me and, after I told him, I handed it to him. He told me his cruiser number and told me that if I saw the cruiser, I could let him know I’d like the pocketknife back.

When I approached the trooper, I didn’t know the rules about whether he could accept the pocketknife. I was not sure what the trooper would do with the pocketknife. As soon as I handed it to him, it was his responsibility what to do with it.

I suppose I could have found someplace just outside of the venue to hide the knife until after the concert. I also could have tossed it in the trash. I guess I could have given it to the first person I saw nearby who wasn’t going to the concert or to a bartender at one of the many nearby establishments at the waterfront.

The right thing would have been to remember not to bring it with me in the first place. But since I failed on that account, the next best thing seemed to be to give it to someone who might make sure it didn’t end up hurting anyone. The young state trooper my wife remembered seeing seemed to be the best option. I was saved from my trouble by the woman I’d eat bees for.

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, October 11, 2026

Should good deals feel like getting away with something?

What is it with advertisements that seem to rejoice in the possibility of pulling one over on a company?

Years ago, I wrote about Pizza Hut and IKEA advertisements that featured customers gleefully believing that they had gotten away with paying less than they should have.

In the Pizza Hut ad, a delivery person arrives at the door, delivers three pizzas, and is asked by the customer, “That’s only five bucks each, right?” The delivery person responds, “Yes, sir” and the ad concludes with the customer shouting upstairs, “Honey, the pizza kid made the same mistake again.”

In the IKEA ad, a woman checks out with several bags of goods, looks at her receipt, then quickens her pace and shouts at her partner to “start the car!” four times. The final scene is them driving off and her shouting “Wooooooo!” as they leave the parking lot believing they got more than they should have for the price they paid.

The most recent advertisement is offered up by Hyundai. In a number of variations of the ad, someone drives up and lets someone know they need to lie low because of a deal they got from Hyundai that “is so right, it almost feels wrong.” The next scene typically shows the person being confided in rushing off to a Hyundai dealership to get the same apparently ridiculously good deal and then rushing off. We never actually hear what that great deal is in the ads, but the message seems clear: The customer doesn’t want to get caught because the price can’t possibly be right.

I asked back when I wrote about Pizza Hut and IKEA if such ads send the wrong message, suggesting that it’s OK to shortchange a store when a cashier makes a mistake. “That’s hardly a message that we want to send to our kids, and it’s not one we should embrace ourselves,” I wrote. "As customers we expect stores to correct any mistakes that shortchange us, so by the same token the right thing is to correct a delivery person or cashier on his or her mistake, even if it’s in our favor. It may turn out that there wasn’t a mistake after all, but if you suspect that you’ve been undercharged or that not every item was rung up at checkout, the obligation falls on you to make the situation right.”

I wrote that then, but it hasn’t stemmed the tide of similar advertisements over the years. But wouldn’t it be refreshing for both the customer and the seller to bask in the glory of a good deal? Yes, the seller can confirm, it might seem too good to be true, but that’s our price. The customer might remember being told that if something seems to be too good to be true, it’s usually not, but the seller can reassure him or her that that is indeed the price without any hidden fees or gimmicks.

Imagine how much good faith that could build. A good deal shouldn't leave either side feeling as though someone got away with something. It should leave both sides feeling that they were treated fairly, and that they might want to do business again.

Sunday, October 04, 2026

What do we owe a stranger?

For the past several decades, the weekend after Labor Day has been the neighborhood yard sale in the part of Boston where I live. From 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, neighbors in dozens of houses put out stuff they no longer want on tables or lawns in front of their houses. The yard sale and Halloween are big events for the neighborhood. Each offers a time to get out and talk to neighbors, but also to meet lots of strangers who come to the events. (We typically give out at least 600 pieces of candy each Halloween.)

The woman I'd eat bees for and I put out stuff in front of our house and spent some time talking and selling. After our adult daughter and her husband arrived and took a walk around the neighborhood, they minded our tables while we took a walk. Just up the street from our house are a city-run basketball court, a street hockey court, and a couple of tennis courts. We passed a young man reaching into a car, and I noticed blood on his face as he got out. I saw that he had retrieved some tissue that he was stuffing into his nose.

The young man was not someone I recognized. I had no idea how he might have gotten the bloody nose. There may have been others around who knew him. I didn't know if he had fallen, if he'd been in a fight, or if something less onerous had occurred. Nevertheless, I asked him: "Do you need any help?"

He smiled. "No thanks. I just got hit in the face with a tennis ball." Then he ran across the street to the tennis courts to rejoin his game, a game I hadn't known he was part of. He had simply wanted to slow the nosebleed.

The incident with the stranger raised the question of what we owe strangers. Is it right to offer help if someone seems in need or to simply mind our own business and move on? When does help become meddling? Or is risking a bit of meddling the right course of action if we believe someone might be in need?

It cost me nothing to ask the young man if he needed help. He could have said yes. He could have said no. He could have told me to mind my own business. He was under no obligation to say anything. How he responded was his choice.

Solving whatever problem this stranger might have had wasn’t my responsibility. But it struck me as important to notice when someone might need help. I didn’t know the whole story before I asked. I didn’t feel it was my responsibility to intervene if he didn’t need help. I just wanted to know if he was OK and in need of help.

The right thing sometimes is simply to ask.

The stranger may tell us he needs help or that he doesn't. Regardless, we have done something small but important. We have let someone know that someone noticed.