In early June The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Philadelphia Daily News ran a series of fake advertisements to see how well online and print ads performed. One ad in particular, for a fake airline called Derrie-Air, attracted a sizable number of readers who clicked on the online ad.
Many observers felt that, in running the fake ads, the newspapers were deceiving their readers. As a result, they said, readers might distrust other information in the newspaper.
What do you think? Is it OK to run fake ads to gauge reader interest? Or is it a breach of trust? And did the newspapers damage their credibility as a result?
Post your thoughts here by clicking on "comments" or "post a comment" below. Please include your name, hometown, and state, province, or country. Readers' comments may appear in an upcoming column. Or e-mail your comments to me at rightthing@nytimes.com.
You can also respond to the poll about this question that appears on the right-hand side of the blog.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business (Smith Kerr, 2006), is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of The Right Thing, a Web log focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," The New York Times Syndicate, 500 Seventh Avenue, 8th floor, New York, NY 10018. Please remember to tell me who you are, where you're from, as well as where you read the column.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
Sunday, June 22, 2008
THE RIGHT THING: THE PRICE IS RIGHT ... FOR NOW
I envy no one who has to go through the process of buying a house.
An endless search for a house that suits your needs and matches your budget. Negotiating a price that seems fair to the buyer and acceptable to the seller. Mind-numbing paperwork and details to get the deal closed and then, finally, you can collapse into your dream house ... and get to work on broken screens, rusty storm doors, suspicious traces of pests among your woodwork, peeling paint and the fireplace that blows smoke into your living room.
The process is no less taxing for a seller. After months of trying to unload your property, you finally find the perfect buyer. But he can't sell his former house, can't get financing or reneges on the deal because the building inspector tells him that an outlet plate in the garage is missing and an attic door is short a few screws.
Sellers mistrust buyers. Buyers mistrust sellers. It's a wonder any house ever changes hands.
While it would be nice to think that a handshake and someone's word were enough to seal a deal, they aren't. Even when specific conditions are written and agreed to as part of a sale, it's often a challenge to hold all parties to their commitments.
A reader from Ohio learned the importance of getting everything in writing not long ago, after he and his wife decided to sell their house and move to Florida. One of their longtime neighbors expressed an interest in buying their house, so, instead of putting it on the market, my reader had it appraised, after which he and the neighbor agreed on a selling price. Because they hadn't listed the house with a broker or advertised its sale, there were no counteroffers.
The day before he was to leave, however, the neighbors - one of whom is a real-estate agent - told my reader that her bank had appraised the house for $14,000 less than the agreed-upon price. With the move upon him, my reader negotiated and was able to get his neighbor up slightly, but the final price was still $6,000 less than the original agreement.
My reader's brother believes that the neighbor used the pressure of the imminent move in an unethical way by not revealing the lower appraisal earlier, enabling her to use it to coerce a lower price. He asked what I think.
It's impossible to get inside the head of the buyers to know what motivated them. All the same, it wasn't right for them to wait until the absolute last minute to change the deal. The right thing would have been for them to get the appraisal before they agreed to the price in the first place. There's no virtue in making a last-minute change, especially in doing so at what had to be the most inopportune time for the seller.
But my reader also had a responsibility to protect his and his wife's interests by getting that offer in writing. He may have been well-intentioned and trusting, but he was reckless with his family's fortunes. While he was able to salvage some of the lost price, the right thing would have been for both parties to agree to a deal in writing and stick to it.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
An endless search for a house that suits your needs and matches your budget. Negotiating a price that seems fair to the buyer and acceptable to the seller. Mind-numbing paperwork and details to get the deal closed and then, finally, you can collapse into your dream house ... and get to work on broken screens, rusty storm doors, suspicious traces of pests among your woodwork, peeling paint and the fireplace that blows smoke into your living room.
The process is no less taxing for a seller. After months of trying to unload your property, you finally find the perfect buyer. But he can't sell his former house, can't get financing or reneges on the deal because the building inspector tells him that an outlet plate in the garage is missing and an attic door is short a few screws.
Sellers mistrust buyers. Buyers mistrust sellers. It's a wonder any house ever changes hands.
While it would be nice to think that a handshake and someone's word were enough to seal a deal, they aren't. Even when specific conditions are written and agreed to as part of a sale, it's often a challenge to hold all parties to their commitments.
A reader from Ohio learned the importance of getting everything in writing not long ago, after he and his wife decided to sell their house and move to Florida. One of their longtime neighbors expressed an interest in buying their house, so, instead of putting it on the market, my reader had it appraised, after which he and the neighbor agreed on a selling price. Because they hadn't listed the house with a broker or advertised its sale, there were no counteroffers.
The day before he was to leave, however, the neighbors - one of whom is a real-estate agent - told my reader that her bank had appraised the house for $14,000 less than the agreed-upon price. With the move upon him, my reader negotiated and was able to get his neighbor up slightly, but the final price was still $6,000 less than the original agreement.
My reader's brother believes that the neighbor used the pressure of the imminent move in an unethical way by not revealing the lower appraisal earlier, enabling her to use it to coerce a lower price. He asked what I think.
It's impossible to get inside the head of the buyers to know what motivated them. All the same, it wasn't right for them to wait until the absolute last minute to change the deal. The right thing would have been for them to get the appraisal before they agreed to the price in the first place. There's no virtue in making a last-minute change, especially in doing so at what had to be the most inopportune time for the seller.
But my reader also had a responsibility to protect his and his wife's interests by getting that offer in writing. He may have been well-intentioned and trusting, but he was reckless with his family's fortunes. While he was able to salvage some of the lost price, the right thing would have been for both parties to agree to a deal in writing and stick to it.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
Sunday, June 15, 2008
THE RIGHT THING: PARTY OF THE OTHER PART
I don't write about etiquette. If you're looking for advice on how many months you have to give a couple a gift after their wedding or whether you should wait for a hostess to unfold her cloth napkin before you unfold yours, I'm not your guy.
But there are occasions when questions about ethics, which involves the moral rightness of a decision, and etiquette, which is concerned with how you should behave in social situations, overlap.
A reader from California writes to me that she is known for her "wonderful dinner parties." For these sit-down events she sets two tables, one for 12 people and the other for six. She places her married guests apart from their spouses so that they can mingle with people who will be "new and interesting."
Both tables are in the dining room, but the smaller table is slightly closer to the kitchen.
At a recent dinner party, one couple called her after they had left -- while the party was still going on -- and screamed at her that they had never been so humiliated in their lives.
"You are so Beverly Hills," the couple yelled. "You put us at the B table! Why did you put us with those old people instead of our friends?"
As someone who spends little time in Beverly Hills, I have no idea what they meant by "so Beverly Hills," but I do know that it wasn't meant as a compliment. My reader provides some guidance by noting that the callers seemed particularly incensed because there was a celebrity at the larger table, which in their minds made it the A table. She adds that she had deliberately separated the couple from their friends because the pairs had been giving one another the cold shoulder for several weeks.
"I found the rudeness uncalled for," my reader writes. "What should I have done?"
It was probably a breach of etiquette for the couple to berate their hostess while the party was still going on, but was it also a lapse in ethical judgment?
I believe so. They might have expressed their disappointment at not being seated with their friends in a civil manner, but instead chose to verbally attack my reader and accuse her of deliberately slighting them. Their behavior crossed into ethical territory when they decided to attack her. Not sending a thank-you note would have been a breach in etiquette, but shouting expletives about being seated near the kitchen goes a step further. That they called while the party was still in progress makes it a full-blown leap into doing the wrong thing.
The right thing for my reader to do was to let them know that she was sorry they were upset, explain that she had a dinner party to get back to and then seriously consider striking them from her list of future invitees.
Treating people badly lands firmly in unethical territory. Granted, how people behave at a swank dinner party ranks low on anyone's list of most egregious ethical lapses. It's how we behave in our day-to-day dealings that ultimately defines who we really are, though. Learning to be gracious is a lesson that will improve both our etiquette and our ethics.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
But there are occasions when questions about ethics, which involves the moral rightness of a decision, and etiquette, which is concerned with how you should behave in social situations, overlap.
A reader from California writes to me that she is known for her "wonderful dinner parties." For these sit-down events she sets two tables, one for 12 people and the other for six. She places her married guests apart from their spouses so that they can mingle with people who will be "new and interesting."
Both tables are in the dining room, but the smaller table is slightly closer to the kitchen.
At a recent dinner party, one couple called her after they had left -- while the party was still going on -- and screamed at her that they had never been so humiliated in their lives.
"You are so Beverly Hills," the couple yelled. "You put us at the B table! Why did you put us with those old people instead of our friends?"
As someone who spends little time in Beverly Hills, I have no idea what they meant by "so Beverly Hills," but I do know that it wasn't meant as a compliment. My reader provides some guidance by noting that the callers seemed particularly incensed because there was a celebrity at the larger table, which in their minds made it the A table. She adds that she had deliberately separated the couple from their friends because the pairs had been giving one another the cold shoulder for several weeks.
"I found the rudeness uncalled for," my reader writes. "What should I have done?"
It was probably a breach of etiquette for the couple to berate their hostess while the party was still going on, but was it also a lapse in ethical judgment?
I believe so. They might have expressed their disappointment at not being seated with their friends in a civil manner, but instead chose to verbally attack my reader and accuse her of deliberately slighting them. Their behavior crossed into ethical territory when they decided to attack her. Not sending a thank-you note would have been a breach in etiquette, but shouting expletives about being seated near the kitchen goes a step further. That they called while the party was still in progress makes it a full-blown leap into doing the wrong thing.
The right thing for my reader to do was to let them know that she was sorry they were upset, explain that she had a dinner party to get back to and then seriously consider striking them from her list of future invitees.
Treating people badly lands firmly in unethical territory. Granted, how people behave at a swank dinner party ranks low on anyone's list of most egregious ethical lapses. It's how we behave in our day-to-day dealings that ultimately defines who we really are, though. Learning to be gracious is a lesson that will improve both our etiquette and our ethics.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
SOUND OFF: SICK CALLS
I asked my readers whether or not it is OK to call in sick when you're not really sick, and the vast majority who responded came down firmly on the side of it not being OK. The results of an unscientific poll on my column's blog have 47 percent voting it not OK, 17 percent voting it OK, 19 percent voting it sometimes OK and another 17 percent voting it not OK but adding that they've done it anyway.
"If a person is not sick, they have no right to call in sick," writes Delaine P. Whitehead of Tustin, Calif. "A person can use any number of euphemisms to excuse such behavior, but it is still just a lie."
"If a large number of people are not honest with employers," writes Brenda Levy of Richmond, Va., "then the employer may be forced to change its policy, which would put everyone at a disadvantage."
Madilyn Bruening of Riverton, Utah, highlights how one employer has addressed such issues.
"A good friend has a job where employees are given two extra sick days per year to be used for their well-being," she writes. "The idea is that, when her job gets too stressful, she then can take one of these days to ditch work and recuperate."
Check out other opinions here, or post your own or post your own by clicking on "comments" or "post a comment" below.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business and The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of The Right Thing, a Web log focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," The New York Times Syndicate, 500 Seventh Avenue, 8th floor, New York, NY 10018. Please remember to tell me who you are, where you're from, as well as where you read the column.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
"If a person is not sick, they have no right to call in sick," writes Delaine P. Whitehead of Tustin, Calif. "A person can use any number of euphemisms to excuse such behavior, but it is still just a lie."
"If a large number of people are not honest with employers," writes Brenda Levy of Richmond, Va., "then the employer may be forced to change its policy, which would put everyone at a disadvantage."
Madilyn Bruening of Riverton, Utah, highlights how one employer has addressed such issues.
"A good friend has a job where employees are given two extra sick days per year to be used for their well-being," she writes. "The idea is that, when her job gets too stressful, she then can take one of these days to ditch work and recuperate."
Check out other opinions here, or post your own or post your own by clicking on "comments" or "post a comment" below.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business and The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of The Right Thing, a Web log focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," The New York Times Syndicate, 500 Seventh Avenue, 8th floor, New York, NY 10018. Please remember to tell me who you are, where you're from, as well as where you read the column.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
The Right Thing Stories
For the weekly newspaper ethics column I write for the New York Times Syndicate called "The Right Thing," I am always looking for stories of ethical challenges, dilemmas, and perplexing situations. If you have such a story or question based on an incident and would like it to be considered for the column, please email it to me at rightthing@nytimes.com. (Or you can post it here by clicking on "comments" or "post a comment" below.
Please make sure to include enough details about the story, the issue that you're wrestling with, and your name and the city and state or province where you are located. Include a way for me to contact you.If you know of others who might have interesting stories, please forward this email on to them.
If you're local paper doesn't carry The Right Thing column and you'd like it to, you can send an email to the editor of the paper suggesting they contact the New York Times Syndicate. Contact information is available at http://nytsyn.com/saleinfo.html. (Or contact Sales Manager Ana Muñoz at munoza@nytimes.com or 212.499.3333 and tell her the name of your local newspaper that you believe should be carrying the column.)
Thanks in advance for your stories.
Best,
Jeffrey Seglin
Please make sure to include enough details about the story, the issue that you're wrestling with, and your name and the city and state or province where you are located. Include a way for me to contact you.If you know of others who might have interesting stories, please forward this email on to them.
If you're local paper doesn't carry The Right Thing column and you'd like it to, you can send an email to the editor of the paper suggesting they contact the New York Times Syndicate. Contact information is available at http://nytsyn.com/saleinfo.html. (Or contact Sales Manager Ana Muñoz at munoza@nytimes.com or 212.499.3333 and tell her the name of your local newspaper that you believe should be carrying the column.)
Thanks in advance for your stories.
Best,
Jeffrey Seglin
Sunday, June 08, 2008
SOUND OFF: YARD-SALE SCORES
As summer approaches and yard sales pop up around the country, a frequent question from my readers is whether it's OK to take advantage of an unsuspecting seller who is offering what you know to be a valuable item for a fraction of its true worth.
I've previously written about specific instances of yard-sale finds in the column. (See Found Art and Knowing More than You're Telling.) In general, however, do you think it's right to take advantage of a yard-sale seller's ignorance of an item's value? Or should you point out to the sellers that they might want to do some quick research on their Faberge egg before putting it out with the shrimp-cocktail glasses at a nickel apiece?
Post your thoughts here by clicking on "comments" or "post a comment" below. Please include your name, hometown, and state, province, or country. Readers' comments may appear in an upcoming column. Or e-mail your comments to me at rightthing@nytimes.com.
You can also respond to the poll about this question that appears on the right-hand side of the blog.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business (Smith Kerr, 2006), is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of The Right Thing, a Web log focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," The New York Times Syndicate, 500 Seventh Avenue, 8th floor, New York, NY 10018. Please remember to tell me who you are, where you're from, as well as where you read the column.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
I've previously written about specific instances of yard-sale finds in the column. (See Found Art and Knowing More than You're Telling.) In general, however, do you think it's right to take advantage of a yard-sale seller's ignorance of an item's value? Or should you point out to the sellers that they might want to do some quick research on their Faberge egg before putting it out with the shrimp-cocktail glasses at a nickel apiece?
Post your thoughts here by clicking on "comments" or "post a comment" below. Please include your name, hometown, and state, province, or country. Readers' comments may appear in an upcoming column. Or e-mail your comments to me at rightthing@nytimes.com.
You can also respond to the poll about this question that appears on the right-hand side of the blog.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business (Smith Kerr, 2006), is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of The Right Thing, a Web log focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," The New York Times Syndicate, 500 Seventh Avenue, 8th floor, New York, NY 10018. Please remember to tell me who you are, where you're from, as well as where you read the column.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
THE RIGHT THING: DOG-DAY AFTERNOONS
"I know it's spring when the dog calls start," says Bill Hedrick, first assistant city prosecutor for Columbus, Ohio.
Hedrick has had city residents call his office in the wee hours of the morning -- "almost in tears," he says -- and leave voicemail messages saying, "Listen to this," followed by the sound of neighbors' dogs barking incessantly.
I spoke with Hedrick after a reader from Columbus, himself a dog owner, e-mailed to tell me that, every time a particular neighbor leaves her house, she leaves her dogs on her sun porch to allow them access to the backyard.
"They bark at every moving thing when the owner is not home," my reader writes.
After having had his fill of the noise one weekend, my reader went next door to talk with the owner. When there was no answer he left, but returned later with a printout of tips on how to control barking dogs. When there was still no answer, he left the tips along with his name, address and telephone number, as well as a note asking the owner to call him. She never called.
"At least six other neighbors agree that the dogs bark excessively," he says. "I'm at my wit's end."
While it's always risky to confront a neighbor you don't know, particularly in the middle of the night, my reader did the right thing by contacting his neighbor and trying to resolve the issue between them. Her lack of responsiveness, however, forces him to enlist his fellow neighbors and take the next step.
Some municipalities have no laws regulating barking dogs. Columbus is not one of them, though: Its "noisy animals" law is Article 2327.14 of the city's general-offenses code. So, if a dog barks excessively and the owner can't or won't curtail it, residents don't call animal control, they call the city attorney's office -- which is where Hedrick comes in.
If owners don't respond to a warning letter, Hedrick says, his office will schedule mediation. If mediation doesn't alleviate the problem, prosecution is possible. Fines run as much as $150, plus court costs, but cases rarely make it past the mediation stage.
"Typically," Hedrick says, "the warning letter takes care of the problem."
Hedrick's office does not disclose to the dog owner the name of the person who filed the initial complaint.
If a warning letter doesn't do the trick -- and, given her lack of response to my reader's note, it might not -- my reader and his neighbors may have to take the step of requesting mediation to resolve the problem.
There's nothing unethical about reporting the situation to the authorities. If the dogs' barking is a neighborhood-wide issue, it's entirely proper to want it stopped. It's not "tattling" to pursue peace and quiet, and my reader has gone out of his way to resolve the problem without involving the city.
At least one of my reader's neighbors has already shown willingness to put his name and face behind the complaint, and other neighbors should step up and do the same, if they agree that the dogs are a problem.
The more who come forward, the less likely it is that the dogs' owner can claim that the complaints come from a single neighbor with whom she has personal issues, as is often the case in such matters.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
Hedrick has had city residents call his office in the wee hours of the morning -- "almost in tears," he says -- and leave voicemail messages saying, "Listen to this," followed by the sound of neighbors' dogs barking incessantly.
I spoke with Hedrick after a reader from Columbus, himself a dog owner, e-mailed to tell me that, every time a particular neighbor leaves her house, she leaves her dogs on her sun porch to allow them access to the backyard.
"They bark at every moving thing when the owner is not home," my reader writes.
After having had his fill of the noise one weekend, my reader went next door to talk with the owner. When there was no answer he left, but returned later with a printout of tips on how to control barking dogs. When there was still no answer, he left the tips along with his name, address and telephone number, as well as a note asking the owner to call him. She never called.
"At least six other neighbors agree that the dogs bark excessively," he says. "I'm at my wit's end."
While it's always risky to confront a neighbor you don't know, particularly in the middle of the night, my reader did the right thing by contacting his neighbor and trying to resolve the issue between them. Her lack of responsiveness, however, forces him to enlist his fellow neighbors and take the next step.
Some municipalities have no laws regulating barking dogs. Columbus is not one of them, though: Its "noisy animals" law is Article 2327.14 of the city's general-offenses code. So, if a dog barks excessively and the owner can't or won't curtail it, residents don't call animal control, they call the city attorney's office -- which is where Hedrick comes in.
If owners don't respond to a warning letter, Hedrick says, his office will schedule mediation. If mediation doesn't alleviate the problem, prosecution is possible. Fines run as much as $150, plus court costs, but cases rarely make it past the mediation stage.
"Typically," Hedrick says, "the warning letter takes care of the problem."
Hedrick's office does not disclose to the dog owner the name of the person who filed the initial complaint.
If a warning letter doesn't do the trick -- and, given her lack of response to my reader's note, it might not -- my reader and his neighbors may have to take the step of requesting mediation to resolve the problem.
There's nothing unethical about reporting the situation to the authorities. If the dogs' barking is a neighborhood-wide issue, it's entirely proper to want it stopped. It's not "tattling" to pursue peace and quiet, and my reader has gone out of his way to resolve the problem without involving the city.
At least one of my reader's neighbors has already shown willingness to put his name and face behind the complaint, and other neighbors should step up and do the same, if they agree that the dogs are a problem.
The more who come forward, the less likely it is that the dogs' owner can claim that the complaints come from a single neighbor with whom she has personal issues, as is often the case in such matters.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
Sunday, June 01, 2008
THE RIGHT THING: THE PRICE IS RIGHT ... OR IS IT?
In a well-landscaped neighborhood in southern California, a new homeowner got involved with her homeowners association shortly after she moved in. Not long thereafter she became treasurer of the association's board.
As the new fiscal year approached and the association's budget was being updated, one of its service providers -- the landscaping service -- raised its rates by 67 percent compared to the previous year. The treasurer asked the board to entertain competitive bids to make sure that the rate increase was warranted, but the rest of the board refused.
Soon afterward the janitorial-service provider indicated that it was raising its rates by 20 percent. Again the treasurer asked the board to consider getting competitive bids to determine whether the increase would bring the service charges up to market rate or if they were exorbitantly out of whack. Once again the board refused.
"My frustration isn't that we're paying a lot," the treasurer writes. "It's that we don't know if we're paying a lot."
Perhaps the association was getting great deals in the past, she explains, and the service providers are merely bringing their charges up to established market levels. Then again, they may have raised their rates way above the current market.
"I just hate that we're making decisions out of ignorance or laziness," she says.
She asks if her board has an ethical responsibility to validate that it is spending the homeowners' money as efficiently as possible, rather than being carefree with expenses.
That's a loaded question, of course, since any board officer -- and I am myself on the boards of a couple of not-for-profit organizations -- knows that it's never ethical for any board to be reckless with its constituents' money.
My reader wonders, however, if she is being arrogant in insisting that her idea of getting competitive bids is correct, and can't decide whether her choice to be a thorn in the sides of the other board members by pushing them to live up to their responsibilities is worth it.
The information about the association's budget and its expenses is not hidden from the home owners. Most of the time, however, homeowners pay scant attention to specific details of the association's business. Only a quarter of the homeowners in my reader's neighborhood chose to attend the association's most recent annual meeting.
Still, their disinterest isn't a license to ignore their interests. The right thing for the board to do is to inform the homeowners about the sizable increases in the service providers' rates. It may be the members who decide how to proceed, or they may choose to leave that decision to the board. It doesn't matter -- what's important is that the issue should be raised.
My reader has a point, though. It may be that the homeowners like the service they're getting so much that they are willing to pay a premium for landscaping and janitorial work. Without knowing what others charge for comparable services, however, they have no way of knowing if they are paying above market rates.
It's the board's responsibility, as a steward for the families it represents, to see that they do know what the market rates are. The community members can't make an informed decision, one way or the other, unless the board does its job and alerts them to these significant increases and provides them with the information they need to understand the situation.
If they decide to stick with the current providers, well and good -- the board still will have done its job of protecting the interests of the homeowners it represents.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
As the new fiscal year approached and the association's budget was being updated, one of its service providers -- the landscaping service -- raised its rates by 67 percent compared to the previous year. The treasurer asked the board to entertain competitive bids to make sure that the rate increase was warranted, but the rest of the board refused.
Soon afterward the janitorial-service provider indicated that it was raising its rates by 20 percent. Again the treasurer asked the board to consider getting competitive bids to determine whether the increase would bring the service charges up to market rate or if they were exorbitantly out of whack. Once again the board refused.
"My frustration isn't that we're paying a lot," the treasurer writes. "It's that we don't know if we're paying a lot."
Perhaps the association was getting great deals in the past, she explains, and the service providers are merely bringing their charges up to established market levels. Then again, they may have raised their rates way above the current market.
"I just hate that we're making decisions out of ignorance or laziness," she says.
She asks if her board has an ethical responsibility to validate that it is spending the homeowners' money as efficiently as possible, rather than being carefree with expenses.
That's a loaded question, of course, since any board officer -- and I am myself on the boards of a couple of not-for-profit organizations -- knows that it's never ethical for any board to be reckless with its constituents' money.
My reader wonders, however, if she is being arrogant in insisting that her idea of getting competitive bids is correct, and can't decide whether her choice to be a thorn in the sides of the other board members by pushing them to live up to their responsibilities is worth it.
The information about the association's budget and its expenses is not hidden from the home owners. Most of the time, however, homeowners pay scant attention to specific details of the association's business. Only a quarter of the homeowners in my reader's neighborhood chose to attend the association's most recent annual meeting.
Still, their disinterest isn't a license to ignore their interests. The right thing for the board to do is to inform the homeowners about the sizable increases in the service providers' rates. It may be the members who decide how to proceed, or they may choose to leave that decision to the board. It doesn't matter -- what's important is that the issue should be raised.
My reader has a point, though. It may be that the homeowners like the service they're getting so much that they are willing to pay a premium for landscaping and janitorial work. Without knowing what others charge for comparable services, however, they have no way of knowing if they are paying above market rates.
It's the board's responsibility, as a steward for the families it represents, to see that they do know what the market rates are. The community members can't make an informed decision, one way or the other, unless the board does its job and alerts them to these significant increases and provides them with the information they need to understand the situation.
If they decide to stick with the current providers, well and good -- the board still will have done its job of protecting the interests of the homeowners it represents.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
SOUND OFF: WHAT'S IN A NAME?
My readers had various opinions as to whether the owner of a Philadelphia restaurant that opened in 1949 should change its name -- Chink's Steaks -- since it might well offend a particular ethnic group. The results of an unscientific poll on my column's blog have 57 percent of readers voting that the name should not be changed and 43 percent voting that it should.
"The owner has every right to keep the name," writes Maggie Lawrence of Culpepper, Va., "and people who want to be offended have every right to not eat there."
"There will always be someone who is offended by something," writes Jerry Wright of San Juan Capistrano, Calif. "Since the name has been around for years, it should remain so."
"On probably more than half of the reviews I read of Chink's, customers said that they liked the cheesesteaks despite the name," writes Kim Liao of Somerville, Mass. "Why force customers to `get over' an obvious linguistic issue in order to recommend your product?"
"Anything that might possibly be construed as a racial or derogatory term, as such, should not be a source of financial gain or empowerment at the emotional expense of others," writes Patrick Burris of Charlotte, N.C.
Check out other opinions here, or post your own or post your own by clicking on "comments" or "post a comment" below.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business and The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of The Right Thing, a Web log focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," The New York Times Syndicate, 500 Seventh Avenue, 8th floor, New York, NY 10018. Please remember to tell me who you are, where you're from, as well as where you read the column.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
"The owner has every right to keep the name," writes Maggie Lawrence of Culpepper, Va., "and people who want to be offended have every right to not eat there."
"There will always be someone who is offended by something," writes Jerry Wright of San Juan Capistrano, Calif. "Since the name has been around for years, it should remain so."
"On probably more than half of the reviews I read of Chink's, customers said that they liked the cheesesteaks despite the name," writes Kim Liao of Somerville, Mass. "Why force customers to `get over' an obvious linguistic issue in order to recommend your product?"
"Anything that might possibly be construed as a racial or derogatory term, as such, should not be a source of financial gain or empowerment at the emotional expense of others," writes Patrick Burris of Charlotte, N.C.
Check out other opinions here, or post your own or post your own by clicking on "comments" or "post a comment" below.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business and The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of The Right Thing, a Web log focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," The New York Times Syndicate, 500 Seventh Avenue, 8th floor, New York, NY 10018. Please remember to tell me who you are, where you're from, as well as where you read the column.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
Sunday, May 25, 2008
SOUND OFF: CROSS WORDS
André Mora, a reader from Seattle, is an avid player of the online word game Scrabulous, which he plays on the Facebook networking site. He feels torn, however, because the developers of Scrabulous designed their game to replicate the board game Scrabble -- without seeking permission from Hasbro, which owns the rights to that game.
"Discussions" between Hasbro and the developers of Scrabulous are ongoing, but in the meantime my reader and others are left to sort things out for themselves: Is Scrabulous a legitimate game in its own right, or an infringement on Hasbro's rights to Scrabble? And, if the latter, is it OK to continue playing Scrabulous, even if you believe that it was wrong for the company to have developed the game without Hasbro's consent, or should you stop playing Scrabulous until a Hasbro-approved version is available?
Post your thoughts here by clicking on "comments" or "post a comment" below. Please include your name, hometown, and state, province, or country. Readers' comments may appear in an upcoming column. Or e-mail your comments to me at rightthing@nytimes.com.
You can also respond to the poll about this question that appears on the right-hand side of the blog.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business (Smith Kerr, 2006), is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of The Right Thing, a Web log focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," The New York Times Syndicate, 500 Seventh Avenue, 8th floor, New York, NY 10018. Please remember to tell me who you are, where you're from, as well as where you read the column.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
"Discussions" between Hasbro and the developers of Scrabulous are ongoing, but in the meantime my reader and others are left to sort things out for themselves: Is Scrabulous a legitimate game in its own right, or an infringement on Hasbro's rights to Scrabble? And, if the latter, is it OK to continue playing Scrabulous, even if you believe that it was wrong for the company to have developed the game without Hasbro's consent, or should you stop playing Scrabulous until a Hasbro-approved version is available?
Post your thoughts here by clicking on "comments" or "post a comment" below. Please include your name, hometown, and state, province, or country. Readers' comments may appear in an upcoming column. Or e-mail your comments to me at rightthing@nytimes.com.
You can also respond to the poll about this question that appears on the right-hand side of the blog.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business (Smith Kerr, 2006), is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of The Right Thing, a Web log focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," The New York Times Syndicate, 500 Seventh Avenue, 8th floor, New York, NY 10018. Please remember to tell me who you are, where you're from, as well as where you read the column.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
THE RIGHT THING: `DON'T CALL US ... '
What does a potential employer owe a prospective employee who comes in for a job interview?
Certainly not a job, if she doesn't meet the company's needs. But, if that proves to be the case, is the prospective employer obliged to contact the interviewee to let her know that she didn't get the job?
A reader from California is a senior citizen and is looking for part-time work. She's not alone: The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that, in 2006, 38 percent of people 55 and older were working. In 1996 that number was 30 percent, and it's expected to reach almost 43 percent by 2016.
She has gone on several interviews, she writes, armed with a positive attitude and a willingness to answer every question to the best of her ability.
By the time the process was over, however, she ended up feeling like "a second-class citizen." Not because she didn't get the jobs, though -- it was how she learned that fact that sticks in her craw.
On two occasions, as her interview was coming to a close, the interviewer told her that the company would get in touch within a few days.
Would she get a response regardless of whether or not she got the job?
"Yes," each interviewer told her.
Each time, she never heard from the company.
She wants to know if the interviewers had an ethical obligation to let her know the outcome of her interviews. She also asks me if I think there was something she should have done differently that might have ensured that the interviewers would respond.
It's standard procedure for many employers, faced with a pile of submitted resumes, to winnow out the top candidates and discard the rest. Not a good practice, if you ask me, since those same employers never know when they might need to fill jobs in the future. Retaining resumes can be useful, and to have the basic courtesy of responding to all applicants can potentially result in positive future relationships.
Are employers ethically bound to respond to all applications, though? No. While it may be poor etiquette, there's nothing unethical about not responding, if that's the company's standard practice.
My reader's interviewers, however, fall into a different kettle of smelts.
First of all, a face-to-face interview is much different than a resume in the mail. It creates a relationship, however temporary, and thus makes etiquette more important. If someone makes the effort to come in and interview, the least the company can do is give them a courtesy call of rejection.
But is there an ethical obligation, as opposed to a duty by etiquette? Still no.
The equation changes, however, once the interviewer -- who is under no obligation to do so -- tells her that the company will call. At that point the interviewer has an ethical obligation to fulfill that promise and either get back to her or see that someone else from the company does.
Telling her that she'd get a call after the interview, either way, may have been a means of avoiding the uncomfortable task of revealing that it was each company's practice to notify only those candidates who made it to the next phase in the process. That awkwardness is understandable, but that doesn't excuse the violation of a specific commitment from one person to another.
My reader did nothing wrong by asking if the interviewers would contact her. In fact, it was an excellent question. The fault lies entirely with the interviewers, who should not have made promises that apparently they had no intention of keeping.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
Certainly not a job, if she doesn't meet the company's needs. But, if that proves to be the case, is the prospective employer obliged to contact the interviewee to let her know that she didn't get the job?
A reader from California is a senior citizen and is looking for part-time work. She's not alone: The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that, in 2006, 38 percent of people 55 and older were working. In 1996 that number was 30 percent, and it's expected to reach almost 43 percent by 2016.
She has gone on several interviews, she writes, armed with a positive attitude and a willingness to answer every question to the best of her ability.
By the time the process was over, however, she ended up feeling like "a second-class citizen." Not because she didn't get the jobs, though -- it was how she learned that fact that sticks in her craw.
On two occasions, as her interview was coming to a close, the interviewer told her that the company would get in touch within a few days.
Would she get a response regardless of whether or not she got the job?
"Yes," each interviewer told her.
Each time, she never heard from the company.
She wants to know if the interviewers had an ethical obligation to let her know the outcome of her interviews. She also asks me if I think there was something she should have done differently that might have ensured that the interviewers would respond.
It's standard procedure for many employers, faced with a pile of submitted resumes, to winnow out the top candidates and discard the rest. Not a good practice, if you ask me, since those same employers never know when they might need to fill jobs in the future. Retaining resumes can be useful, and to have the basic courtesy of responding to all applicants can potentially result in positive future relationships.
Are employers ethically bound to respond to all applications, though? No. While it may be poor etiquette, there's nothing unethical about not responding, if that's the company's standard practice.
My reader's interviewers, however, fall into a different kettle of smelts.
First of all, a face-to-face interview is much different than a resume in the mail. It creates a relationship, however temporary, and thus makes etiquette more important. If someone makes the effort to come in and interview, the least the company can do is give them a courtesy call of rejection.
But is there an ethical obligation, as opposed to a duty by etiquette? Still no.
The equation changes, however, once the interviewer -- who is under no obligation to do so -- tells her that the company will call. At that point the interviewer has an ethical obligation to fulfill that promise and either get back to her or see that someone else from the company does.
Telling her that she'd get a call after the interview, either way, may have been a means of avoiding the uncomfortable task of revealing that it was each company's practice to notify only those candidates who made it to the next phase in the process. That awkwardness is understandable, but that doesn't excuse the violation of a specific commitment from one person to another.
My reader did nothing wrong by asking if the interviewers would contact her. In fact, it was an excellent question. The fault lies entirely with the interviewers, who should not have made promises that apparently they had no intention of keeping.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
Sunday, May 18, 2008
THE RIGHT THING: `FREE STUFF' THAT NEEDS TO GO BACK
Several months ago, as I was descending the steps of a busy subway station, I saw an oversized change purse on the stairs. I picked it up.
The change purse contained a bank card, a credit card, a university identification card, a library card from a small town, some folding money, a handful of other cards and, well, change. I took a quick glance around the station, but saw no one resembling the photo on the university card. Whoever she was, she was long gone.
I tried e-mailing her at her college address, but the e-mail bounced back. I then called directory assistance and asked for a listing for her last name in her small town. Only one number came up, so I tried it. Busy signal. A few hours later, I tried again. Still busy.
The incident came to mind recently when I received an e-mail from a reader in Columbus, Ohio. While in the parking lot of a home-improvement center a few weeks ago, he discovered a bag in a shopping cart. Inside were some recent purchases from the store -- nothing too expensive, only a few garage hooks and an outlet strip.
"My first reaction was, `Goody, free stuff,"' he writes. Then, after placing the bag in his car for safekeeping, he went to the service desk to explain what he had found. The clerk told him that such things happen frequently. Sometimes the purchaser returns for the goods, sometimes not.
My reader figured that, if he left the goods at the service desk, chances were that they would be returned to the shelf within 48 hours if no one claimed them. So he left his telephone number with the clerk and asked him to give the number to anyone calling or returning to claim the goods.
"I figured, if anyone called and could give me a reasonable guess at what was in the bag, we could make arrangements to get the merchandise to its rightful owner," he writes. "I guess I did the right thing."
I might have simply left the goods with the store, but my reader's effort to get the stuff to its rightful owner, rather than keep it for himself, was indeed the right thing to do. Of course, he's now taken responsibility for storing a bag in his house in hope that someone will claim it.
When I found the change purse in the subway, I wasn't stuck with it for long. I eventually reached the owner -- her younger sister had been tying up the phone, she said -- and we made arrangements for me to return the purse to her at the subway station the following morning.
It's often simpler to return something yourself when a name happens to be attached to the goods. My reader went the extra mile by trying to return goods that he knew didn't belong to him, even when the absence of a name made things more complicated. Well done!
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
The change purse contained a bank card, a credit card, a university identification card, a library card from a small town, some folding money, a handful of other cards and, well, change. I took a quick glance around the station, but saw no one resembling the photo on the university card. Whoever she was, she was long gone.
I tried e-mailing her at her college address, but the e-mail bounced back. I then called directory assistance and asked for a listing for her last name in her small town. Only one number came up, so I tried it. Busy signal. A few hours later, I tried again. Still busy.
The incident came to mind recently when I received an e-mail from a reader in Columbus, Ohio. While in the parking lot of a home-improvement center a few weeks ago, he discovered a bag in a shopping cart. Inside were some recent purchases from the store -- nothing too expensive, only a few garage hooks and an outlet strip.
"My first reaction was, `Goody, free stuff,"' he writes. Then, after placing the bag in his car for safekeeping, he went to the service desk to explain what he had found. The clerk told him that such things happen frequently. Sometimes the purchaser returns for the goods, sometimes not.
My reader figured that, if he left the goods at the service desk, chances were that they would be returned to the shelf within 48 hours if no one claimed them. So he left his telephone number with the clerk and asked him to give the number to anyone calling or returning to claim the goods.
"I figured, if anyone called and could give me a reasonable guess at what was in the bag, we could make arrangements to get the merchandise to its rightful owner," he writes. "I guess I did the right thing."
I might have simply left the goods with the store, but my reader's effort to get the stuff to its rightful owner, rather than keep it for himself, was indeed the right thing to do. Of course, he's now taken responsibility for storing a bag in his house in hope that someone will claim it.
When I found the change purse in the subway, I wasn't stuck with it for long. I eventually reached the owner -- her younger sister had been tying up the phone, she said -- and we made arrangements for me to return the purse to her at the subway station the following morning.
It's often simpler to return something yourself when a name happens to be attached to the goods. My reader went the extra mile by trying to return goods that he knew didn't belong to him, even when the absence of a name made things more complicated. Well done!
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
SOUND OFF: DRUGS AND THE DOCTORS WHO PITCH THEM
When Dr. Robert Jarvik agreed to appear in commercials for Pfizer's cholesterol-lowering medication, Lipitor, some people felt that it was misleading because, while he has a medical degree, Jarvik is not licensed to practice medicine. So Pfizer recently dropped Jarvik as the medication's spokesman. I asked readers if the company made the right decision in dropping Jarvik.
"He did nothing unethical," writes Carroll Straus of Orange County, Calif.
Helen Homer of Santa Ana, Calif., agrees.
"Removing Dr. Jarvik from the ad was unnecessary," Homer writes.
Bill Wotring of Fullerton, Calif., has "no problem with the Lipitor ads showing an endorsement by Dr. Jarvik," he writes. "I found them informative and professional ... It is the reputation and endorsement of someone who knows something about hearts which make the ad credible."
On the other hand, George Zahka of Bradenton Beach, Fla., is glad that Jarvik is no longer with Pfizer, finding it "demeaning that the man who invented the artificial heart would lower himself and the profession by touting a product, as good as it may be."
Finally I received a long response from Jarvik himself.
"In my opinion Pfizer was wrong to capitulate to political pressure and the unfavorable publicity it generated," Jarvik writes. "The Lipitor ad campaign was truthful and tasteful. I believe it motivated hundreds of thousands of new patients to see their doctors, patients who never before had treatment for their high cholesterol. Many heart attacks and strokes will be prevented, and many people will avoid the disaster that otherwise awaited them."
Read Jarvik's full response, Check out other opinions here, or post your own or post your own by clicking on "comments" or "post a comment" below.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business and The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of The Right Thing, a Web log focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," The New York Times Syndicate, 500 Seventh Avenue, 8th floor, New York, NY 10018. Please remember to tell me who you are, where you're from, as well as where you read the column.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
"He did nothing unethical," writes Carroll Straus of Orange County, Calif.
Helen Homer of Santa Ana, Calif., agrees.
"Removing Dr. Jarvik from the ad was unnecessary," Homer writes.
Bill Wotring of Fullerton, Calif., has "no problem with the Lipitor ads showing an endorsement by Dr. Jarvik," he writes. "I found them informative and professional ... It is the reputation and endorsement of someone who knows something about hearts which make the ad credible."
On the other hand, George Zahka of Bradenton Beach, Fla., is glad that Jarvik is no longer with Pfizer, finding it "demeaning that the man who invented the artificial heart would lower himself and the profession by touting a product, as good as it may be."
Finally I received a long response from Jarvik himself.
"In my opinion Pfizer was wrong to capitulate to political pressure and the unfavorable publicity it generated," Jarvik writes. "The Lipitor ad campaign was truthful and tasteful. I believe it motivated hundreds of thousands of new patients to see their doctors, patients who never before had treatment for their high cholesterol. Many heart attacks and strokes will be prevented, and many people will avoid the disaster that otherwise awaited them."
Read Jarvik's full response, Check out other opinions here, or post your own or post your own by clicking on "comments" or "post a comment" below.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business and The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of The Right Thing, a Web log focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," The New York Times Syndicate, 500 Seventh Avenue, 8th floor, New York, NY 10018. Please remember to tell me who you are, where you're from, as well as where you read the column.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
Sunday, May 11, 2008
SOUND OFF: ARE YOU SICK OR WHAT?
Last month I wrote about a reader who wanted to know if it was OK to call in sick on a Monday because he had fallen ill over the weekend and hadn't been able to complete his planned chores. By Sunday night he was feeling better, so he wanted to use Monday to get the chores done.
My response was to say that, while it was his prerogative to take a personal day, it was wrong to call in sick when he wasn't.
A greater-than-usual response from my readers argued that I had missed the mark, maintaining that it's perfectly OK to call in sick if you want to ... even if you're not sick.
I'm not convinced. Sure, businesses could do a better job by simply giving people a certain number of personal days per year and letting them use them however they wish. But if sick days are meant for use when you're actually sick, shouldn't you be honest with your employer?
So I'm putting the question to my readers at large: Is it OK to call in sick when you're not really sick?
Post your thoughts here by clicking on "comments" or "post a comment" below. Please include your name, hometown, and state, province, or country. Readers' comments may appear in an upcoming column. Or e-mail your comments to me at rightthing@nytimes.com.
You can also respond to the poll about this question that appears on the right-hand side of the blog.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business (Smith Kerr, 2006), is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of The Right Thing, a Web log focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," The New York Times Syndicate, 500 Seventh Avenue, 8th floor, New York, NY 10018. Please remember to tell me who you are, where you're from, as well as where you read the column.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
My response was to say that, while it was his prerogative to take a personal day, it was wrong to call in sick when he wasn't.
A greater-than-usual response from my readers argued that I had missed the mark, maintaining that it's perfectly OK to call in sick if you want to ... even if you're not sick.
I'm not convinced. Sure, businesses could do a better job by simply giving people a certain number of personal days per year and letting them use them however they wish. But if sick days are meant for use when you're actually sick, shouldn't you be honest with your employer?
So I'm putting the question to my readers at large: Is it OK to call in sick when you're not really sick?
Post your thoughts here by clicking on "comments" or "post a comment" below. Please include your name, hometown, and state, province, or country. Readers' comments may appear in an upcoming column. Or e-mail your comments to me at rightthing@nytimes.com.
You can also respond to the poll about this question that appears on the right-hand side of the blog.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business (Smith Kerr, 2006), is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of The Right Thing, a Web log focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," The New York Times Syndicate, 500 Seventh Avenue, 8th floor, New York, NY 10018. Please remember to tell me who you are, where you're from, as well as where you read the column.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
THE RIGHT THING: THE TRASH DONOR
In a suburban neighborhood in Texas, residents roll out their trash receptacles for curbside pickup each week. Each residence is permitted three cans' worth of trash, with any extra incurring an additional charge.
Excess trash is supposed to be placed in sturdy trash bags and tagged with a sticker that can be purchased for $2 at the local grocery store. If the bags are untagged, the city adds a $2.50-per-bag charge to the resident's monthly bill.
One of my readers lives in that neighborhood, and she keeps a supply of stickers on hand for those times when her household has excess trash.
"The problem," she writes, "is that my husband thinks it is fine to take our excess trash bag and place it in one of the neighbor's half-empty trash cans, once they have been rolled onto the street."
One of the neighbors, described by my reader as "a crotchety woman who never speaks to us or makes eye contact," has taken issue with the husband's practice.
"We've lived here for 13 years," my reader writes, "and only had one conversation with her. She never waves like the other neighbors or steps to our yard to chat like other neighbors do. We just accept it and go on."
Until now.
After the husband put trash in her receptacle, the neighbor took the trash out of the can, held onto it until the sanitation truck had come and gone, and then placed the trash bag on top of the husband's car.
Later in the day the neighbor went to my reader's house and began to "rant and rave" at her, she says. She denounced the husband and made clear that she was sick of him putting his trash in her cans.
"Couldn't you just pay the $2 for excess trash or get a bigger trash can, instead of stinking up my trash can with your trash?" the neighbor asked. "I will report him to the authorities if he is ever observed doing this again."
My reader apologized for upsetting her neighbor and said that she would talk to her husband, but the situation still irritates her -- especially because her husband is adamant that there is nothing wrong with what he does.
"I happen to agree with her that it is inappropriate," she writes. "But the way she handled it was inappropriate, in my opinion."
My reader's husband is wrong. The right thing for him to do would be to ask permission of any neighbors before putting his extra trash in their cans. It's the neighborly thing to do, and the ethical thing as well. That their neighbor is aloof and uncommunicative doesn't in any way justify his intrusion into her trash.
Was the neighbor right to put the trash bag on top of the husband's car? Well, it did get his attention, and some people might have emptied it over the car. But it seems like an overreaction: The neighbor's right response would have been to simply tell the husband that she knows he's been making the unwelcome deposits and ask him to stop.
My reader would rather simply use the $2 stickers and not upset her neighbor. She should do exactly that -- and her husband should respect her wishes and do the right thing as well.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
Excess trash is supposed to be placed in sturdy trash bags and tagged with a sticker that can be purchased for $2 at the local grocery store. If the bags are untagged, the city adds a $2.50-per-bag charge to the resident's monthly bill.
One of my readers lives in that neighborhood, and she keeps a supply of stickers on hand for those times when her household has excess trash.
"The problem," she writes, "is that my husband thinks it is fine to take our excess trash bag and place it in one of the neighbor's half-empty trash cans, once they have been rolled onto the street."
One of the neighbors, described by my reader as "a crotchety woman who never speaks to us or makes eye contact," has taken issue with the husband's practice.
"We've lived here for 13 years," my reader writes, "and only had one conversation with her. She never waves like the other neighbors or steps to our yard to chat like other neighbors do. We just accept it and go on."
Until now.
After the husband put trash in her receptacle, the neighbor took the trash out of the can, held onto it until the sanitation truck had come and gone, and then placed the trash bag on top of the husband's car.
Later in the day the neighbor went to my reader's house and began to "rant and rave" at her, she says. She denounced the husband and made clear that she was sick of him putting his trash in her cans.
"Couldn't you just pay the $2 for excess trash or get a bigger trash can, instead of stinking up my trash can with your trash?" the neighbor asked. "I will report him to the authorities if he is ever observed doing this again."
My reader apologized for upsetting her neighbor and said that she would talk to her husband, but the situation still irritates her -- especially because her husband is adamant that there is nothing wrong with what he does.
"I happen to agree with her that it is inappropriate," she writes. "But the way she handled it was inappropriate, in my opinion."
My reader's husband is wrong. The right thing for him to do would be to ask permission of any neighbors before putting his extra trash in their cans. It's the neighborly thing to do, and the ethical thing as well. That their neighbor is aloof and uncommunicative doesn't in any way justify his intrusion into her trash.
Was the neighbor right to put the trash bag on top of the husband's car? Well, it did get his attention, and some people might have emptied it over the car. But it seems like an overreaction: The neighbor's right response would have been to simply tell the husband that she knows he's been making the unwelcome deposits and ask him to stop.
My reader would rather simply use the $2 stickers and not upset her neighbor. She should do exactly that -- and her husband should respect her wishes and do the right thing as well.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
Sunday, May 04, 2008
THE RIGHT THING: TEN CHARMS, TEN HEADACHES
Before she died in the late 1980s, my reader's mother gave him and his wife some of her jewelry. For years the cache sat ignored in an obscure corner of my reader's home.
One of the items was a gold charm bracelet featuring 10 charms, one for each of his mother's grandchildren. Each has the child's name on one side and his or her birth date on the other.
"I thought my two older sisters might want to have it," my reader says, "as opposed to our children having to decide what to do with it when my wife and I pass on."
If his sisters weren't interested in the bracelet, my reader suggested having it appraised, since gold prices were soaring, peaking at $1,020 an ounce in mid-March, before sliding back to $925 as I write this column. My reader offered to split the proceeds with his sisters, if they decided to sell the bracelet.
"I thought this was better than the risk of it being lost through theft, natural disaster or loss in the old-folks home," he says.
A rational discussion followed, but one of the grandchildren objected strongly to the notion that they would even consider selling such a keepsake. Instead, she thought that it should go to the grandchild who had been closest to my reader's deceased mother.
My reader believes that he did the right thing by offering the bracelet to his sisters.
"Since it was mine," he reasons, "I could have had it melted down and made a few bucks ... if my sentimental wife would have let me. Is there a right thing to do when the choices are between sentimentality and profiting from an inherited but unwanted item, when it seemed like a good time to do so?"
I regularly receive letters from readers who are struggling with how to be fair in disbursing goods to heirs. However hard they try to be fair, they invariably end up annoying or alienating some member of the family who doesn't agree with how the prospective disburser plans to dole out the goods.
My reader is absolutely correct in saying that, since the bracelet was his, he was well within his ethical rights to do with it whatever he pleased. But he went the extra ethical step by seriously considering the effect his actions might have on other stakeholders -- namely, his sisters.
Regardless of the negative response from one of the grandchildren, my reader did the right thing by contacting his sisters for their thoughts about the proper handling of the charm bracelet. Even after getting their response, however, he is still free to do whatever he wants with the bracelet, even if they disagree. It is, after all, his.
As it turns out, another grandchild came up with a solution that satisfies everyone, at least in the short term: Each child will receive his or her charm, to do with as he or she pleases. After the charms are gone, all my reader needs to decide is what to do with his leftover gold bracelet.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
One of the items was a gold charm bracelet featuring 10 charms, one for each of his mother's grandchildren. Each has the child's name on one side and his or her birth date on the other.
"I thought my two older sisters might want to have it," my reader says, "as opposed to our children having to decide what to do with it when my wife and I pass on."
If his sisters weren't interested in the bracelet, my reader suggested having it appraised, since gold prices were soaring, peaking at $1,020 an ounce in mid-March, before sliding back to $925 as I write this column. My reader offered to split the proceeds with his sisters, if they decided to sell the bracelet.
"I thought this was better than the risk of it being lost through theft, natural disaster or loss in the old-folks home," he says.
A rational discussion followed, but one of the grandchildren objected strongly to the notion that they would even consider selling such a keepsake. Instead, she thought that it should go to the grandchild who had been closest to my reader's deceased mother.
My reader believes that he did the right thing by offering the bracelet to his sisters.
"Since it was mine," he reasons, "I could have had it melted down and made a few bucks ... if my sentimental wife would have let me. Is there a right thing to do when the choices are between sentimentality and profiting from an inherited but unwanted item, when it seemed like a good time to do so?"
I regularly receive letters from readers who are struggling with how to be fair in disbursing goods to heirs. However hard they try to be fair, they invariably end up annoying or alienating some member of the family who doesn't agree with how the prospective disburser plans to dole out the goods.
My reader is absolutely correct in saying that, since the bracelet was his, he was well within his ethical rights to do with it whatever he pleased. But he went the extra ethical step by seriously considering the effect his actions might have on other stakeholders -- namely, his sisters.
Regardless of the negative response from one of the grandchildren, my reader did the right thing by contacting his sisters for their thoughts about the proper handling of the charm bracelet. Even after getting their response, however, he is still free to do whatever he wants with the bracelet, even if they disagree. It is, after all, his.
As it turns out, another grandchild came up with a solution that satisfies everyone, at least in the short term: Each child will receive his or her charm, to do with as he or she pleases. After the charms are gone, all my reader needs to decide is what to do with his leftover gold bracelet.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
SOUND OFF: VIDEO VIGILANTE
My readers thought that the guy in Oklahoma City who videotapes customers soliciting prostitutes and then posts the video on his Web site, in an effort to expose these men to public shame, is out of line.
"If this man is into humiliating bad behavior to discourage it, and not just exploiting it, the same as the solicitor himself," writes Robin Brooks of Fullerton, Calif., "then he should approach them, tell them that they have been filmed and ask them to sign a release, as would anyone else using the picture of a stranger as a model for monetary gain."
Charlie Seng, of Lancaster, S.C., agrees.
"As with most do-gooders and busybodies," Seng writes, "this guy who videotapes supposed clients of prostitutes should be taken off the streets and put in jail for being a public nuisance."
"Let's hope that none of us who have ever gotten lost in a big city and asked a stranger for directions get photographed by a creep trying to capture people talking to strangers so he can sell the video," writes Jan Bohren of Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y. "This is a pretty lame occupation, don't you think? Does the phrase `get a life' ring a bell?"
Check out other opinions at "I Know What You Did Last Night," or post your own or post your own by clicking on "comments" or "post a comment" below.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business and The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of The Right Thing, a Web log focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," The New York Times Syndicate, 500 Seventh Avenue, 8th floor, New York, NY 10018. Please remember to tell me who you are, where you're from, as well as where you read the column.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
SOUND OFF: CHANGING FACES, CHANGING NAMES
Joseph Groh likes the name of his Philadelphia restaurant fine the way it is. He bought the restaurant after the death of the guy who had opened it in 1949. Now, however, some Asian-American groups and individuals want Groh to change the name that's been in place since the doors opened: "Chink's Steaks."
"It's definitely a derogatory term," Ginny Gong, national president of the Organization of Chinese Americans, told The Washington Post.
On the other hand, Groh told the newspaper that he sees the name as part of the restaurant's tradition and sees no need to change it.
Should Groh consider changing the name, given that it clearly offends a particular ethnic group? Or is it right for him to hold to tradition and keep the name? (You can also answer the poll about the name on the right-hand channel of this blog.)
Post your thoughts here by clicking on "comments" or "post a comment" below. Please include your name, hometown, and state, province, or country. Readers' comments may appear in an upcoming column. Or e-mail your comments to me at rightthing@nytimes.com.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business (Smith Kerr, 2006), is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of The Right Thing, a Web log focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," The New York Times Syndicate, 500 Seventh Avenue, 8th floor, New York, NY 10018. Please remember to tell me who you are, where you're from, as well as where you read the column.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
"It's definitely a derogatory term," Ginny Gong, national president of the Organization of Chinese Americans, told The Washington Post.
On the other hand, Groh told the newspaper that he sees the name as part of the restaurant's tradition and sees no need to change it.
Should Groh consider changing the name, given that it clearly offends a particular ethnic group? Or is it right for him to hold to tradition and keep the name? (You can also answer the poll about the name on the right-hand channel of this blog.)
Post your thoughts here by clicking on "comments" or "post a comment" below. Please include your name, hometown, and state, province, or country. Readers' comments may appear in an upcoming column. Or e-mail your comments to me at rightthing@nytimes.com.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business (Smith Kerr, 2006), is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of The Right Thing, a Web log focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," The New York Times Syndicate, 500 Seventh Avenue, 8th floor, New York, NY 10018. Please remember to tell me who you are, where you're from, as well as where you read the column.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
THE RIGHT THING: THE METAL MONEY-EATER
A guy walks up to a vending machine. He eyes the snacks, makes his selection, inserts his cash and then presses the appropriate combination of buttons that ought to result in the turning of a spindle that will drop the item into a tray from which he retrieve it.
All is fine and good up until the part when his deposit of money is supposed to result in the delivery of his snack. This time, nothing happens. Instead of his eating the snack, the vending machine eats his money.
He's miffed. But, practicing what he believes to be good vending etiquette, he writes a note -- "This Machine Is Out of Order" -- and tapes it to the machine. Still hankering for a snack, he returns to his cubicle and gets back to work.
The story seems to be over ... but it's only beginning.
Later that day the office manager comes around to talk to Snack-Seeking Guy. With her is a stranger, who turns out to be the guy who stocks the vending machines -- an outside contractor who doesn't himself own the machines and is responsible only for stocking them, not for maintenance.
The machine stocker, noting that he makes his living from the vending machines, complains that once a "broken" sign appears on the machine, people stop putting money into it. That means, he argues, that posting such a sign is like taking money out of his pocket.
Sounds crazy, maybe, but the stocker has a rationale: If Snack-Seeking Guy had not posted the sign, people would have continued to lose money in the machine -- but only temporarily, since they could get a refund by calling the toll-free number posted on the machine.
The stocker would get the money he needs to live on, the customers would break even -- except for not getting the snacks they wanted, of course -- and the only loser would be the company that owns the machines, which would be out the cost of the refunds. But that's only fair, the stocker argues, because it was their machine that failed in the first place.
Snack-Seeking Guy doesn't buy it. The stocker's premise, he says, ignores the customers' frustration and irritation upon not receiving snacks from a busted machine. Even if a customer bothers to initiate a claim for a refund of less than a dollar, most vending-machine companies refund money only grudgingly and slowly. Why should an office full of customers be expected to make a series of small, interest-free loans for the stocker's sole benefit?
While Snack-Seeking Guy -- who, in the interest of full disclosure, is the syndicate editor of this column -- remains convinced that his argument is the sounder of the two, he writes me that he was impressed by the ethical sophistication of the stocker's position, which, he writes, "doubtless reflected years of bitter rumination."
Was he right to post the sign? Or does the stocker have a right not to be financially punished for a problem that's out of his control?
The stocker's beef should be with the vending-machine company, not with his customers. It's the vending-machine company's responsibility to ensure that the machine works, and it ought to make good any losses that the stocker sustains -- say, by paying him an amount equal to his average daily take from that machine for each day that it's out of operation.
It may be hard or even impossible to get the company to see it that way, but the fact that the company is taking advantage of the stocker doesn't entitle him to take advantage of the customers. He should protect his cash flow, and the company's, by making sure that the company cares for its machines properly,
Snack-Seeking Guy did the right thing by posting the sign. It would have been irresponsible to do otherwise, since it would then have been his fault that other people later were vexed by having fed money into a busted machine.
Turnabout is fair play, of course: If he ever gets an extra bag of pretzels from the vending machine in the future, he should do the right thing by alerting the company or stocker. Broken machines work both ways.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
All is fine and good up until the part when his deposit of money is supposed to result in the delivery of his snack. This time, nothing happens. Instead of his eating the snack, the vending machine eats his money.
He's miffed. But, practicing what he believes to be good vending etiquette, he writes a note -- "This Machine Is Out of Order" -- and tapes it to the machine. Still hankering for a snack, he returns to his cubicle and gets back to work.
The story seems to be over ... but it's only beginning.
Later that day the office manager comes around to talk to Snack-Seeking Guy. With her is a stranger, who turns out to be the guy who stocks the vending machines -- an outside contractor who doesn't himself own the machines and is responsible only for stocking them, not for maintenance.
The machine stocker, noting that he makes his living from the vending machines, complains that once a "broken" sign appears on the machine, people stop putting money into it. That means, he argues, that posting such a sign is like taking money out of his pocket.
Sounds crazy, maybe, but the stocker has a rationale: If Snack-Seeking Guy had not posted the sign, people would have continued to lose money in the machine -- but only temporarily, since they could get a refund by calling the toll-free number posted on the machine.
The stocker would get the money he needs to live on, the customers would break even -- except for not getting the snacks they wanted, of course -- and the only loser would be the company that owns the machines, which would be out the cost of the refunds. But that's only fair, the stocker argues, because it was their machine that failed in the first place.
Snack-Seeking Guy doesn't buy it. The stocker's premise, he says, ignores the customers' frustration and irritation upon not receiving snacks from a busted machine. Even if a customer bothers to initiate a claim for a refund of less than a dollar, most vending-machine companies refund money only grudgingly and slowly. Why should an office full of customers be expected to make a series of small, interest-free loans for the stocker's sole benefit?
While Snack-Seeking Guy -- who, in the interest of full disclosure, is the syndicate editor of this column -- remains convinced that his argument is the sounder of the two, he writes me that he was impressed by the ethical sophistication of the stocker's position, which, he writes, "doubtless reflected years of bitter rumination."
Was he right to post the sign? Or does the stocker have a right not to be financially punished for a problem that's out of his control?
The stocker's beef should be with the vending-machine company, not with his customers. It's the vending-machine company's responsibility to ensure that the machine works, and it ought to make good any losses that the stocker sustains -- say, by paying him an amount equal to his average daily take from that machine for each day that it's out of operation.
It may be hard or even impossible to get the company to see it that way, but the fact that the company is taking advantage of the stocker doesn't entitle him to take advantage of the customers. He should protect his cash flow, and the company's, by making sure that the company cares for its machines properly,
Snack-Seeking Guy did the right thing by posting the sign. It would have been irresponsible to do otherwise, since it would then have been his fault that other people later were vexed by having fed money into a busted machine.
Turnabout is fair play, of course: If he ever gets an extra bag of pretzels from the vending machine in the future, he should do the right thing by alerting the company or stocker. Broken machines work both ways.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
Sunday, April 20, 2008
THE RIGHT THING: TO TATTLE OR NOT TO TATTLE?
Here's a new one: "The person I report to is incompetent."
OK, maybe it's not so new. Many of us have heard it dozens of times from friends, colleagues or loved ones ... or, heaven forbid, even thought it ourselves.
It's one thing to conclude that you're working for an incompetent, however, and quite another to decide that his/her incompetence rises to a level that merits taking the matter to a supervisor.
That's my reader's plight. She has reported some of her boss's mess-ups, such as inappropriate language in the workplace and inability to manage his employees, to his immediate supervisor. Her boss has confided to her that he has been told by his immediate supervisor that he is "close to being fired" -- and has enlisted my reader to keep any mishaps "between them" when he messes up.
My reader and her boss work for a state agency, and last year her boss misreported information that could have ended up costing the state a lot of money. When my reader caught the problem, her boss asked her to adjust the numbers.
"It was a manipulation of numbers to cover his mistake," she says.
Still she made the changes, because her boss told her to.
Now, a year later, her boss has made similar mistakes in reporting information to the state.
"I feel like a tattle if I report his incompetence," my reader says. " ... I am at a loss. If I tell, he may lose his job."
Making her decision even tougher is that her boss is in his late 20s, and his wife is expecting their second child.
Even if the mistake isn't caught, she says, "I will know."
Should she cooperate with her boss's efforts at concealment, or should she speak to the supervisor again and let the chips fall where they may?
If the boss's drawbacks were limited to routine incompetence -- tardiness, unresponsiveness or awkwardness at meetings -- his behavior likely wouldn't have risen to a level requiring his subordinate to report him to his supervisor. This sort of thing is subjective, after all, and the supervisor must be the judge of it.
But once her boss started fabricating numbers on a report and tried to enlist the help of his employees in doing so, he crossed a line. The right thing to do became to turn him in.
My reader complicated matters by following her boss's directive to change the numbers a year ago, even though she knew it was fraudulent to do so. If she goes to his boss now, she must expect the question, "Why did you participate in this cover-up last year?" Her "I was just following orders" response is unlikely to fly.
That's a prime danger in allowing yourself to participate in one small lie. It's difficult to avoid further lies to cover the initial one.
My reader would be wise not to agree to "fix" the numbers again this year. She should recognize that the harm her boss is causing her agency and herself outweighs any loyalty she may feel or any desire to save him or his family from the consequences of his actions. If he wants job security, he shouldn't be falsifying reports.
The right thing for her to do is to report his behavior.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
OK, maybe it's not so new. Many of us have heard it dozens of times from friends, colleagues or loved ones ... or, heaven forbid, even thought it ourselves.
It's one thing to conclude that you're working for an incompetent, however, and quite another to decide that his/her incompetence rises to a level that merits taking the matter to a supervisor.
That's my reader's plight. She has reported some of her boss's mess-ups, such as inappropriate language in the workplace and inability to manage his employees, to his immediate supervisor. Her boss has confided to her that he has been told by his immediate supervisor that he is "close to being fired" -- and has enlisted my reader to keep any mishaps "between them" when he messes up.
My reader and her boss work for a state agency, and last year her boss misreported information that could have ended up costing the state a lot of money. When my reader caught the problem, her boss asked her to adjust the numbers.
"It was a manipulation of numbers to cover his mistake," she says.
Still she made the changes, because her boss told her to.
Now, a year later, her boss has made similar mistakes in reporting information to the state.
"I feel like a tattle if I report his incompetence," my reader says. " ... I am at a loss. If I tell, he may lose his job."
Making her decision even tougher is that her boss is in his late 20s, and his wife is expecting their second child.
Even if the mistake isn't caught, she says, "I will know."
Should she cooperate with her boss's efforts at concealment, or should she speak to the supervisor again and let the chips fall where they may?
If the boss's drawbacks were limited to routine incompetence -- tardiness, unresponsiveness or awkwardness at meetings -- his behavior likely wouldn't have risen to a level requiring his subordinate to report him to his supervisor. This sort of thing is subjective, after all, and the supervisor must be the judge of it.
But once her boss started fabricating numbers on a report and tried to enlist the help of his employees in doing so, he crossed a line. The right thing to do became to turn him in.
My reader complicated matters by following her boss's directive to change the numbers a year ago, even though she knew it was fraudulent to do so. If she goes to his boss now, she must expect the question, "Why did you participate in this cover-up last year?" Her "I was just following orders" response is unlikely to fly.
That's a prime danger in allowing yourself to participate in one small lie. It's difficult to avoid further lies to cover the initial one.
My reader would be wise not to agree to "fix" the numbers again this year. She should recognize that the harm her boss is causing her agency and herself outweighs any loyalty she may feel or any desire to save him or his family from the consequences of his actions. If he wants job security, he shouldn't be falsifying reports.
The right thing for her to do is to report his behavior.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
SOUND OFF: Fake Memories
The author of a memoir about growing up during the Holocaust and surviving, partly by living with wolves, has admitted that her story was a hoax. My readers weighed in on whether it was right for her publisher to sue her, even though she had ignored professional advice when she published the book in the first place and sued only after losing a multimillion-dollar lawsuit in which the author charged her with not promoting the book as promised.
"Any decent book contract will include a clause where the author promises that all of the material she turns in for publication is true," writes Brian Hurley of Brooklyn, N.Y. "It would almost be a breach of trust for the editor to question the author's work after she has signed the contract."
"That some experts told her that `factual aspects of the story were troubling' does not by itself mean that she acted badly in publishing," writes Luis Villalobos of Newport Beach, Calif. "The publisher may have concluded in good faith that the work was not fake."
"I'm having trouble locating even one ethical person in this entire debacle," writes M. Lawrence of Culpepper, Va.
Check out other opinions at "A Great Deal More than Just the Facts," or post your own or post your own by clicking on "comments" or "post a comment" below.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business and The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of The Right Thing, a Web log focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," The New York Times Syndicate, 500 Seventh Avenue, 8th floor, New York, NY 10018. Please remember to tell me who you are, where you're from, as well as where you read the column.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
"Any decent book contract will include a clause where the author promises that all of the material she turns in for publication is true," writes Brian Hurley of Brooklyn, N.Y. "It would almost be a breach of trust for the editor to question the author's work after she has signed the contract."
"That some experts told her that `factual aspects of the story were troubling' does not by itself mean that she acted badly in publishing," writes Luis Villalobos of Newport Beach, Calif. "The publisher may have concluded in good faith that the work was not fake."
"I'm having trouble locating even one ethical person in this entire debacle," writes M. Lawrence of Culpepper, Va.
Check out other opinions at "A Great Deal More than Just the Facts," or post your own or post your own by clicking on "comments" or "post a comment" below.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business and The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of The Right Thing, a Web log focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," The New York Times Syndicate, 500 Seventh Avenue, 8th floor, New York, NY 10018. Please remember to tell me who you are, where you're from, as well as where you read the column.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
Sunday, April 13, 2008
SOUND OFF: DRUGS AND THE DOCTORS WHO PITCH THEM
[Note: Dr. Robert Jarvik has responded to this question via e-mail. His e-mail is posted in the comments section for this blog post.]
Pfizer has dropped Dr. Robert Jarvik, inventor of the artificial heart, as a spokesman for Lipitor, its cholesterol-lowering medication. The rub, apparently, was that, while Jarvik has a medical degree, he is not licensed to practice medicine. Some believe that this might be misleading to viewers of the Lipitor ads, since Jarvik appears to be giving medical advice.
Fuel was added to the issue after The New York Times reported that one of the ads featuring a rower who seemed to be Jarvik was actually a stunt double. Congressional leaders took issue with the ads, and Pfizer decided to dump Jarvik.
Was Pfizer wrong to use Jarvik in the Lipitor ads? Was there merit to the criticism that he shouldn't be pitching the product because he doesn't hold a medical license? Did Pfizer make the right decision to drop Jarvik as a Lipitor spokesman?
Post your thoughts here by clicking on "comments" or "post a comment" below. Please include your name, hometown, and state, province, or country. Readers' comments may appear in an upcoming column. Or e-mail your comments to me at rightthing@nytimes.com.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business (Smith Kerr, 2006), is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of The Right Thing, a Web log focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," The New York Times Syndicate, 500 Seventh Avenue, 8th floor, New York, NY 10018. Please remember to tell me who you are, where you're from, as well as where you read the column.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
Pfizer has dropped Dr. Robert Jarvik, inventor of the artificial heart, as a spokesman for Lipitor, its cholesterol-lowering medication. The rub, apparently, was that, while Jarvik has a medical degree, he is not licensed to practice medicine. Some believe that this might be misleading to viewers of the Lipitor ads, since Jarvik appears to be giving medical advice.
Fuel was added to the issue after The New York Times reported that one of the ads featuring a rower who seemed to be Jarvik was actually a stunt double. Congressional leaders took issue with the ads, and Pfizer decided to dump Jarvik.
Was Pfizer wrong to use Jarvik in the Lipitor ads? Was there merit to the criticism that he shouldn't be pitching the product because he doesn't hold a medical license? Did Pfizer make the right decision to drop Jarvik as a Lipitor spokesman?
Post your thoughts here by clicking on "comments" or "post a comment" below. Please include your name, hometown, and state, province, or country. Readers' comments may appear in an upcoming column. Or e-mail your comments to me at rightthing@nytimes.com.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business (Smith Kerr, 2006), is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of The Right Thing, a Web log focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," The New York Times Syndicate, 500 Seventh Avenue, 8th floor, New York, NY 10018. Please remember to tell me who you are, where you're from, as well as where you read the column.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
THE RIGHT THING: QUESTIONING `NO QUESTIONS ASKED'
Susan Simpson, a reader who lives in Windsor, Ontario, noticed an article in her local newspaper.
The story described an incident that had occurred in a nearby city.
"To my mind," she writes in a letter to me, "there is an ethical question involved, and I'd be interested in your opinion."
The story, as Simpson tells it, involved a Toronto man who for several years had paid someone to walk his dog on a daily basis.
"On one of these walks," Simpson writes, "the handler tied the dog to a tree while she ran a quick errand inside a store. When she came out, the dog was gone.
"The gentleman was devastated and had fliers put up around town," she continues. "Ads were taken out in the paper offering a $15,000 reward upon the return of the dog, `No Questions Asked."'
After the posters and ads started appearing, two men responded and returned the dog. Originally viewed as heroes, the two were subsequently arrested for involvement in the dog's theft.
The incident, which occurred in February, was reported widely in Toronto newspapers and by CBC News.
"It was negligent of the dog walker to leave the pooch unattended," Simpson writes, "and it was absolutely wrong of the two men to steal the dog."
Both are obvious -- but she wants to know where I stand on the idea of "No Questions Asked." To Simpson the phrase suggests, "I don't care when, where or how you got my dog. Just bring him back, and I'll reward you with $15,000."
Simpson believes that the dog owner was ethically wrong to include the phrase in his ads and fliers, since clearly questions would be asked, and were.
"What say you, sir?" she asks.
Well, for one thing, I say it was illegal.
There's actually a statute in Canada's criminal code that makes it illegal to publicly advertise "a reward for the return of anything that has been stolen or lost, and in the advertisement (use) words to indicate that no questions will be asked if it is returned."
Really. You can look it up in Section 143 of the Criminal Code. It falls under the category of "Misleading Justice."
Nonetheless, regular readers of my column know that I'm not of the mind that something is ethical simply because it's legal. And the authorities apparently don't plan to press charges against the dog owner, so the legalities are beside the point. The question is, was his conduct ethical?
As anyone who has ever lost a pet or something treasured will attest, a reward can be a great motivator for people to keep their eyes open. Nothing wrong with offering one in this case -- it's his money to spend as he sees fit.
Where he stepped over the line, ethically, was in his willingness to turn a blind eye to someone who might have broken the law. There's no value in rewarding criminals who might very well turn around and pull the same scam on other pet owners. To regain your own dog at the cost of others losing theirs is clearly unethical.
The "no questions asked" promise is unethical because it places the promiser in a position in which there is no entirely ethical way to proceed. His choice is to keep faith with other potential victims and call the police, at the cost of breaking his word to the dog thieves, or to keep his promise -- and get his dog back -- while likely placing others in the same awful position he's found himself in.
If there's no ethical way out of a position, the right thing is not to place yourself in that position. The owner should have advertised the reward and left it at that. If someone had responded and the owner had suspected them of involvement in the theft, he could then have turned to the police with a clear conscience.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
The story described an incident that had occurred in a nearby city.
"To my mind," she writes in a letter to me, "there is an ethical question involved, and I'd be interested in your opinion."
The story, as Simpson tells it, involved a Toronto man who for several years had paid someone to walk his dog on a daily basis.
"On one of these walks," Simpson writes, "the handler tied the dog to a tree while she ran a quick errand inside a store. When she came out, the dog was gone.
"The gentleman was devastated and had fliers put up around town," she continues. "Ads were taken out in the paper offering a $15,000 reward upon the return of the dog, `No Questions Asked."'
After the posters and ads started appearing, two men responded and returned the dog. Originally viewed as heroes, the two were subsequently arrested for involvement in the dog's theft.
The incident, which occurred in February, was reported widely in Toronto newspapers and by CBC News.
"It was negligent of the dog walker to leave the pooch unattended," Simpson writes, "and it was absolutely wrong of the two men to steal the dog."
Both are obvious -- but she wants to know where I stand on the idea of "No Questions Asked." To Simpson the phrase suggests, "I don't care when, where or how you got my dog. Just bring him back, and I'll reward you with $15,000."
Simpson believes that the dog owner was ethically wrong to include the phrase in his ads and fliers, since clearly questions would be asked, and were.
"What say you, sir?" she asks.
Well, for one thing, I say it was illegal.
There's actually a statute in Canada's criminal code that makes it illegal to publicly advertise "a reward for the return of anything that has been stolen or lost, and in the advertisement (use) words to indicate that no questions will be asked if it is returned."
Really. You can look it up in Section 143 of the Criminal Code. It falls under the category of "Misleading Justice."
Nonetheless, regular readers of my column know that I'm not of the mind that something is ethical simply because it's legal. And the authorities apparently don't plan to press charges against the dog owner, so the legalities are beside the point. The question is, was his conduct ethical?
As anyone who has ever lost a pet or something treasured will attest, a reward can be a great motivator for people to keep their eyes open. Nothing wrong with offering one in this case -- it's his money to spend as he sees fit.
Where he stepped over the line, ethically, was in his willingness to turn a blind eye to someone who might have broken the law. There's no value in rewarding criminals who might very well turn around and pull the same scam on other pet owners. To regain your own dog at the cost of others losing theirs is clearly unethical.
The "no questions asked" promise is unethical because it places the promiser in a position in which there is no entirely ethical way to proceed. His choice is to keep faith with other potential victims and call the police, at the cost of breaking his word to the dog thieves, or to keep his promise -- and get his dog back -- while likely placing others in the same awful position he's found himself in.
If there's no ethical way out of a position, the right thing is not to place yourself in that position. The owner should have advertised the reward and left it at that. If someone had responded and the owner had suspected them of involvement in the theft, he could then have turned to the police with a clear conscience.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
Sunday, April 06, 2008
THE RIGHT THING: A SICK IDEA
You've cleared your calendar so that you have nothing scheduled for the upcoming weekend. You plan to complete several projects around the house that you have been putting off. All goes according to plan until the weekend rolls around and you are felled by a miserable cold that has been going around but that you had avoided ... until now. You find yourself sneezy, congested, lightheaded and relegated to a weekend of tissues and bed rest. No home projects for you.
By the time Sunday night rolls around, you're feeling better -- certainly well enough to go to work the next day -- but that's no help with your home chores. How can you ever hope to get this work on your house done?
That's the scenario painted by a reader in California. His question: "Would it be ethical to call in sick on Monday to work on my house, instead of going to work, even though you're 100-percent healthy?"
It's not his fault that he couldn't enjoy his days off, he reasons, so would it be reasonable to call in sick on a workday to make up for the day he missed?
If my reader calls in sick when he's perfectly healthy, he'll have plenty of company. In a survey conducted last fall for Careerbuilder.com, 32 percent of workers surveyed said that they had called in sick when they weren't sick at least once in the past year. Perhaps this is because 27 percent of workers said that sick days are equivalent to vacation days and can be used any way the worker sees fit.
Another study on health-care quality in the workplace pegged the cost to employers from absenteeism due to sickness at $74 billion -- a healthy portion of which is presumably due to fake sickness. There's even a fledgling industry booming around it: For $19.95 you can now buy software that generates fake absence notes from doctors.
Student interns have picked up the habit. When a student in one of my classes realized that she had forgotten to tell her employer that our class was scheduled to meet on a day when she regularly worked, another student's immediate response was to advise her to "call in sick."
Roughly one-third of all workers apparently see no harm in the practice, and employers are not likely to know if someone is fake sick or real sick. So, is my reader really all that wrong to consider bending the truth a tiny bit in the interest of fixing up his house?
Yes, he is. As wrong as you can get.
Calling in sick when you're not sick is unethical because, well, it's a lie. You can come up with all the justifications in the world -- an employer who gives too few sick days, a sunny Monday that would make a far better off day than a rainy Saturday -- but none of them change the fact that it's a lie, and lying is under most circumstances unethical by definition. There are exceptions to that rule, of course, but this isn't one.
That it could also backfire, if your employer finds out that you faked your sickness, might be a deterrent, but it shouldn't be the primary reason for a healthy person not to call in sick. Fake sick is real wrong, it's that simple.
It's not his fault that he got sick, but it's not his employer's fault either. The right thing for my reader to do is to take either a personal day or a vacation day to see to his home projects. If he's run out of those, he should be patient. There will be other weekends and holidays, times when he can get the tasks done without lying to do it.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
By the time Sunday night rolls around, you're feeling better -- certainly well enough to go to work the next day -- but that's no help with your home chores. How can you ever hope to get this work on your house done?
That's the scenario painted by a reader in California. His question: "Would it be ethical to call in sick on Monday to work on my house, instead of going to work, even though you're 100-percent healthy?"
It's not his fault that he couldn't enjoy his days off, he reasons, so would it be reasonable to call in sick on a workday to make up for the day he missed?
If my reader calls in sick when he's perfectly healthy, he'll have plenty of company. In a survey conducted last fall for Careerbuilder.com, 32 percent of workers surveyed said that they had called in sick when they weren't sick at least once in the past year. Perhaps this is because 27 percent of workers said that sick days are equivalent to vacation days and can be used any way the worker sees fit.
Another study on health-care quality in the workplace pegged the cost to employers from absenteeism due to sickness at $74 billion -- a healthy portion of which is presumably due to fake sickness. There's even a fledgling industry booming around it: For $19.95 you can now buy software that generates fake absence notes from doctors.
Student interns have picked up the habit. When a student in one of my classes realized that she had forgotten to tell her employer that our class was scheduled to meet on a day when she regularly worked, another student's immediate response was to advise her to "call in sick."
Roughly one-third of all workers apparently see no harm in the practice, and employers are not likely to know if someone is fake sick or real sick. So, is my reader really all that wrong to consider bending the truth a tiny bit in the interest of fixing up his house?
Yes, he is. As wrong as you can get.
Calling in sick when you're not sick is unethical because, well, it's a lie. You can come up with all the justifications in the world -- an employer who gives too few sick days, a sunny Monday that would make a far better off day than a rainy Saturday -- but none of them change the fact that it's a lie, and lying is under most circumstances unethical by definition. There are exceptions to that rule, of course, but this isn't one.
That it could also backfire, if your employer finds out that you faked your sickness, might be a deterrent, but it shouldn't be the primary reason for a healthy person not to call in sick. Fake sick is real wrong, it's that simple.
It's not his fault that he got sick, but it's not his employer's fault either. The right thing for my reader to do is to take either a personal day or a vacation day to see to his home projects. If he's run out of those, he should be patient. There will be other weekends and holidays, times when he can get the tasks done without lying to do it.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
SOUND OFF: SPIELBERG'S CHINA SYNDROME
My readers were split on whether movie director Steven Spielberg did the right thing by pulling out of his commitment to serve as an artistic adviser to the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing after failing to convince China's president to exert his nation's influence on the government of Sudan to put a stop to the genocide in Darfur.
"I applaud Mr. Spielberg's stance on China," writes Daniel Allison of Kingsville, Ontario. "I am glad to know that I am not alone in my condemnation of the Chinese government and all those involved in the 2008 summer games."
"Mr. Spielberg's decision to quit as artistic adviser to the Olympics in Beijing this summer is unfortunate," writes Susan Hammond of Irvine, Calif., "and will cause him to miss a significant and timely opportunity to be a catalyst for change."
"The Chinese government has gotten too many people to forgive its human-rights abuses and involvement in places like Darfur through its seductive offer of cheap labor and a large market," writes Eric McNulty of Brookline, Mass. "Spielberg's decision is the right one for him. More should follow."
"What makes Steven Spielberg think that he has the right to tell China how to handle its international affairs?" asks Burl Estes of Mission Viejo, Calif.
Check out other opinions at "Olympian Decisions," or post your own by clicking on "comments" or "post a comment" below.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business and The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of The Right Thing, a Web log focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," The New York Times Syndicate, 500 Seventh Avenue, 8th floor, New York, NY 10018. Please remember to tell me who you are, where you're from, as well as where you read the column.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
"I applaud Mr. Spielberg's stance on China," writes Daniel Allison of Kingsville, Ontario. "I am glad to know that I am not alone in my condemnation of the Chinese government and all those involved in the 2008 summer games."
"Mr. Spielberg's decision to quit as artistic adviser to the Olympics in Beijing this summer is unfortunate," writes Susan Hammond of Irvine, Calif., "and will cause him to miss a significant and timely opportunity to be a catalyst for change."
"The Chinese government has gotten too many people to forgive its human-rights abuses and involvement in places like Darfur through its seductive offer of cheap labor and a large market," writes Eric McNulty of Brookline, Mass. "Spielberg's decision is the right one for him. More should follow."
"What makes Steven Spielberg think that he has the right to tell China how to handle its international affairs?" asks Burl Estes of Mission Viejo, Calif.
Check out other opinions at "Olympian Decisions," or post your own by clicking on "comments" or "post a comment" below.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business and The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of The Right Thing, a Web log focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," The New York Times Syndicate, 500 Seventh Avenue, 8th floor, New York, NY 10018. Please remember to tell me who you are, where you're from, as well as where you read the column.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
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