It's tough for all but those with the largest audiences to make any significant money from their blogs. Add-on ad pages that pay based on click-throughs or orders don't generally generate enough to replace a salary you'd get at a more traditional job.
Increasingly, there are efforts to help bloggers tap whatever income they can from outfits that seek to capitalize on that tapping as well.
Affiliate marketing has been around for a quite awhile. It enables website owners to make money if viewers buy products through links on the site. To really make these affiliate-marketing relationships work financially as requires a website owner to sign up with a plethora of individual affiliate programs.
A reader writes that she used to work for a website that built itself on an affiliate model. But it concerned her that her website never disclosed that it was earning a commission on things you bought through links on the website that the website just happened to write about.
"I find this pretty sketchy," she writes, "and it's one of the reasons I stopped working for the company . . . particularly because part of my job was to write the most glowing reviews for the companies that were paying us the best commissions. Ugh!"
Now, she notes, there are companies that enable you to automatically create affiliate links without having to sign up for each account individually. Instead, you sign up with these companies and if you write about how great a company is, a link in your post is automatically created to direct readers to the site you wrote about. If someone buys something from that site after going there through your link, even if the purchase happens much later, the sending website owner makes money -- thanks to "cookies" that continue to track users for days after their initial visit. The buyer would not likely know that the referring site was making money from the company where they made their purchase, unless they were seasoned enough to recognize what an affiliate link looks like.
"So what's the ethical verdict on affiliates and sites like this that allow you to sign on with multiple affiliates as one time?" my reader asks. "Do sites need to disclose if they're making money off of visitor clicks? Or, if visitors would be willing to buy a product anyway, is it A-OK for referring sites to benefit financially without them knowing?"
My take is simple. The right thing is that if a website or blog could receive money based on what it writes about, this should be disclosed to visitors. An exception might be products produced by the website owners themselves, since it should be obvious that people generally make money off the things they make and sell. But if links are embedded in website write-ups that drive a reader to a site to buy something and the linker can make money off the purchasers, such relationships should be clearly disclosed to a reader.
Full disclosure of such relationships is the honest approach. It also helps readers know if there are potential biases in any reviews on the site. If they know that someone might make money from the things he reviews, it's up to the reader to decide how trustworthy such a review is.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net.
c) 2011 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by Tribune Media Services, Inc.
Sunday, May 01, 2011
Sunday, April 24, 2011
When it comes to recommendations, write on
A reader poses what he identifies as a real "ethics puzzler." His former partner's son -- his self-identified "de factor former stepson" -- is finishing up his undergraduate degree and is now applying to graduate school.
In the past, even after the relationship with his mother had ended, the former stepson had occasionally asked his former stepfather to write reference letters for him for various academic or service programs. "He got into all of them," his stepfather writes. The stepson would always ask him to write the letters not from the perspective of a parent but as "someone who had assisted in homes schooling him and had been a family friend nearly all his life."
Because his stepfather is a college professor, his stepson figured his academic credentials would lend credibility to the letters he wrote.
"But I always told him that I would preface any letter with a full transparency statement indicating that I had been in effect his stepfather for a period of time."
The relationship with his former stepson's mother is now almost 15 years behind him. Still, he and his former stepson "speak pretty regularly, rendezvous when convenient, and in a pinch, with good news or bad, still connect as family."
Now that the former stepson is applying to graduate school, he still wants to help, but he wonders if at this higher level of education his relationship with him might be "too close."
"On the other hand," he writes, "I know him better than almost anybody, and I think I actually can evaluate his potential quite clearly.
"What do you think?" he asks.
It is unusual for a parent to write a recommendation letter for his child. Even when they do, they might not be considered as strongly as those that come from teachers or others outside of family. Clearly, a family member has an inherent bias and is unlikely to write anything but a letter teetering on being a panegyric for the candidate.
But there's nothing unethical about a parent writing a letter if he chooses to do so, as long as he does precisely as my reader has done in the past, and identifies his relationship to the candidate clearly from the outset of the letter.
Does it make any difference now that the former stepson is applying to graduate school? No. If his former stepfather feels that he can shed light on his academic abilities as well as his character in a way that no one else can and that he feels is important for the prospective graduate school to know, the right thing is for him to write that letter with as much transparency and conviction as he has done in the past.
From a practical standpoint, many graduate schools are likely to place more weight on recommendations that come from those who are not family members or former family members. But that doesn't mean they won't look at all of the candidate's submitted material as part of what paints an overall picture of the candidate's character and potential.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net.
(c) 2011 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by Tribune Media Services, Inc.
In the past, even after the relationship with his mother had ended, the former stepson had occasionally asked his former stepfather to write reference letters for him for various academic or service programs. "He got into all of them," his stepfather writes. The stepson would always ask him to write the letters not from the perspective of a parent but as "someone who had assisted in homes schooling him and had been a family friend nearly all his life."
Because his stepfather is a college professor, his stepson figured his academic credentials would lend credibility to the letters he wrote.
"But I always told him that I would preface any letter with a full transparency statement indicating that I had been in effect his stepfather for a period of time."
The relationship with his former stepson's mother is now almost 15 years behind him. Still, he and his former stepson "speak pretty regularly, rendezvous when convenient, and in a pinch, with good news or bad, still connect as family."
Now that the former stepson is applying to graduate school, he still wants to help, but he wonders if at this higher level of education his relationship with him might be "too close."
"On the other hand," he writes, "I know him better than almost anybody, and I think I actually can evaluate his potential quite clearly.
"What do you think?" he asks.
It is unusual for a parent to write a recommendation letter for his child. Even when they do, they might not be considered as strongly as those that come from teachers or others outside of family. Clearly, a family member has an inherent bias and is unlikely to write anything but a letter teetering on being a panegyric for the candidate.
But there's nothing unethical about a parent writing a letter if he chooses to do so, as long as he does precisely as my reader has done in the past, and identifies his relationship to the candidate clearly from the outset of the letter.
Does it make any difference now that the former stepson is applying to graduate school? No. If his former stepfather feels that he can shed light on his academic abilities as well as his character in a way that no one else can and that he feels is important for the prospective graduate school to know, the right thing is for him to write that letter with as much transparency and conviction as he has done in the past.
From a practical standpoint, many graduate schools are likely to place more weight on recommendations that come from those who are not family members or former family members. But that doesn't mean they won't look at all of the candidate's submitted material as part of what paints an overall picture of the candidate's character and potential.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net.
(c) 2011 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by Tribune Media Services, Inc.
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Making bad calls
Is allowing employees to be treated badly unethical?
A reader's mother has worked for a large Midwestern retailer for many years. The mother spends her days on the phone handling a variety of tasks: enrolling customers in bridal and baby registries, signing up customers for store credit cards, processing returns, issuing gift cards, and, when business is slow, managing the switchboard.
"People are just plain rude," her daughter reports. "They swear at her and call her names and she has no recourse." In fact, her company monitors the calls and if she is anything but polite, she gets into trouble.
The mother also fields calls from employees working in the retail stores. "On one occasion recently," her daughter writes, "an employee called with a question but dialed the number for my mother's group rather than a different number she really should have called." When her mother explained to the employee that she should have called a different number, the employee was rude and ended up filing a complaint.
As a result, the mother was placed on probation. She was not asked to explain the situation or allowed to discuss the matter any further. "If she gets another complaint in the next three months," her daughter writes, "she will be fired and there's nothing she can do."
"It seems wrong, but is it unethical?" she asks, adding: "I wish my mom would get a new job."
It's unfortunate that there are some jobs that regularly place employees on the receiving end of upset customers. Anyone who works in an IT department knows that it's rare to get a call thanking you for keeping a computer system running smoothly or commenting on how well the email functions since a recent upgrade. But if there's a glitch with the company's technology, the outpouring of venom upon the IT folks can be swift.The same often holds true for those who work in various telephone customer service functions. Helping users or customers address and solve problems can be trying to even the most patient of souls.
A company's management is wise to try to make sure that its representatives treat callers with respect, regardless of how upset a caller might get.
But no employee should be expected to withstand an onslaught of abuse. It's one thing to try to calm an upset caller, quite another to expect that she should listen as vulgarities and personal insults are strewn her way.
The right thing for the mother's manager to have done was to give her the opportunity to respond to the complaint that the errant caller from one of the company's stores made to her. Even if it still resulted in a reprimand, there's no fairness is assuming the worst without trying to understand the facts of the situation.
It's one thing to expect an employee to show patience when angry customers (within or outside of the company) call with problems. It's quite another to expect that the employee should receive similar treatment from her managers.
There's no ethical justification for assuming the worst of employees. The value from a management standpoint is questionable as well. If the business environment becomes so toxic that few good employees wish to remain, the company and ultimately the customers suffer.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net.
(c) 2011 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by Tribune Media Services, Inc.
A reader's mother has worked for a large Midwestern retailer for many years. The mother spends her days on the phone handling a variety of tasks: enrolling customers in bridal and baby registries, signing up customers for store credit cards, processing returns, issuing gift cards, and, when business is slow, managing the switchboard.
"People are just plain rude," her daughter reports. "They swear at her and call her names and she has no recourse." In fact, her company monitors the calls and if she is anything but polite, she gets into trouble.
The mother also fields calls from employees working in the retail stores. "On one occasion recently," her daughter writes, "an employee called with a question but dialed the number for my mother's group rather than a different number she really should have called." When her mother explained to the employee that she should have called a different number, the employee was rude and ended up filing a complaint.
As a result, the mother was placed on probation. She was not asked to explain the situation or allowed to discuss the matter any further. "If she gets another complaint in the next three months," her daughter writes, "she will be fired and there's nothing she can do."
"It seems wrong, but is it unethical?" she asks, adding: "I wish my mom would get a new job."
It's unfortunate that there are some jobs that regularly place employees on the receiving end of upset customers. Anyone who works in an IT department knows that it's rare to get a call thanking you for keeping a computer system running smoothly or commenting on how well the email functions since a recent upgrade. But if there's a glitch with the company's technology, the outpouring of venom upon the IT folks can be swift.The same often holds true for those who work in various telephone customer service functions. Helping users or customers address and solve problems can be trying to even the most patient of souls.
A company's management is wise to try to make sure that its representatives treat callers with respect, regardless of how upset a caller might get.
But no employee should be expected to withstand an onslaught of abuse. It's one thing to try to calm an upset caller, quite another to expect that she should listen as vulgarities and personal insults are strewn her way.
The right thing for the mother's manager to have done was to give her the opportunity to respond to the complaint that the errant caller from one of the company's stores made to her. Even if it still resulted in a reprimand, there's no fairness is assuming the worst without trying to understand the facts of the situation.
It's one thing to expect an employee to show patience when angry customers (within or outside of the company) call with problems. It's quite another to expect that the employee should receive similar treatment from her managers.
There's no ethical justification for assuming the worst of employees. The value from a management standpoint is questionable as well. If the business environment becomes so toxic that few good employees wish to remain, the company and ultimately the customers suffer.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net.
(c) 2011 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by Tribune Media Services, Inc.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Breaking the rules and winning a fan
Is it ever OK to break the rules?
Late in March, my two grandsons lost their other grandfather, who died suddenly and unexpectedly. The death was a blow to the family and the loss of a lovely man.
Before my son-in-law told his two sons about his father's death, he called to ask if I would attend an autograph signing not far from my home in Boston that my oldest grandson was to attend the night of the wake in Chicago. My son-in-law wanted to be able to tell Evan that I would go to the event for which he had saved his money for months.
The rules of the autograph event were that you had to pay a separate fee for every item you wanted autographed. Evan had purchased an official NHL puck so he could have it signed by Boston Bruins center Patrice Bergeron.
I, of course, agreed to go, as did my wife.
The morning of the event, Evan called from Chicago. He asked me if he thought it would be OK to call me on my cellphone from the funeral home when I was scheduled to get the autograph.
"Maybe Patrice Bergeron will say hello to me," Evan said.
I reminded Evan that 500 tickets had been sold for the two-hour event, so we were likely to be rushed through. But I told him that I would try.
Being no hockey fan, I had no idea who Bergeron was. After Evan's call, I figured I should find out. In addition to playing for the Bruins, he had won a gold medal on the Canadian Olympic team. And buried in a sports reporter's blog was a reference to the fact that he had missed a game early in March because of his grandmother's death.
I called my son-in-law to tell him of the coincidence in Bergeron and Evan each losing a grandparent recently.
Figuring the phone call between Evan and Bergeron wouldn't happen, I printed up a sign that said, "Hello, Evan" as well as Bergeron's name and jersey number. (It's 37. I looked it up.) I figured my wife might hold the sign next to Bergeron when he was signing Evan's puck and we could snap a photo.
I also wrote to the owner of the shop where Bergeron was appearing explaining my grandson's loss and seeing if there was any possibility Bergeron would get on the phone with Evan. Terry Fox, co-owner of P&T Sports Cards, called me back, told me how moved she was, but that it was unlikely there would be time for a call. Still, she said she'd print out the email and give it to Bergeron's agent.
As expected, the event was packed. When we were third in line to get the autograph, Evan called. Someone grabbed the puck, ushered us up the line and, as Bergeron was signing it, I started to ask if he might talk to Evan. Without hesitation, he asked for the phone. He had seen the printout of the email and knew the story.
"I'm sorry for your loss," Bergeron said. "Hang in there." My wife's eyes welled up. And then Bergeron's eyes welled up too as he continued to talk. His agent put the sign I had made in front of Bergeron and asked him to "sign it for the kid." He did that too, breaking the rule about having to pay separately for each item signed.
Evan called later to thank me.
"What did you say when he told you he was sorry for your loss?" I asked.
"I told him I was sorry for his loss, too," Evan said.
Did Bergeron do the right thing by breaking the rules to sign an extra autograph? I'm biased, of course, but I like to think he did. I also know that he has new fans for life.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net.
(c) 2011 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by Tribune Media Services, Inc.
Sunday, April 03, 2011
An employee with a flight of hand
An upper-level employee travels regularly for his company for his job in sales. His company's policy is to let employees book and pay for their own fights and then fill out an expense report to get reimbursed.
The company tries to reimburse its employees in a timely manner, usually within a week of when they submit their expense report.
The employee has regularly been submitting forms from an online travel website that he's printed out, presumably reflecting the cost of the flights he's been taking. These forms have the actual flight information including date, time, and airfare on them.
He's been operating in such a manner without incident and getting repaid for these tickets for months.
The trouble is that what he says he's been paying for tickets is not what he's actually been paying for tickets.
A reader who helps process the expense reports for employees writes that the employee has, in fact, been flying at "buddy rates" which are much lower. (Apparently, he has a family member who works for one of the airlines.) So, for example, instead of it costing $400 for a round-trip ticket to Las Vegas, he pays $50 at the buddy rate, and submits a printout from the website that suggests the flight cost the full $400.
"The only reason we caught this is sloppy paperwork," my reader writes. The accounting department found a standby buddy ticket rules sheet inadvertently attached to his expense reports. Upon further investigation, they found other documentation to suggest what the employee had been doing.
"I need help in explaining this to this upper level employee," my reader writes. "He is a long-term employee who does a very good job. I think he feels entitled . . . but I also believe it is dishonest and it is stealing from our company."
There should be no doubt in my reader's mind that what his employee is doing is wrong. He may feel entitled, but for him to overcharge his employer for a service he doesn't pay for is indeed dishonest and fraudulent. If the employee felt entitled to be reimbursed the full fare rather than his discounted fare, the right thing would have been for him to talk to his employer about this rather than make that decision for himself.
The employer can't require the employee to use the buddy rate he gets, but it can and should insist that he not fabricate expenses on his report.
The right thing is for my reader to be direct with this employee and tell him to stop misreporting his expenses and to reimburse the company for any amounts he's been overpaid. It doesn't appear that the company wants to fire this employee for his actions, but any employer would be within its rights to do so.
The company would be wise to start insisting that actual receipts (either printed out from an airport kiosk or submitted from a credit card bill) be submitted with expense reports rather than printouts from a travel website.
But that's a management decision. The ethical choice here is clear: Insist that your employees not falsify the reimbursable expenses.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net.
(c) 2011 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by Tribune Media Services, Inc.
The company tries to reimburse its employees in a timely manner, usually within a week of when they submit their expense report.
The employee has regularly been submitting forms from an online travel website that he's printed out, presumably reflecting the cost of the flights he's been taking. These forms have the actual flight information including date, time, and airfare on them.
He's been operating in such a manner without incident and getting repaid for these tickets for months.
The trouble is that what he says he's been paying for tickets is not what he's actually been paying for tickets.
A reader who helps process the expense reports for employees writes that the employee has, in fact, been flying at "buddy rates" which are much lower. (Apparently, he has a family member who works for one of the airlines.) So, for example, instead of it costing $400 for a round-trip ticket to Las Vegas, he pays $50 at the buddy rate, and submits a printout from the website that suggests the flight cost the full $400.
"The only reason we caught this is sloppy paperwork," my reader writes. The accounting department found a standby buddy ticket rules sheet inadvertently attached to his expense reports. Upon further investigation, they found other documentation to suggest what the employee had been doing.
"I need help in explaining this to this upper level employee," my reader writes. "He is a long-term employee who does a very good job. I think he feels entitled . . . but I also believe it is dishonest and it is stealing from our company."
There should be no doubt in my reader's mind that what his employee is doing is wrong. He may feel entitled, but for him to overcharge his employer for a service he doesn't pay for is indeed dishonest and fraudulent. If the employee felt entitled to be reimbursed the full fare rather than his discounted fare, the right thing would have been for him to talk to his employer about this rather than make that decision for himself.
The employer can't require the employee to use the buddy rate he gets, but it can and should insist that he not fabricate expenses on his report.
The right thing is for my reader to be direct with this employee and tell him to stop misreporting his expenses and to reimburse the company for any amounts he's been overpaid. It doesn't appear that the company wants to fire this employee for his actions, but any employer would be within its rights to do so.
The company would be wise to start insisting that actual receipts (either printed out from an airport kiosk or submitted from a credit card bill) be submitted with expense reports rather than printouts from a travel website.
But that's a management decision. The ethical choice here is clear: Insist that your employees not falsify the reimbursable expenses.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net.
(c) 2011 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by Tribune Media Services, Inc.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
When a spouse strips the assets
For 20 years, a married couple kept a joint investment account with a well-known brokerage firm. In addition to their investment portfolio, there were liquid funds in a checking account each could use for expenses. They didn't use this checking account as their primary checking account, but each from time to time wrote a check on the investment account for major expenses.
Earlier this year, however, the wife discovered that her husband had been regularly writing checks made out to "cash" for thousands of dollars. During a 10-year period, her husband wrote checks for more than $350,000 made out to "cash."
The husband admitted that he used a significant portion of the funds to go to strip clubs. "He was pretending to go to work every day, when in fact he was either driving around waiting for the strip clubs to open, or spending the day in the clubs," his now ex-wife writes.
The couple divorced in June.
You might guess that my reader's question might have to do with the ethics of a husband who spends joint funds on such endeavors. It's not.
"Did our financial adviser have an ethical obligation to advise me about this activity?" she wants to know.
The couple only met with their financial adviser -- the broker for their investment account -- once a year.
Since her discovery, the wife decided to change brokers. When her former broker asked her why, she told him that she felt he should have given her a heads up about all the checks made out to "cash." She says that even a comment from him that they might want to restructure their investments to accommodate their new spending pattern would have sufficed. His response, she writes, was simply to say, "Oh."
My reader has every right to be furious with her ex-husband for spending their joint account funds on personal expenses about which she apparently had no knowledge.
But her beef is with her ex-husband, not her ex-broker. Unless he gave them advice that went against their instructions or if he failed to make note that they were living beyond their means when he assisted then in creating a financial plan, it was not his business to keep tabs on what they were using their checking account for.
The checks her husband wrote were written over a decade. Both of their names were on the account and each had access to the funds. That her husband used the money for a purpose his wife found objectionable is clear, but that's an issue between the two of them.
It's unfortunate that no red flags arose for my reader during the time her husband was spending their money on his extracurricular activities. But in a relationship presumably built on trust, it's not unusual that she would not have suspected such behavior.
The right thing is for my reader to cast responsibility for her husband's behavior squarely on his shoulders.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net.
(c) 2011 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by Tribune Media Services, Inc.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
If the diaper fits, pay for it
A reader just outside of Boston and his wife recently became parents for the first time. To help make sure they remain stocked with goods they need for their new baby, the couple has a standing order for diapers with Amazon.com. They use the site for a number of other purchases, as well.
Recently, my reader’s wife ordered a new sheet for their baby’s bed and two sippy cups. A few days later they received two boxes, each with a bedsheet and a two-pack of sippy cups in it.
“Our initial thought was that my wife had probably double-clicked on her order, but in checking we found that it was probably an Amazon error,” my reader writes. Their credit card was only charged once, and the invoice slip in each box carried the exact same order number. Amazon seems to have filled their order twice, but charged them only once.
My reader tells me that while he was all for keeping both orders, his wife was more concerned with doing what was right. They agreed that it was probably right to let Amazon know about the mistake and ask for the company to send a mailing label so they could return one of the orders.
His wife agreed, but she was still upset about an earlier flap they had had with their standing diaper order. Amazon had shipped the wrong size diapers and it took several e-mails to get the issue sorted out. When the correct shipment finally arrived the couple sent back the incorrect shipment. A few weeks later they got an e-mail from Amazon claiming it hadn’t received the returned diapers and was therefore going to re-charge their credit card for the amount.
Before his wife had time to deal with this charge error, the double order mistake occurred.
Because the prices of the bed sheet and cups and the shipment of wrong-size diapers were about the same, my reader’s wife wants “to call it a wash.”
“This seems fair enough to me,” my reader writes, “but I’m guessing that it’s not strictly the right thing to do.”
The impulse to assume all’s even because the value of the wrongly shipped goods and wrongly charged goods are roughly equal makes sense. But strictly speaking, that doesn’t resolve the issue.
For one, Amazon still wrongly charged the couple and should know about it. What’s more, the couple received goods for which they didn’t pay and they should let Amazon know that.
Just as it wouldn’t be kosher to not report income on income tax forms because you hadn’t taken an equivalent amount of deductions, it’s not OK to assume that the two wrongs with Amazon equal out. (Granted, Amazon doesn’t have the foreboding power of the IRS.)
The right thing would be for my reader or his wife to contact Amazon to let it know of the error and to ask the company if they can just keep the wrong shipped goods to make up for the error, if that’s what the couple would like to do. They could also use this opportunity to let Amazon know that if the error isn’t resolved swiftly that they will consider dropping their standing order with the company. (The little publicized toll-free customer service number at Amazon is 800-201-7575.)
By doing this, the couple not only does what’s right by acknowledging they received goods for which they didn’t pay, they also put Amazon on notice that if the company can’t get the order and charging straight, it will lose a valued customer.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today’s Business, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net.
© 2011 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by Tribune Media Services, Inc.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Let the ring shine for you
When England’s Prince William proposed to Kate Middleton, he used the blue sapphire and diamond ring that had belonged to his mother, Princess Diana. The cost of that ring originally ran around 30,000 pounds.
It didn’t take long for those inspired by the ring to put a less-costly knockoff on their or their intended’s finger.
Almost immediately after the engagement was announced, a manufacturer in China began replicating the ring and selling it online for under 20 bucks. Of course, the replica doesn’t contain sapphires or diamonds. And the band on the finer versions of the replica is made of silver-coated copper. But still, for those who loved the design of the ring, it’s relatively cheap to put their fingers on one.
Few soon-to-be engaged couples are likely to find a Kate Middleton knockoff ring to be the jewelry that seals their marriage deal. But many might be inspired by the look of a ring they happen to see and like that is either too costly or not the just-right design.
When a reader and her fiance were shopping for engagement rings at a shopping mall, they found a setting they liked by an artist. It wasn’t, however, exactly what they were looking for. “We wanted a metal at a different price point,” my reader writes, “and we wanted a setting that would accommodate a different shape of stone.”
The couple didn’t know the name of the artist who designed the ring. “It didn’t occur to us at the time to try harder to find who he was” so he could do a custom design. Instead, they used his setting design as an inspiration, then made the changes they wanted and commissioed a local jeweler to make the ring for them.
Later, when she thought more about it, my reader began to feel badly about using the artist’s design as a jumping-off point for her engagement ring and having someone else make it. So she went back to the store in the shopping mall to see if the original setting was still there so she could try to find out who the artist was “to perhaps buy something else from him to make karmic amends.”
Alas, the ring was no longer for sale and neither was anything else from the artist.
“I feel solidly that it was not the ethical thing for us to do,” my reader writes, “and I would not do it again if I had a chance.” She asks: “Is there a point at which using an artist's design as ‘inspiration’ is OK, or is it just stealing?”
My reader is being too hard on herself. Sure, it would have been nice if she had tried to contact the artist whose design she originally liked to see if he might be able to design something inspired by that design but more to her liking.
But unless she and her fiance replicated the design exactly, no harm, no foul. Finding inspiration in a piece of art is far different from commissioning someone to make a cheaper exact knockoff of the original.
The right thing is for my reader and her husband to enjoy their rings and the design they came up with to reflect their new life together. If that shopping mall store ever does get in more jewelry from that original artist, good on them if they choose to buy a little something from him to reward him for inspiring them.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today’s Business, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net.
© 2011 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
When written agreements don’t reflect the truth
About a year ago, a reader from Boston who is a freelance consultant started doing work for a new client. The client sent her a contract, part of which has the consultant agree that the client will be her only client for the duration of the contract. The contract is renewable every three months.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net.
In a face-to-face meeting when they were first talking about doing business together, my reader told her client that she would not be giving up her regular existing clients, but the new client put the exclusivity clause in the contract anyway.
My reader signed the contract even though she knew she already had several other clients for whom she planned to continue doing work.
“They don’t have room to complain because I deliver all of their work on time and they like what I give them,” my reader tells me. “I wasn’t willing to let go of long-term clients whose work is intermittent but regular.”
My reader acknowledges that her workload gets “crazy at times,” but she always gives this contracted client priority. “They ask a lot of me,” she says. “It’s nice getting a regular monthly paycheck, but it’s not enough to warrant dropping my other clients.”
All has been going well between my reader and her client over the past year. No questions have come up about my reader’s other clients.
But now the CEO of her client company wants to connect on LinkedIn, a business-oriented social networking site. Many LinkedIn members list their work experience and current work projects. My reader’s LinkedIn page includes copious details about her extensive body of current work.
In a perfect world, listing professional relationships on a site like LinkedIn could be a boon to someone’s business. Such listings can let the world of prospective clients know how highly your work is in demand.
But my reader now finds herself worried about what her client will learn when she sees her page.
“She’s going to see all of my present clients and work I do, which is a lot!” my reader says.
Still, she says she’s going to accept her client’s request on LinkedIn, but not say anything and just see what happens.
It’s a worry that didn’t need to happen.
My reader did the right thing by telling her client right off the bat that she had existing clients with whom she planned to continue working. But by not requesting that her contract be corrected to reflect this by excising the exclusivity clause, she now finds herself in a predicament. By signing the contract, she agreed to something she knew did not accurately reflect what she planned to do.
Since the contract comes up for renewal every three months, the right thing would be to make sure that the language in it is corrected to reflect her work reality. She’d be wise also to try to rectify this before she agrees to link up with her client on LinkedIn because it would be better for my reader to clear the air before her client discovers that the agreement she thought she had with my reader does not reflect reality.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today’s Business, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics.
© 2011 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by Tribune Media Services, Inc.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
That’s the way the basketball bounces
The girls high school basketball game was turning into a blowout. My reader’s daughter’s team led by more than 30 points.
As the fourth quarter began, the team still had three starters in the game. On the bench, however, were six girls who had yet to hit the court at all. Finally, the coach substituted in five of the players who hadn’t seen court time yet.
Less than 10 seconds later, however, the coach quickly called a time out and put one of the starters back in. “This player was hot,” my reader writes, “and the coaching staff realized that she had a chance to tie or break a school record for three-point baskets.”
The coach wanted to make sure she hit the record. So he instructed the other four girls on the floor — the ones who had just gotten into the game — to get her the ball for a three-point shot.
“It took her four more team possessions to get her record-tying three-point basket,” my reader writes.
“There were kids on the bench who had played minimal minutes all season,” he writes. “Here was a game in which they could have gotten some quality playing time. A few may have even scored their first baskets of the year. Yet this coach found it more important to try to have one player break a record of another kid whose record was a good one against a good quality team.”
My reader’s faith in her daughter’s coach and his values has been challenged. “When did crushing another team become more important than playing your whole team?”
“Maybe a daily reminder of what his job is really supposed to be would be helpful,” my reader writes. He is contemplating getting the coach a plaque that reads, “Men do not embarrass young women.”
My reader wants to know if it is ethical or right as a high school varsity coach to put the needs or wants of one child ahead of her teammates.
Clearly, my reader is upset. But I’m not convinced that the coach can be condemned for wanting to “crush the other team” if he replaced his starters and then took four more team possessions to get the one girl her record-tying basket. If he really had been trying to crush the other team, he likely would have kept all of his starters in for the duration of the game.
That still brings up the question of whether it was right to want to feed the ball to this one girl to give her a shot at the record rather than giving the other girls on the team a chance to get game time and simply have a shot at the basket.
The game was already sewn up and the coach’s decision to give a star player a chance to achieve something extraordinary seems a reasonable decision. Does it send the message that every player should get an equal chance? No. Does it reinforce the importance of teamwork in winning a game? Probably not.
If the coach insisted in every game that this one player be given the ball to shoot, that might cross the line into unfairness and simply be bad coaching. But on this one occasion if the coach decided that the girls might work together to give a teammate the chance to accomplish something truly remarkable, that seems a perfectly ethical choice to make.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today’s Business, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net.
© 2011 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
As the fourth quarter began, the team still had three starters in the game. On the bench, however, were six girls who had yet to hit the court at all. Finally, the coach substituted in five of the players who hadn’t seen court time yet.
Less than 10 seconds later, however, the coach quickly called a time out and put one of the starters back in. “This player was hot,” my reader writes, “and the coaching staff realized that she had a chance to tie or break a school record for three-point baskets.”
The coach wanted to make sure she hit the record. So he instructed the other four girls on the floor — the ones who had just gotten into the game — to get her the ball for a three-point shot.
“It took her four more team possessions to get her record-tying three-point basket,” my reader writes.
“There were kids on the bench who had played minimal minutes all season,” he writes. “Here was a game in which they could have gotten some quality playing time. A few may have even scored their first baskets of the year. Yet this coach found it more important to try to have one player break a record of another kid whose record was a good one against a good quality team.”
My reader’s faith in her daughter’s coach and his values has been challenged. “When did crushing another team become more important than playing your whole team?”
“Maybe a daily reminder of what his job is really supposed to be would be helpful,” my reader writes. He is contemplating getting the coach a plaque that reads, “Men do not embarrass young women.”
My reader wants to know if it is ethical or right as a high school varsity coach to put the needs or wants of one child ahead of her teammates.
Clearly, my reader is upset. But I’m not convinced that the coach can be condemned for wanting to “crush the other team” if he replaced his starters and then took four more team possessions to get the one girl her record-tying basket. If he really had been trying to crush the other team, he likely would have kept all of his starters in for the duration of the game.
That still brings up the question of whether it was right to want to feed the ball to this one girl to give her a shot at the record rather than giving the other girls on the team a chance to get game time and simply have a shot at the basket.
The game was already sewn up and the coach’s decision to give a star player a chance to achieve something extraordinary seems a reasonable decision. Does it send the message that every player should get an equal chance? No. Does it reinforce the importance of teamwork in winning a game? Probably not.
If the coach insisted in every game that this one player be given the ball to shoot, that might cross the line into unfairness and simply be bad coaching. But on this one occasion if the coach decided that the girls might work together to give a teammate the chance to accomplish something truly remarkable, that seems a perfectly ethical choice to make.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today’s Business, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net.
© 2011 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
How sick is the new sick policy?
Most of us have had the odd occasion when we decided to go to work even though we felt slightly under the weather. Perhaps not with a full-blown case of the flu, but a nasty bout of hay fever or a dalliance with stomach upset that might not be enough to keep us from our appointed rounds.
But as irreplaceable as we might view ourselves, is it responsible to go to work when you are sick enough to spread whatever you have to co-workers?
A reader from Huntington Beach, Calif., believes her company may be unintentionally causing employees to come to work when it would be in their own interest and those of their colleagues to stay home and get healthy.
Her company recently changed its sick-leave policy because it wanted, she writes, to discourage the use of sick days for financial and staffing reasons. “They have reallocated the number of hours each employee is allotted for sickness each year and they do not allow accrual of sick hours.”
What’s worse, she argues, is that the company’s management is also incentivizing employees to not use their sick days by rewarding them with a day off for every six months they have perfect attendance. “So now colleagues come in sick and spread their sickness to others,” she writes.
Clearly, she believes this policy is not only shortsighted, but also pits coworkers against each other. “An individual may well want an extra day off rather than be home ill, but the rest of us don't deserve to risk exposure and sickness just for that person's pleasure.”
Is the company wrong to want to encourage its employees to take as few sick days as possible by rewarding them when they don’t?
There may be a variety of reasons why my reader’s company came up with its policy of rewarding employees when they take few sick days. Perhaps management believed that employees were misusing sick days to get time off when they weren’t actually ill. Short of requiring a sick note from a doctor, the company would have to take the employee’s word about their health status. Or perhaps, rather than allowing employees to accrue sick days from one year to the next that they could use for long stretches or be compensated for when they leave the company, it seemed a better idea to reward an extra personal day for every six months of perfect attendance.
If a company enacts a policy because it doesn’t trust its employees when they say they’re sick, then no change in sick-day policy will cure that lack of trust. If it’s a trust issue, a company would be wise to look deeper at the root of the problem.
But even if the company trusts its employees and enacted the new policy out of a desire to be more efficient, it still has the responsibility to make sure that the new setup doesn’t result in the unintended consequence of encouraging an office full of sick co-workers.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with changing a sick- or personal-day policy. But the right thing to do is to make sure that in your effort to make things better, you haven’t unintentionally made things far worse for everyone involved.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today’s Business, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net.
© 2011 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
But as irreplaceable as we might view ourselves, is it responsible to go to work when you are sick enough to spread whatever you have to co-workers?
A reader from Huntington Beach, Calif., believes her company may be unintentionally causing employees to come to work when it would be in their own interest and those of their colleagues to stay home and get healthy.
Her company recently changed its sick-leave policy because it wanted, she writes, to discourage the use of sick days for financial and staffing reasons. “They have reallocated the number of hours each employee is allotted for sickness each year and they do not allow accrual of sick hours.”
What’s worse, she argues, is that the company’s management is also incentivizing employees to not use their sick days by rewarding them with a day off for every six months they have perfect attendance. “So now colleagues come in sick and spread their sickness to others,” she writes.
Clearly, she believes this policy is not only shortsighted, but also pits coworkers against each other. “An individual may well want an extra day off rather than be home ill, but the rest of us don't deserve to risk exposure and sickness just for that person's pleasure.”
Is the company wrong to want to encourage its employees to take as few sick days as possible by rewarding them when they don’t?
There may be a variety of reasons why my reader’s company came up with its policy of rewarding employees when they take few sick days. Perhaps management believed that employees were misusing sick days to get time off when they weren’t actually ill. Short of requiring a sick note from a doctor, the company would have to take the employee’s word about their health status. Or perhaps, rather than allowing employees to accrue sick days from one year to the next that they could use for long stretches or be compensated for when they leave the company, it seemed a better idea to reward an extra personal day for every six months of perfect attendance.
If a company enacts a policy because it doesn’t trust its employees when they say they’re sick, then no change in sick-day policy will cure that lack of trust. If it’s a trust issue, a company would be wise to look deeper at the root of the problem.
But even if the company trusts its employees and enacted the new policy out of a desire to be more efficient, it still has the responsibility to make sure that the new setup doesn’t result in the unintended consequence of encouraging an office full of sick co-workers.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with changing a sick- or personal-day policy. But the right thing to do is to make sure that in your effort to make things better, you haven’t unintentionally made things far worse for everyone involved.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today’s Business, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net.
© 2011 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Sales that end with an ugh
I’m not what you would call a fashion plate. It’s rare that I’m up with whatever the latest fashion trend happens to be. The first time I heard of Ugg boots was when a writing student of mine wrote a column for a local alternative weekly about how overexposed and ugly the boots are. Uggs were apparently reaching saturation just as they first crossed my awareness.
It was fortunate, though, that I learned of them when I did since it prepared me for an e-mail from A.C., a reader from Ohio. She had bought a pair of Ugg boots for her daughter from a website. The retail price, she reports, would have been $160, but she paid $85,which included shipping.
“The boots came and, unfortunately, they were two sizes too big,” she writes. Since there wasn’t any method to return the boots indicated on the packaging, my reader decided to cut her losses and sell them to a resale store. “If not for the size, we would have been happy to have kept them.”
The store’s buyer paid her $40 for the boots and marked them for resale at $80.
That night on her local news broadcast, my reader saw a clip warning consumers about purchasing counterfeit Ugg boots off of the Internet. She went online to get some tips on how to recognize a knockoff. Since she didn’t have the boots with her, it was difficult for her to remember the fine points of the boots. But she did recall that the box her boots came in did not mirror the description of what a genuine Ugg boots box should look like. “My box’s lid was simply a lid,” she writes, “whereas the genuine Ugg boots box is hinged.”
My reader called the resale store the next day to explain how she had purchased her boots and that she was no longer confident they were genuine. She didn’t explain why she believed this, but she did offer to buy them back so that someone else wouldn’t purchase them believing them to be “the real deal.”
The sales clerk she spoke with assured her that the staff at the resale store is trained to spot fakes, and then thanked my reader for caring.
“She never really gave me a chance to speak about why I thought they might be fakes,” my reader writes. She decided that if they passed the store’s staff trained eyes, then perhaps they were made in the same manufacturing plant as the genuine Uggs.
Still bothered by all of this, my reader returned to the store two days later and found that the boots had already been sold. Now she’s left wondering whether she did the right thing. “Should I have called them back and explained about the difference in the box?”
Once my reader grew concerned that she might have purchased a knockoff pair of boots, she did the right thing by calling the store to let it know of her concern. She’s right that it would be unfortunate if someone bought them thinking they had a genuine pair, but my reader had no obligation beyond telling the store that they might have fake goods on their hands. It might have been good for the clerk she spoke with to have taken her concerns a bit more seriously, but once my reader alerted the store of the possible issue, it was its responsibility to investigate and make sure it wasn’t mislabeling products for sale.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today’s Business,” is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net.
© 2011 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
It was fortunate, though, that I learned of them when I did since it prepared me for an e-mail from A.C., a reader from Ohio. She had bought a pair of Ugg boots for her daughter from a website. The retail price, she reports, would have been $160, but she paid $85,which included shipping.
“The boots came and, unfortunately, they were two sizes too big,” she writes. Since there wasn’t any method to return the boots indicated on the packaging, my reader decided to cut her losses and sell them to a resale store. “If not for the size, we would have been happy to have kept them.”
The store’s buyer paid her $40 for the boots and marked them for resale at $80.
That night on her local news broadcast, my reader saw a clip warning consumers about purchasing counterfeit Ugg boots off of the Internet. She went online to get some tips on how to recognize a knockoff. Since she didn’t have the boots with her, it was difficult for her to remember the fine points of the boots. But she did recall that the box her boots came in did not mirror the description of what a genuine Ugg boots box should look like. “My box’s lid was simply a lid,” she writes, “whereas the genuine Ugg boots box is hinged.”
My reader called the resale store the next day to explain how she had purchased her boots and that she was no longer confident they were genuine. She didn’t explain why she believed this, but she did offer to buy them back so that someone else wouldn’t purchase them believing them to be “the real deal.”
The sales clerk she spoke with assured her that the staff at the resale store is trained to spot fakes, and then thanked my reader for caring.
“She never really gave me a chance to speak about why I thought they might be fakes,” my reader writes. She decided that if they passed the store’s staff trained eyes, then perhaps they were made in the same manufacturing plant as the genuine Uggs.
Still bothered by all of this, my reader returned to the store two days later and found that the boots had already been sold. Now she’s left wondering whether she did the right thing. “Should I have called them back and explained about the difference in the box?”
Once my reader grew concerned that she might have purchased a knockoff pair of boots, she did the right thing by calling the store to let it know of her concern. She’s right that it would be unfortunate if someone bought them thinking they had a genuine pair, but my reader had no obligation beyond telling the store that they might have fake goods on their hands. It might have been good for the clerk she spoke with to have taken her concerns a bit more seriously, but once my reader alerted the store of the possible issue, it was its responsibility to investigate and make sure it wasn’t mislabeling products for sale.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today’s Business,” is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net.
© 2011 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
Sunday, February 06, 2011
Praise the Lord and pass the application
The second short essay question on the admissions application for a master’s degree in education reads: “What do you see in your life that might indicate that you are walking with the Lord?” This is preceded by a question asking you to explain how you came to know Jesus as your savior as well as the scriptural basis for your salvation.
The private college based in the Pacific Northwest makes it clear on its application that it expects its students to adhere to a “lifestyle commitment” which holds, among other things, that “learning and the Christian faith are inseparable.” On the online application, students are asked to check off a box that indicates their agreement to abide by the “lifestyle commitment.”
As applications go, this one is pretty clear in its expectations of applicants.
A reader from Portland, Ore., believes that this college “offers what seems to be the perfect program” for her. She already has a master’s degree in English, but believes that more career opportunities will open up for her if she adds a graduate degree in education. She especially likes this program because it offers a specialty in curriculum design.
The problem is that she finds the religious questions posed on the application “rather intrusive.”
“Even if I were not an atheist,” she writes, “I would feel uncomfortable talking about my relationship with God.” She does write that she would gladly take any religion courses that might be required if she is admitted. What’s more, the program is offered completely online so she won’t have to move or even commute to classes.
There are two other graduate programs in my reader’s area, neither of which requires answers to such questions on the application. But neither is as convenient an option as the school that asks the religious questions.
“Is it unethical to lie on these essays?” she asks. “I certainly know enough about religion to create these responses, but the thought of that much lying is off-putting,” she writes, telling me that she grew up in the South surrounded by Baptists, the religion with which this college is affiliated.
The fact that the thought of “that much lying” is off-putting should give my reader the clue that something is wrong for even contemplating faking a story about her strong relationship with God to get into a convenient master’s program.
Even if there were no other options available in her area, lying on the application in an effort to gain admission would not be justified. Little good comes from any relationship that begins with a lie. A relationship to a graduate school is no exception.
If she’s honest on the application about her atheism, it’s very likely she will not be admitted. But such knowledge still doesn’t justify lying.
The right thing is for my reader to find a graduate program that matches her needs whose culture does not prohibit her from telling the truth about herself. She should not lie about her beliefs to get into a program that’s more convenient for her.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today’s Business, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net.
© 2011 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
The private college based in the Pacific Northwest makes it clear on its application that it expects its students to adhere to a “lifestyle commitment” which holds, among other things, that “learning and the Christian faith are inseparable.” On the online application, students are asked to check off a box that indicates their agreement to abide by the “lifestyle commitment.”
As applications go, this one is pretty clear in its expectations of applicants.
A reader from Portland, Ore., believes that this college “offers what seems to be the perfect program” for her. She already has a master’s degree in English, but believes that more career opportunities will open up for her if she adds a graduate degree in education. She especially likes this program because it offers a specialty in curriculum design.
The problem is that she finds the religious questions posed on the application “rather intrusive.”
“Even if I were not an atheist,” she writes, “I would feel uncomfortable talking about my relationship with God.” She does write that she would gladly take any religion courses that might be required if she is admitted. What’s more, the program is offered completely online so she won’t have to move or even commute to classes.
There are two other graduate programs in my reader’s area, neither of which requires answers to such questions on the application. But neither is as convenient an option as the school that asks the religious questions.
“Is it unethical to lie on these essays?” she asks. “I certainly know enough about religion to create these responses, but the thought of that much lying is off-putting,” she writes, telling me that she grew up in the South surrounded by Baptists, the religion with which this college is affiliated.
The fact that the thought of “that much lying” is off-putting should give my reader the clue that something is wrong for even contemplating faking a story about her strong relationship with God to get into a convenient master’s program.
Even if there were no other options available in her area, lying on the application in an effort to gain admission would not be justified. Little good comes from any relationship that begins with a lie. A relationship to a graduate school is no exception.
If she’s honest on the application about her atheism, it’s very likely she will not be admitted. But such knowledge still doesn’t justify lying.
The right thing is for my reader to find a graduate program that matches her needs whose culture does not prohibit her from telling the truth about herself. She should not lie about her beliefs to get into a program that’s more convenient for her.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today’s Business, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net.
© 2011 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
The great toy train robbery conundrum
When my now-12-year-old grandson, Evan, was a toddler until he was 6 or 7, he was heavily into wooden Thomas the Tank Engine trains. He knew the names of all of the trains — and it seemed as if there were an endless number of them — and he knew which ones he wanted to add to his collection next.
Evan would save up his money and, when he had enough, he would buy another train. For years he was focused on these trains and rarely was distracted by other toys he wanted to buy for himself. He was also riveted to a series of videos we kept on store for him called “I Love Toy Trains.” His family once took a trip to Steamtown, a National Historic site in Scranton, Pa., that featured real steam engines and train cars on its grounds and a museum chock full of everything you could imagine dealing with trains.
Trains, it seemed were his passion.
Evan’s devotion to trains at that age was not unique. An e-mail from a reader near Boston reminded me of Evan’s once consuming devotion.
“We already own a ton of trains,” my reader wrote. “Mostly through Craigslist, we have scored unbelievable trains.” When last Christmas rolled around, she did not want to buy her son any more trains. He had enough, she figured.
But she broke down and went to Toys R Us with a 20 percent-off coupon she had received in the mail with the intention of buying him the GeoTrax Christmas Deluxe Edition that retailed for $129. It was on sale for $99. With the coupon, it would run her $80. “OK,” she figured, “that’s not too bad. I’ll do that for him.”
She brought her one huge item up to the register where the cashier scanned it, took her coupon, and asked for $21.94. “I just swiped my card, took the box, and walked out of there.” The cashier was talking to a co-worker “and not paying attention either,” my reader writes.
She put the package in her car and settled into the front seat. It was only then that she read the receipt: “Ken & Barbie Accessories” that scanned for $19.99.
“I realized it was totally not my error,” she wrote. “It was theirs, but I don’t quite know what I was supposed to do.”
Even though it was the store’s mistake, the right thing to do would have been to point out the error to the store. Clearly, it’s the store’s error, but my reader knows that — rather than having been some extra-special Christmas-time discount — the price she paid was for a less expensive item. Just as if she had been handed back too much change from a cash purchase, the right thing is to set matters right. It presented little hardship to do so, particularly since she was still sitting in the store’s parking lot.
Given that the store made the error in coding the prices for its products, it’s unlikely that my reader was the first person to be charged $19.99 for a $99 item. The store management would have been wise to recognize this, acknowledge its error and offer to honor the price that was erroneously charged. After all, she’d be pointing out an error that would save the store bundles on any further errant ring-ups. It’s rarely a bad idea to reward customers for their honesty — particularly when it’s your mistake.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today’s Business, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net.
© 2011 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
Evan would save up his money and, when he had enough, he would buy another train. For years he was focused on these trains and rarely was distracted by other toys he wanted to buy for himself. He was also riveted to a series of videos we kept on store for him called “I Love Toy Trains.” His family once took a trip to Steamtown, a National Historic site in Scranton, Pa., that featured real steam engines and train cars on its grounds and a museum chock full of everything you could imagine dealing with trains.
Trains, it seemed were his passion.
Evan’s devotion to trains at that age was not unique. An e-mail from a reader near Boston reminded me of Evan’s once consuming devotion.
“We already own a ton of trains,” my reader wrote. “Mostly through Craigslist, we have scored unbelievable trains.” When last Christmas rolled around, she did not want to buy her son any more trains. He had enough, she figured.
But she broke down and went to Toys R Us with a 20 percent-off coupon she had received in the mail with the intention of buying him the GeoTrax Christmas Deluxe Edition that retailed for $129. It was on sale for $99. With the coupon, it would run her $80. “OK,” she figured, “that’s not too bad. I’ll do that for him.”
She brought her one huge item up to the register where the cashier scanned it, took her coupon, and asked for $21.94. “I just swiped my card, took the box, and walked out of there.” The cashier was talking to a co-worker “and not paying attention either,” my reader writes.
She put the package in her car and settled into the front seat. It was only then that she read the receipt: “Ken & Barbie Accessories” that scanned for $19.99.
“I realized it was totally not my error,” she wrote. “It was theirs, but I don’t quite know what I was supposed to do.”
Even though it was the store’s mistake, the right thing to do would have been to point out the error to the store. Clearly, it’s the store’s error, but my reader knows that — rather than having been some extra-special Christmas-time discount — the price she paid was for a less expensive item. Just as if she had been handed back too much change from a cash purchase, the right thing is to set matters right. It presented little hardship to do so, particularly since she was still sitting in the store’s parking lot.
Given that the store made the error in coding the prices for its products, it’s unlikely that my reader was the first person to be charged $19.99 for a $99 item. The store management would have been wise to recognize this, acknowledge its error and offer to honor the price that was erroneously charged. After all, she’d be pointing out an error that would save the store bundles on any further errant ring-ups. It’s rarely a bad idea to reward customers for their honesty — particularly when it’s your mistake.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today’s Business, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net.
© 2011 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Sunday, January 23, 2011
The good buy earrings
Twenty years ago, a reader from Charleston, S.C., bought a pair of diamond earrings. For years, she enjoyed wearing them. But earlier this year, she lost one of the diamond earrings.
My reader might not be able to recover the sentimental value of the earring, but fortunately for her, she’s been able to recover its cost. “We’d had the earrings insured for more than 20 years,” she writes.
Her insurance company offered her a cash settlement of $5,000 for the lost earring, which was the amount for which it had been insured.
My reader had gone to a jewelry store to have a jeweler examine the remaining earring and was told that the lost earring could indeed be replaced for $5,000. That would give her an earring that would match the size, clarity, and setting of the earring that remained from the pair.
After receiving the insurance check for $5,000, my reader visited two other jewelry stores to see about trading in the remaining earring to upgrade her pair, or to replace the lost earring. A jeweler at one of the stores told her that he could replace the lost earring for one that matched the remaining one for $2,400, far below the price the earlier jeweler had cited — and far less than the amount the insurance company had given her for her loss.
“Should I repay the insurance company the $2,600 difference?” she asks.
If my reader is seeking legal advice, she’s come to the wrong place. I’m not a lawyer, nor am I a specialist in insurance matters. And I’m even less of an expert on diamond jewelry.
But what my reader seems to be asking is a question that falls squarely in the ethics arena, which is my turf. She believes that there might be something wrong with choosing to buy the replacement earring from the less-expensive source rather than go with the $5,000 priced replacement, unless she makes up the difference to her insurer.
If the policy was indeed a cash settlement that didn’t require replacement, my reader has absolutely no obligation to replace the earring at all, let alone return any cash if she can find a cheaper substitute. She could decide to spend the $5,000 on something else, or to bank the money if she doesn’t want a replacement. She’d only be obligated to pay it back if she happens to find the lost insured earring.
Even if she finds the lost earring, paying back such funds is not always as simple as it might seem. Another one of my readers reports that he has been trying without success for almost 40 years to repay his insurance company what they paid him for his wife’s diamond engagement ring after it showed up a couple of years after he reported it lost.
The right thing for my reader to do is to base her decision on whether she wants to buy a replacement earring. If she does, she is free to spend as much or as little of the insurance settlement as she deems necessary . . . and she can do so with a clear conscience.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today’s Business,” is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net.
© 2011 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
My reader might not be able to recover the sentimental value of the earring, but fortunately for her, she’s been able to recover its cost. “We’d had the earrings insured for more than 20 years,” she writes.
Her insurance company offered her a cash settlement of $5,000 for the lost earring, which was the amount for which it had been insured.
My reader had gone to a jewelry store to have a jeweler examine the remaining earring and was told that the lost earring could indeed be replaced for $5,000. That would give her an earring that would match the size, clarity, and setting of the earring that remained from the pair.
After receiving the insurance check for $5,000, my reader visited two other jewelry stores to see about trading in the remaining earring to upgrade her pair, or to replace the lost earring. A jeweler at one of the stores told her that he could replace the lost earring for one that matched the remaining one for $2,400, far below the price the earlier jeweler had cited — and far less than the amount the insurance company had given her for her loss.
“Should I repay the insurance company the $2,600 difference?” she asks.
If my reader is seeking legal advice, she’s come to the wrong place. I’m not a lawyer, nor am I a specialist in insurance matters. And I’m even less of an expert on diamond jewelry.
But what my reader seems to be asking is a question that falls squarely in the ethics arena, which is my turf. She believes that there might be something wrong with choosing to buy the replacement earring from the less-expensive source rather than go with the $5,000 priced replacement, unless she makes up the difference to her insurer.
If the policy was indeed a cash settlement that didn’t require replacement, my reader has absolutely no obligation to replace the earring at all, let alone return any cash if she can find a cheaper substitute. She could decide to spend the $5,000 on something else, or to bank the money if she doesn’t want a replacement. She’d only be obligated to pay it back if she happens to find the lost insured earring.
Even if she finds the lost earring, paying back such funds is not always as simple as it might seem. Another one of my readers reports that he has been trying without success for almost 40 years to repay his insurance company what they paid him for his wife’s diamond engagement ring after it showed up a couple of years after he reported it lost.
The right thing for my reader to do is to base her decision on whether she wants to buy a replacement earring. If she does, she is free to spend as much or as little of the insurance settlement as she deems necessary . . . and she can do so with a clear conscience.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today’s Business,” is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net.
© 2011 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Does a comeback kid owe those he harmed along the way?
Most everyone loves a comeback story. That’s borne out by Ted Williams, the homeless man in Columbus, Ohio, who quickly gained attention after a video of him by The Columbus Dispatch’s Doral Chenoweth went viral earlier this month.
In his younger days, Williams, now 53, had been a radio announcer. You only need to listen to a few seconds of Chenoweth’s interview with him to get an earful of his powerful voice. Williams had ended up homeless after run-ins with alcohol, drugs and the law.
But now, he and his cardboard sign declared in the video, he was clean and trying to rebuild his life.
People took notice of Chenoweth’s video that was posted on YouTube. Within days, it received millions of hits. (The original posting has since been pulled from YouTube since it is copyrighted by the Dispatch, on whose site it can still be seen.)
Rapidly, offers began to pour in for Williams — radio interviews, a voiceover offer from the Cleveland Cavaliers, an advertisement for Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, appearances on the network morning talk shows, a feeler from Oprah about doing something on her new cable network, and more. A tearful on-air reunion was staged in New York City between Williams and his estranged 90-year-old mother.
But with the upside of the attention came more details about Williams’ arrest record for theft and forgery — crimes, he told interviewers, he had committed to support his drug habit. He served some jail time for his transgressions.
Regardless of the background, the Cavaliers and others stood by their offers and most commenters on various news websites genuinely wanted to see Williams turn his life around. It’d be good to believe he’s on the path to doing so.
As he sorts through the offers and begins his new life, a question raised by some observers is why this fellow deserves a second chance when there are other out-of-work voiceover professionals who managed to steer clear of drugs and crime. It’s a good question, but such concerns don’t negate the fact that Williams has every right to try to improve his life and that people who want to have every right to help him do so.
While the jail sentences he served may represent a debt paid for some crimes he committed, a question looms, however, of whether Williams has an obligation to repay the people from whom he stole over the years. He may not have a legal obligation to do so and he might not be able to recall everyone he stole from nor how much over the years. But now that he finds himself in a position where his opportunities for income might be steady, is he ethically obligated to set right his past actions?
If he truly wants to start clean and establish that he is a new man trying to set things right, I believe he has such an obligation.
Once the hubbub dies down and he’s able to get established in a home and on a job, the right thing for Williams to do is to try to figure out all of the people over the years from whom he has stolen and then reach out to them to offer a plan for restitution.
Most everyone loves a comeback story. When that person’s comeback involves helping those he harmed along the way to be made whole as well, it’s a story we can love even more.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today’s Business, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net.
© 2011 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
In his younger days, Williams, now 53, had been a radio announcer. You only need to listen to a few seconds of Chenoweth’s interview with him to get an earful of his powerful voice. Williams had ended up homeless after run-ins with alcohol, drugs and the law.
But now, he and his cardboard sign declared in the video, he was clean and trying to rebuild his life.
People took notice of Chenoweth’s video that was posted on YouTube. Within days, it received millions of hits. (The original posting has since been pulled from YouTube since it is copyrighted by the Dispatch, on whose site it can still be seen.)
Rapidly, offers began to pour in for Williams — radio interviews, a voiceover offer from the Cleveland Cavaliers, an advertisement for Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, appearances on the network morning talk shows, a feeler from Oprah about doing something on her new cable network, and more. A tearful on-air reunion was staged in New York City between Williams and his estranged 90-year-old mother.
But with the upside of the attention came more details about Williams’ arrest record for theft and forgery — crimes, he told interviewers, he had committed to support his drug habit. He served some jail time for his transgressions.
Regardless of the background, the Cavaliers and others stood by their offers and most commenters on various news websites genuinely wanted to see Williams turn his life around. It’d be good to believe he’s on the path to doing so.
As he sorts through the offers and begins his new life, a question raised by some observers is why this fellow deserves a second chance when there are other out-of-work voiceover professionals who managed to steer clear of drugs and crime. It’s a good question, but such concerns don’t negate the fact that Williams has every right to try to improve his life and that people who want to have every right to help him do so.
While the jail sentences he served may represent a debt paid for some crimes he committed, a question looms, however, of whether Williams has an obligation to repay the people from whom he stole over the years. He may not have a legal obligation to do so and he might not be able to recall everyone he stole from nor how much over the years. But now that he finds himself in a position where his opportunities for income might be steady, is he ethically obligated to set right his past actions?
If he truly wants to start clean and establish that he is a new man trying to set things right, I believe he has such an obligation.
Once the hubbub dies down and he’s able to get established in a home and on a job, the right thing for Williams to do is to try to figure out all of the people over the years from whom he has stolen and then reach out to them to offer a plan for restitution.
Most everyone loves a comeback story. When that person’s comeback involves helping those he harmed along the way to be made whole as well, it’s a story we can love even more.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today’s Business, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net.
© 2011 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
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