As newly graduated college students hit the job market, they'll find themselves eager to get their foot in the door to secure interviews for prospective jobs. They've been counseled by their college career offices and former professors to get themselves in front of as many prospective employers as possible since you never know what might result from a positive interview experience.
At the same time, recently laid off workers are vying for new jobs that they'll only be able to find by first finding someone willing to interview them for a possible position.
And with mandatory retirement ages disappearing in Canada and full-retirement calculations for Social Security in the United States being raised to 67 by 2027, more and more older workers are likely to be keeping old or vying for new jobs, as well.
There's a lot of interviewing for new employment that going on and it's unlikely that the volume of activity is going to stop anytime soon -- even if the interviews don't always lead to a job.
Too often, I've noted in the past, prospective employees are left in the dark after an interview without ever getting a letter or a call to let them know they haven't been chosen for a position. Even when they're given a standard, "We'll be in touch," too often no word follows.
PJB, a reader in Southern California, took me to task awhile back for arguing strenuously that employers owe it to prospective employees to let them know if they don't get job for which they have been invited in for an interview.
"It's always better to say nothing than to say something that might cause a problem for the company," writes PJB. "Never send a job rejection in writing which contains a rationale for the decision. Several of my HR and recruiter friends have told me this is the case."
While it might be helpful for a prospective employee to know where he or she fell short of the mark, I have no illusions that most companies will take the time to give a rationale for why they didn't make a hire. But companies should take the time to tell people they brought in for an interview whether or not they got the job.
Not doing so as a precaution against potential liability seems to fall in the category of human resource departments and their attorneys spending too much time looking at whether a behavior is legal vs. whether it is right.
If every business relationship is based on any fear of potential liability that every labor lawyer or human resources director ever had, it's hard to believe anything would ever get accomplished in business. It certainly wouldn't reflect a workplace conducive to productivity.
If they're going to take the time to call someone in for a job interview, then prospective employers should make it their business to notify all interviewees who didn't get the job. Silence accomplishes little but to initially get a prospect's hopes up and then to breed ill will when no word ever comes.
Notifying prospective employees who came in for an interview is both the right thing and the civil thing for any prospective employer to do.
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, June 12, 2011
Sunday, June 05, 2011
Appreciating those who make ends meet
It took two weeks for a nurse who recently lost her job to find a new position. Complicating matters was that in addition to the two weeks she was without a paying job, she had to wait until the end of her first month on the new job to receive her first paycheck from her new employer.
With no savings to speak of, the former nurse needed some short-term cash to make ends meet.
"I personally had to make some money and did not know what to do," she writes.
Desperate for cash, and unable to think of other options, she decided to go through her neighborhood and collect refundable cans from her neighbors' recycling bins.
"I collected six garbage bags full of crushed cans that brought $17.50 at the local recycling center," she writes. "This was enough money to make sure I could eat for a week."
She is quick to point out that she is neither homeless nor someone trying to steal identifying information from others' trash. But she reports that the dirty looks she got from several people was enough to take any amount of pride she had left, "which, given that I was going through others' garbage, wasn't much."
"There are times in life when you just have to do what you have to do," she writes.
The experience has made her reflective. "It's sad that big companies make all the money and get rich off these discarded products, but a person who walks the neighborhood collecting cans, crushes them, and drives them to the recycling center trying to eat for a week gets ridiculed."
In the past, I've written about people who comb neighborhood recycling bins for returnable cans and bottles. Some readers have wondered whether it's wrong to do so. My take has been that as long as the property owners don't object, the recyclables are fair game.
On occasion, when I notice the gentleman who makes the weekly rounds of recycling bins in my neighborhood, I bring him a bag of cans and bottles to add to his collection.
Readers have pointed out that some municipalities count on the money from recycled cans and bottles to offset the cost of municipal recycling programs. That's true, but I still believe strongly that the right thing is for the property owners to do whatever they want with their recyclables, whether it's to recycle them themselves, leave them for pickup by the town, or encourage neighbors scavenging for cans to take them.
"Just try not to judge," the former nurse writes. "You never know when it could be you trying to make the few extra dollars just to survive."
My reader is right. Judging people who are trying to make ends meet for whatever reason they may have found themselves having to do so accomplishes nothing but to make them feel worse about what might already be a miserable situation. It's better to simply decide whether or no you want to help without passing judgment.
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.
With no savings to speak of, the former nurse needed some short-term cash to make ends meet.
"I personally had to make some money and did not know what to do," she writes.
Desperate for cash, and unable to think of other options, she decided to go through her neighborhood and collect refundable cans from her neighbors' recycling bins.
"I collected six garbage bags full of crushed cans that brought $17.50 at the local recycling center," she writes. "This was enough money to make sure I could eat for a week."
She is quick to point out that she is neither homeless nor someone trying to steal identifying information from others' trash. But she reports that the dirty looks she got from several people was enough to take any amount of pride she had left, "which, given that I was going through others' garbage, wasn't much."
"There are times in life when you just have to do what you have to do," she writes.
The experience has made her reflective. "It's sad that big companies make all the money and get rich off these discarded products, but a person who walks the neighborhood collecting cans, crushes them, and drives them to the recycling center trying to eat for a week gets ridiculed."
In the past, I've written about people who comb neighborhood recycling bins for returnable cans and bottles. Some readers have wondered whether it's wrong to do so. My take has been that as long as the property owners don't object, the recyclables are fair game.
On occasion, when I notice the gentleman who makes the weekly rounds of recycling bins in my neighborhood, I bring him a bag of cans and bottles to add to his collection.
Readers have pointed out that some municipalities count on the money from recycled cans and bottles to offset the cost of municipal recycling programs. That's true, but I still believe strongly that the right thing is for the property owners to do whatever they want with their recyclables, whether it's to recycle them themselves, leave them for pickup by the town, or encourage neighbors scavenging for cans to take them.
"Just try not to judge," the former nurse writes. "You never know when it could be you trying to make the few extra dollars just to survive."
My reader is right. Judging people who are trying to make ends meet for whatever reason they may have found themselves having to do so accomplishes nothing but to make them feel worse about what might already be a miserable situation. It's better to simply decide whether or no you want to help without passing judgment.
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.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Send me your questions and stories for The Right Thing column
For the weekly newspaper ethics column I write for the Tribune Media Services 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@comcast.net.
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 on to them by clicking on the envelope below.
Thanks in advance for your stories.
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 on to them by clicking on the envelope below.
Thanks in advance for your stories.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Cake incident leaves bad taste
A few weeks ago, I wrote about a representative from a small PC repair business who assisted me when I called frantically looking for help in getting my seemingly dead laptop working. The fellow walked me through a few procedures on the phone, helped me get things up and going, and refused to take any payment for his phone advice.
Many readers took me to task for not mentioning the PC business by name.
"I applaud you for even mentioning the customer service things that we small businesses do to keep customers loyal," writes Ken Elie, president of Outdoor Pro Shop Inc., in Cotati, Calif. "You would have been my hero if you had mentioned the man and his business."
Jim Armstrong of Potter Valley, Calif., notes that while the PC repair guy might revel in his newfound business relationship, "I'll betcha he would rather you had made finding him possible for others in your situation."
And Paul Klonsky of Rohnert Park, Calif., writes that the way he rewards a company "that acts ethically like they did with your situation," is to write a review of it using social media, whether it's a tweet, a post on Facebook, or a review on Yelp or Google Places. "More and more, I check these social media sites to verify if a business is worth its salt," he writes. "Yours certainly was!"
They make excellent points. The right thing would have been to mention Cape Coastal Computers of Falmouth, Mass., by name when I wrote about them. Good works deserve notice.
More often than not, however, customers don't take the time to report good news online. When something bad happens, that's a whole other story.
After a recent incident with a bakery just outside of Minneapolis, a customer took to the Web with a vengeance. She detailed how she had ordered a $300 cake for her daughter's wedding. Initially, she was told there would be a $20 delivery fee. But when she went to the bakery to make the final payment, she was informed that all deliveries cost $40.
The customer insisted she had been promised the lower rate and wanted it honored. The clerk insisted policy was policy. The customer was told she could pick up the cake for free or pay the extra $20. Those were the only options, she was told. Ultimately, the owner of the bakery apologized that whoever quoted them the $20 fee was incorrect. The discussion continued and grew increasingly heated. Ultimately, the customer canceled her cake order.
"She lost a $300 sale over $20," the customer says, "and lost a lot of potential great referrals."
The right thing would have been for the bakery to honor the original delivery price. A commitment is a commitment. Honoring the price would have indicated that the bakery stood by its word and it would have built good faith.
So will I name the bakery? No. Good deeds deserve a good mention, as my readers have wisely pointed out. No good deeds were engaged in by the bakery in this particular case which may or may not be an aberration. Be advised, however, to check your local online review sites if you are in the market for a wedding cake.
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.
Many readers took me to task for not mentioning the PC business by name.
"I applaud you for even mentioning the customer service things that we small businesses do to keep customers loyal," writes Ken Elie, president of Outdoor Pro Shop Inc., in Cotati, Calif. "You would have been my hero if you had mentioned the man and his business."
Jim Armstrong of Potter Valley, Calif., notes that while the PC repair guy might revel in his newfound business relationship, "I'll betcha he would rather you had made finding him possible for others in your situation."
And Paul Klonsky of Rohnert Park, Calif., writes that the way he rewards a company "that acts ethically like they did with your situation," is to write a review of it using social media, whether it's a tweet, a post on Facebook, or a review on Yelp or Google Places. "More and more, I check these social media sites to verify if a business is worth its salt," he writes. "Yours certainly was!"
They make excellent points. The right thing would have been to mention Cape Coastal Computers of Falmouth, Mass., by name when I wrote about them. Good works deserve notice.
More often than not, however, customers don't take the time to report good news online. When something bad happens, that's a whole other story.
After a recent incident with a bakery just outside of Minneapolis, a customer took to the Web with a vengeance. She detailed how she had ordered a $300 cake for her daughter's wedding. Initially, she was told there would be a $20 delivery fee. But when she went to the bakery to make the final payment, she was informed that all deliveries cost $40.
The customer insisted she had been promised the lower rate and wanted it honored. The clerk insisted policy was policy. The customer was told she could pick up the cake for free or pay the extra $20. Those were the only options, she was told. Ultimately, the owner of the bakery apologized that whoever quoted them the $20 fee was incorrect. The discussion continued and grew increasingly heated. Ultimately, the customer canceled her cake order.
"She lost a $300 sale over $20," the customer says, "and lost a lot of potential great referrals."
The right thing would have been for the bakery to honor the original delivery price. A commitment is a commitment. Honoring the price would have indicated that the bakery stood by its word and it would have built good faith.
So will I name the bakery? No. Good deeds deserve a good mention, as my readers have wisely pointed out. No good deeds were engaged in by the bakery in this particular case which may or may not be an aberration. Be advised, however, to check your local online review sites if you are in the market for a wedding cake.
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.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
When customer service goes bad
Customer service, when done well, can create loyal customers. Done poorly, it can wreak havoc on a business' reputation that goes far beyond the initial bad encounter.
Given the vast abundance of websites that allow customers to review their consumer experiences, good word can spread quickly about employees who go beyond expectations to help customers.
But bad word can spread even more rapidly. A musician whose guitar is damaged on a flight might, for example, take to YouTube with an original song detailing his instrument's travails and find more than 10 million people viewing his melodic complaint.
Good news travels. Bad news explodes.
Many spurned customers take some solace in going as far as they can to share their shopping pain. But some customers just want to know how far they should go in trying to set things straight. Is it enough to correct a bad transaction? Or should extra steps be taken to make sure the poor customer service provider is held accountable?
P.B., a reader from Charlotte, N.C., recently made a purchase using one of his credit cards. He approached a sales associate to make the payment.
"The associate wasn't eager to help," writes P.B., "rendering no greeting, exhibiting no eye contact, and taking the card rather flippantly."
On the associate's first attempt to swipe P.B.'s card, the associate told him that the transaction failed.
P.B. asks if there is a problem. Silence from the associate.
A second swipe of the card also fails. Now, P.B. is growing concerned, particularly because a third swipe of his card follows. Finally, the associate indicates that transaction was successful and he returns P.B.'s credit card. P.B. leaves frustrated by the experience, but figures at least his objective of paying for his goods has been reached.
A few weeks later, P.B. receives his credit card statement. Apparently, all three of his credit card swipes went through and he is being charged three times for the single transaction.
He calls his credit card company, which corrects the error without any fuss.
Now that he's done that, P.B. wants to know if he should notify the company directly about the errors and its associate's indifference. "Or should I take no action, chalking it up to poor customer service and apathy?"
Anyone who has worked in retail knows how challenging working with belligerent customers can be. But providing good customer service for routine transactions should always be the norm.
Had P.B.'s situation just involved a rude associate, he might chalk it up to bad experience and take his business elsewhere. But given that his encounter resulted in incorrect charges made to his credit card, the right thing is to notify the business. It not only puts the company on notice that one of its employees is risking its reputation, but also lets it know that the same associate may be exposing the business to financial problems down the road if his inability to process credit card payments continues.
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.
Given the vast abundance of websites that allow customers to review their consumer experiences, good word can spread quickly about employees who go beyond expectations to help customers.
But bad word can spread even more rapidly. A musician whose guitar is damaged on a flight might, for example, take to YouTube with an original song detailing his instrument's travails and find more than 10 million people viewing his melodic complaint.
Good news travels. Bad news explodes.
Many spurned customers take some solace in going as far as they can to share their shopping pain. But some customers just want to know how far they should go in trying to set things straight. Is it enough to correct a bad transaction? Or should extra steps be taken to make sure the poor customer service provider is held accountable?
P.B., a reader from Charlotte, N.C., recently made a purchase using one of his credit cards. He approached a sales associate to make the payment.
"The associate wasn't eager to help," writes P.B., "rendering no greeting, exhibiting no eye contact, and taking the card rather flippantly."
On the associate's first attempt to swipe P.B.'s card, the associate told him that the transaction failed.
P.B. asks if there is a problem. Silence from the associate.
A second swipe of the card also fails. Now, P.B. is growing concerned, particularly because a third swipe of his card follows. Finally, the associate indicates that transaction was successful and he returns P.B.'s credit card. P.B. leaves frustrated by the experience, but figures at least his objective of paying for his goods has been reached.
A few weeks later, P.B. receives his credit card statement. Apparently, all three of his credit card swipes went through and he is being charged three times for the single transaction.
He calls his credit card company, which corrects the error without any fuss.
Now that he's done that, P.B. wants to know if he should notify the company directly about the errors and its associate's indifference. "Or should I take no action, chalking it up to poor customer service and apathy?"
Anyone who has worked in retail knows how challenging working with belligerent customers can be. But providing good customer service for routine transactions should always be the norm.
Had P.B.'s situation just involved a rude associate, he might chalk it up to bad experience and take his business elsewhere. But given that his encounter resulted in incorrect charges made to his credit card, the right thing is to notify the business. It not only puts the company on notice that one of its employees is risking its reputation, but also lets it know that the same associate may be exposing the business to financial problems down the road if his inability to process credit card payments continues.
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 15, 2011
Appreciating the gift of arts
A reader in Boston says he is "troubled" by a question regarding art and the public interest. "On the face of it," he writes, "the answer is simple, though I disagree with it completely."
Two museums that he regularly visits are made up of art from a single collector: The Barnes Museum in Philadelphia, and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston.
"They share hallmarks lauded by many," he writes, "which I find repugnant. In each museum, the works have been arranged on the walls according to the whims of the collector and the wills of each collector stipulate that the works must be kept so in perpetuity."
He points out that the works in each museum represent tremendous milestones in art history, but that they are displayed in rooms that are "often dim, and at angles or heights which prevent adequate viewing, much less careful study."
What's more, the paintings and sculpture in each museum, he reports, lack titles or any text that might indicate their context or place within artistic timelines. "Furthermore, the works are forbidden to travel at all, thus robbing many large exhibitions of works which establish the full range and development of the artists on which they focus."
Based on all of these facts, he wonders if there is "any point in time at which the wills of the original collectors should, in furtherance of the education of artists and students and the enrichment of the public, be broken." To put it another way, he writes: "Could there be an ethical justification for artistic eminent domain?"
When art collectors donate paintings, sculpture or other pieces of art to museums, the museum staff likely has more control over how art is exhibited on the museum walls. When the museum itself is owned by the collector, the stipulation of how he or she wanted the art to be exhibited on the walls of their former homes is likely not as flexible.
Granted, there are bound to be as many art aficionados who love the quirk of museums like the Gardner and the Barnes precisely because of the unusual stipulations placed upon their holdings. (The Frick Collection in Manhattan is another such jewel that's among my personal favorites.)
There may come a time, as the reader notes, when there is mounting pressure to alter the stipulations of the wills of those whose collections are on display at a particular locale. It is possible that a good team of lawyers might be able to attack the original provisions of these wills.
But it might be good to remember when bemoaning the organizational choices of these benefactors, that they each also had the choice of willing the art to other private collectors upon their death. They also could have decided to break up their collections before their deaths selling off the individual pieces to other collectors. That they chose instead to leave their collections to be open for public viewing shouldn't be lost in determining what the most appropriate venue for viewing should be.
The right thing, I believe, is to honor the wishes of collectors who leave their homes and collections for public viewing without allowing others to take ownership because they "know better" how the art should be used. Like most gifts, of course, we can choose to take them or leave 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.
(c) 2011 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by Tribune Media Services, Inc.
Two museums that he regularly visits are made up of art from a single collector: The Barnes Museum in Philadelphia, and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston.
"They share hallmarks lauded by many," he writes, "which I find repugnant. In each museum, the works have been arranged on the walls according to the whims of the collector and the wills of each collector stipulate that the works must be kept so in perpetuity."
He points out that the works in each museum represent tremendous milestones in art history, but that they are displayed in rooms that are "often dim, and at angles or heights which prevent adequate viewing, much less careful study."
What's more, the paintings and sculpture in each museum, he reports, lack titles or any text that might indicate their context or place within artistic timelines. "Furthermore, the works are forbidden to travel at all, thus robbing many large exhibitions of works which establish the full range and development of the artists on which they focus."
Based on all of these facts, he wonders if there is "any point in time at which the wills of the original collectors should, in furtherance of the education of artists and students and the enrichment of the public, be broken." To put it another way, he writes: "Could there be an ethical justification for artistic eminent domain?"
When art collectors donate paintings, sculpture or other pieces of art to museums, the museum staff likely has more control over how art is exhibited on the museum walls. When the museum itself is owned by the collector, the stipulation of how he or she wanted the art to be exhibited on the walls of their former homes is likely not as flexible.
Granted, there are bound to be as many art aficionados who love the quirk of museums like the Gardner and the Barnes precisely because of the unusual stipulations placed upon their holdings. (The Frick Collection in Manhattan is another such jewel that's among my personal favorites.)
There may come a time, as the reader notes, when there is mounting pressure to alter the stipulations of the wills of those whose collections are on display at a particular locale. It is possible that a good team of lawyers might be able to attack the original provisions of these wills.
But it might be good to remember when bemoaning the organizational choices of these benefactors, that they each also had the choice of willing the art to other private collectors upon their death. They also could have decided to break up their collections before their deaths selling off the individual pieces to other collectors. That they chose instead to leave their collections to be open for public viewing shouldn't be lost in determining what the most appropriate venue for viewing should be.
The right thing, I believe, is to honor the wishes of collectors who leave their homes and collections for public viewing without allowing others to take ownership because they "know better" how the art should be used. Like most gifts, of course, we can choose to take them or leave 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.
(c) 2011 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by Tribune Media Services, Inc.
Sunday, May 08, 2011
Fixing a PC without a charge and building loyalty
The main computer I use for writing and other projects is a laptop. It often travels with me when I am on the road. It's a sturdy model, four years old with plenty of memory. It's one I'm likely to replace with a similar model when this one passes its useful lifespan.
Rarely has the laptop given me trouble. If I'm traveling, when I get to my new location, I boot the computer up, find the wireless signal, and get to work.
All went well until a few Fridays ago, when I arrived at my destination, opened up the laptop, tried to boot it up, and . . . nothing. None of the lights indicating it's getting power of any sort came on. Thinking I might have drained my battery without knowing it, I got the power cord and plugged that in. Nothing.
Deadlines loomed. Needed files sat locked on the laptop.
I tried taking the battery out and putting it back in. Still nothing.
Without Internet access to go online to seek assistance, I found the local area's Yellow Pages located in a drawer. Under "computers," I found an advertisement for a nearby PC service business. I called the number, found out they were open until 5 (giving me an hour until closing) and then open from 9 to 2 on Sunday.
But then the fellow on the phone asked me what was wrong.
"Have you tried taking the battery out?" he asked. I told him that and proceeded to answer similarly to other questions he posed.
"Could the computer be kaput?" I asked him.
"Not likely, but it's possible."
He told me I could bring it in for a diagnostic and that they'd get it back to me the following morning. "But before you do that," he said. "Try something for me." He then proceeded to give me instructions that involved removing all power from the machine and trying to turn it on.
I was dubious. How could doing anything when no power was going to the computer fix anything, I wondered.
But failing other options, I did as he instructed. Unplug, remove battery, press power-on, reinstall battery, plug in . . . and then, within seconds, the power lights came on. And upon pressing the power-on button, the computer booted up.
The fellow at the computer store reassured me that my computer would be back to working normally now. He attempted to explain why the computer had appeared dead and how the steps he gave me restored it.
I gushed thanks and asked him if I owed him anything for his advice.
"No," he said. "I'm just glad we got it working."
Some marketers might believe that the right thing would have been for him to tell me to come into his store and then charge me to do what he had just instructed me to do for free over the phone. Some owners might scold employees who fail to capture income over such transactions.
But in terms of showing compassion for a clearly distraught caller, even though he might not have made any money on this particular transaction, he built a business relationship that is not likely to be forgotten soon.
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.
Rarely has the laptop given me trouble. If I'm traveling, when I get to my new location, I boot the computer up, find the wireless signal, and get to work.
All went well until a few Fridays ago, when I arrived at my destination, opened up the laptop, tried to boot it up, and . . . nothing. None of the lights indicating it's getting power of any sort came on. Thinking I might have drained my battery without knowing it, I got the power cord and plugged that in. Nothing.
Deadlines loomed. Needed files sat locked on the laptop.
I tried taking the battery out and putting it back in. Still nothing.
Without Internet access to go online to seek assistance, I found the local area's Yellow Pages located in a drawer. Under "computers," I found an advertisement for a nearby PC service business. I called the number, found out they were open until 5 (giving me an hour until closing) and then open from 9 to 2 on Sunday.
But then the fellow on the phone asked me what was wrong.
"Have you tried taking the battery out?" he asked. I told him that and proceeded to answer similarly to other questions he posed.
"Could the computer be kaput?" I asked him.
"Not likely, but it's possible."
He told me I could bring it in for a diagnostic and that they'd get it back to me the following morning. "But before you do that," he said. "Try something for me." He then proceeded to give me instructions that involved removing all power from the machine and trying to turn it on.
I was dubious. How could doing anything when no power was going to the computer fix anything, I wondered.
But failing other options, I did as he instructed. Unplug, remove battery, press power-on, reinstall battery, plug in . . . and then, within seconds, the power lights came on. And upon pressing the power-on button, the computer booted up.
The fellow at the computer store reassured me that my computer would be back to working normally now. He attempted to explain why the computer had appeared dead and how the steps he gave me restored it.
I gushed thanks and asked him if I owed him anything for his advice.
"No," he said. "I'm just glad we got it working."
Some marketers might believe that the right thing would have been for him to tell me to come into his store and then charge me to do what he had just instructed me to do for free over the phone. Some owners might scold employees who fail to capture income over such transactions.
But in terms of showing compassion for a clearly distraught caller, even though he might not have made any money on this particular transaction, he built a business relationship that is not likely to be forgotten soon.
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
Websites that have links should disclose them
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.
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, 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.
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