Is it ever too late to return a borrowed item?

Many of us have found ourselves in need of something — a tool, a book, a baking dish — that we likely only need for a short time and for which we don’t want to lay out the cash. I’ve borrowed a portable chop saw when I grew tired of sawing planks of wood by hand to repair an aging deck. A friend or two has borrowed my car when theirs was in the shop and their insurance didn’t cover a rental. My luck has been pretty good in terms of stuff being returned.

Not everyone is so fortunate. Two questions arise regularly from readers. If a borrower has not returned an item for quite some time, is it OK to ask for it back? And is it ever too late to return an item if a great deal of time has passed?

It would be unlikely for someone to keep a car or truck for a year rather than a week. But with items like garden tools or books, the urgency of return might not feel as great.

Nevertheless, the right thing is to always return the stuff we borrow.

If a lender would like his or her item returned, there’s nothing rude about asking if the borrower can return it. Granted, you shouldn’t have to ask. If a friend or colleague is kind enough to lend you something, it should fall upon the borrower to return it in a timely matter. But if it’s not returned, go ahead and ask.

Sometimes, borrowers simply forget they have borrowed something. And occasionally, the lender has forgotten the loan has been made so no request for return has been issued.

While I mentioned I have been fortunate over the years to have items I’ve lent out returned, the one area where this has not always been the case has been in the loan of books. Most books I lend out are returned in a timely fashion. Some are not. I probably should, but I don’t keep a list of the books I’ve loaned out and I often forget what I’ve loaned to whom, leaving me to consider some books lost for good.

But a while back, I received an email from a student who had taken a class with me at the college where I used to teach. She had tracked me down at my new school and asked if she could pay me a visit. Such requests aren’t unusual. Sometimes a student wants a recommendation and sometimes he or she just wants to catch up.

After she arrived at my office, the student pulled out a long book of dance criticism I apparently had loaned her six or seven years earlier. Embarrassed, she told me that she had meant to return it for years, but with moving around so much for graduate school and jobs, she had never gotten around to it.

She did the right thing even though so much time had passed and I appreciated the return even though I had forgotten about the book which after telling her to keep it she now owns without any obligation to return. The student reminded me that it’s never too late to do what’s right.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a senior lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com.

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin.

(c) 2021 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Should our anxiety keep us from safely moving on?

A few days ago, I returned to my office at work for the first time in 17 months. To get there I took the subway, also for the first time in 17 months. During my time away from campus, I was fortunate enough to keep my job and to keep working with students and colleagues via Zoom.

The return to campus has not come without some concerns and challenges. While I and 65% of others in Massachusetts have been fully vaccinated (74% have received at least one dose), there has been a bit of an uptick in COVID cases. Thousands of college students will be returning to campus from all over when classes begin in less than two weeks.

We know more now about COVID-19 and its spread since the first cases hit, but there’s still a great deal we don’t know. If there remains a healthy dose of free-floating anxiety, is it time to return to in-person settings or should we remain as sequestered as possible?

The college where I work is requiring all faculty, students and staff to be fully vaccinated before entering campus buildings. Once a week, we will be handed a self-test that we must administer and deposit the same day for analysis. Once in the buildings, we are required to wear a mask, unless we are alone in our offices with the door closed. As of now, we are permitted to meet with a student in our offices as long as we are each masked and the door remains open. We will be teaching and the students will be learning while wearing masks.

We left campus somewhat abruptly 17 months ago, using the one-week spring break to design online versions of courses we were in the midst of teaching. A good deal of last summer was spent rethinking how to teach well online and to prepare for courses where students would be Zooming in from various time zones and in locations with various incidents of COVID.

But now we are returning to in-person teaching. Students seem eager and excited to be returning to campus. Any anxiety about the safety of students, colleagues and staff is surpassed by the efforts being put in place to proceed cautiously without losing sight of our main goal of providing as strong a learning environment as possible.

That’s the same goal we had when we shifted to Zoom. Any success we had was because we were fortunate to have students eager to learn, teachers eager to teach, and tools and support provided to us to aid in successfully continuing our efforts throughout this 17-month interregnum.

Many people will be returning to in-person school and work this fall. That a sudden surge in COVID cases might relegate us back to our at-home Zoom stations rests uneasily in the backs of our minds.

Certainly, there remains a lot we don’t know about COVID. But the right thing seems to be to embrace that which we do know, act as responsibly and safely as possible, and to do our jobs as best we can given the circumstances we’re dealt.

Here’s to your health and mine and to the year ahead. May you muster the courage and determination to be kind, curious, and determined to embrace the challenges and possibilities ahead.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a senior lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com.

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin.

(c) 2021 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Should you continue to help a friend who has declined assistance?

In the early 1960s, a long-time reader we’re calling Ted was completing a tour of military duty in the Philippines. While on the base, he met a young Filipino woman who had been abused and was raising two children. Ted kept in touch with the young woman who had made her way to the United States where Ted was living.

“Her troubles were endless,” wrote Ted. He shelled out a good bit of money to hire a lawyer to help her get permanent residency status, “money I didn’t have much of as a young guy just starting a career.” After she received permanent residency status, they went their separate ways, got married to other people, and relocated, but Ted has continued to call her occasionally over the past 40 years to see how she is doing and to “give her a chance to share her pain.”

While she always tells Ted of medical, economic, or other challenges she’s facing, she rejects any more offers of help saying “I have done enough already, which my wife might agree with.”

But trying to do something for her anyway, Ted recently sent her some information on pastels, an old interest of hers, accompanied by a state scratch-off lottery ticket. “Since it’s rare for me to play the lottery, I bought a ticket for my wife and me too,” he wrote. “Darned if we didn’t win $30. I doubt my Filipina friend, who needs money a lot more than we do, will win a cent.”

Ted wonders whether he and his wife should view their $30 windfall as “just compensation” for the hours of effort they put into converting Internet information on pastels into a Word document to send to his computer-less friend? “Or should I send her $20, the difference between our winnings and the cost of the two tickets?” he asked. He figures that approach might make the help more “acceptable” to his friend. “After all, I wouldn’t have bought the lottery ticket in the first place if it hadn’t been for her.”

Ted wants to know if I have a better idea of the right thing to do.

While it’s noble of Ted and his wife to continue to show kindness to the woman he met years ago, he doesn’t need to find a way to justify sending a portion of his lottery ticket winnings to her. But since she made clear that she does not want financial help from him by rejecting offers, doing so would go against her wishes.

That he and his wife took the time to send her a note and information on pastels seemed an extension of their long-time friendship. Sure, he stuck a scratch ticket in there as well but it wasn’t an outright sum of cash he sent her way after she asked them not to.

The right thing would be for Ted and his wife to enjoy their lottery winnings, continue to keep in touch with their friend, and to take their lead from her when she might be in need of help and willing to receive it. Then they can decide if they’re willing and able to help.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a senior lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com.

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin.

(c) 2021 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Don't rely on "fake it 'til you make it"

When you are searching for your first job, how far should you go to get that job?

Occasionally, I get asked for advice by people who have just graduated high school or college about how to best hunt for a job. For those people who have a clear idea of what kind of work they want to do or those who have some experience doing that kind of work already, it’s much simpler for them to be clear on what kind of jobs they are hunting for or what to say during job interviews. For those who find themselves uncertain of what kind of work they’d like to do, the process can be much more challenging.

“I’m not sure what I want to do,” a recent graduate I’m calling Robin told me as she was about to set off on a job hunt. “I’ll do anything. I just want a job.”

“You might not want to write that in any cover letters you send out,” I responded. Instead I advised that she tailor the letter to the person and company she was writing. “Express an interest in the type of work that person does or that’s done at the company.”

Robin paused. “Oh,” she said. “You mean fake it until I make it.”

I cringed.

I’ve long hated that phrase. It suggests that somehow you are expected to pretend to know how to do something you don’t. It reeks of suggesting you misrepresent your skills and abilities to get a job.

“No,” I told Robin. “Don’t be dishonest about what you want to do or what you know how to do. Don’t fake anything.”

Robin pointed out, however, that it’s important to appear confident in a cover letter and during a job interview. And she’s correct. But confidence does not have to cross over into misrepresenting what you know how to do.

The right thing is to avoid sounding wishy-washy or desperate in a cover letter, but to be clear that you’ve done some research on the company and the person you’re writing. Expressing an interest in the type of work the company and the person you’re writing does is not faking it. Appearing to be knowledgeable because you’ve done your homework about the job is an honest way to exude confidence.

Granted, Robin really might not know what type of work she wants to do or where she wants to do it. But that’s hardly what anyone looking to hire someone wants to hear. We do not need to share all or any of our insecurities about work with prospective employers.

If after doing some research on a company Robin decides she truly has no desire to do the kind of work that company does and she has other options, then she shouldn’t try to work there. Doing that kind of research is part of the process that results in narrowing in on the type of job she might want to do.

Finding a job doesn’t require faking anything, but it can be hard work. But if that hard work turns into a job you truly enjoy doing, it’s worth the effort.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a senior lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com.

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin.

(c) 2021 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Should my city allow me to anonymously report rule breakers?

As we enter the heart of the summer, voluntary restrictions or outright bans on certain types of water usage once again proliferate around the country. Last August, I wrote about a community in Massachusetts that threatened to issue warnings for the first violation of the ban on irrigating your lawn and then on subsequent infractions would turn off the home’s water. However, it was unclear that the town was monitoring residents’ water usage consistently so some readers asked if they should just keep watering until they received a warning.

“No,” was my response. Simply violating an ordinance because you are likely to get away with it is wrong. But I also believed it behooved the town to be consistent in how it enforced its regulations, particularly if it was concerned about a severe water shortage.

Now, a reader from Northern California we’re calling Betty writes that they “are on strict rules of the city to conserve water,” including limitations on how much they can irrigate their lawns. “Well, one of our neighbors is just ignoring this dictate and there is water covering the sidewalk and going down the storm drains almost every morning.”

Betty wants to report the scofflaw to the city, but she doesn’t want to leave her name. “I don’t want to cause trouble,” she writes. “I just want all of us who do conserve water to get a fair shake from those who don’t.”

She wants to know if she should ask the city to allow anonymous tips.

Betty has decided to report neighbors who violate her town’s water regulations and there’s certainly nothing wrong with that. If her intention is to help conserve water by alerting the town to those who flagrantly ignore imposed restrictions that certainly seems an ethical choice to make.

Ideally, we would all be willing to put our name on any complaint we had about neighbors violating regulations. In his book Integrity, Stephen L. Carter writes about the three steps that are essential to integrity: discernment, acting on what you discern, and stating openly what you have done and why you have done it. Anonymity falls short of the integrity mark, according to Carter and I generally agree with him.

But if Betty or others believe that reporting neighbors’ behavior might result in personal harm or retribution, a case could be made for allowing residents to file anonymous reports. There’s a phone app in Boston that allows residents to do just that by reporting issues (illegal parking, missed rubbish pickup, violations of one sort or another) anonymously.

If her city doesn’t already provide for anonymous tips that might improve living conditions for all of its residents, then it’s perfectly reasonable for Betty to ask the city do so. Whoever is monitoring such tips should follow through and make sure that the tip is verified and resolved.

But the right thing for Betty’s city or any municipality to do when imposing such restrictions remains making clear to residents how it plans to enforce such regulations. Imposing restrictions without following up or following up inconsistently risks creating cynical residents who wonder why they should obey the law when they perceive others who are not face no consequences.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a senior lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com.

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin. 

(c) 2021 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.