When Richard Robinson tried to use a $50 bill to pay for $38 worth of tickets to the Oakland Zoo, he was told that the zoo did not accept payment with any bill larger than a $20.
Soon after the zoo incident, Robinson tried to pay for an order at McDonald's with a $100 bill. Again he was told, "We do not accept any bill larger than a $20."
Robinson protested, arguing that it states right on the bills, "This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private." In neither case, however, could he convince the cashier to accept the bill.
And yes, I admit that I had to take a bill out of my wallet to confirm that the bills actually do carry this proclamation.
Robinson wants to know if such refusals constitute unethical behavior by the companies concerned.
Let's get the law out of the way first: Robinson is correct that the cash is legal tender, regardless of the denomination. According to the U.S. Treasury, the Coinage Act of 1965 makes the money legal to use for payments. There is no federal law in the United States, however, that requires retailers -- or anyone else -- to accept any form of legal tender as payment, unless there is a state law that requires them to do so. There are comparable statutes in Canada.
In short, while it's an annoyance to be refused service because you have only large-denomination bills, it's not illegal.
As longtime readers of my column know, however, I believe that the fact that a given action is legal does not always make it ethical. Too frequently, individuals or corporations use the law to justify behavior that is blatantly unfair or unjust.
Are companies being unfair to Robinson by refusing the large denominations with which he chooses to pay? Should he have to carry around smaller bills, or pay with a credit card, when it's inconvenient or when he simply doesn't want to?
It may be a major inconvenience for some customers, but there is nothing unfair about the policy as long as it is posted clearly for all to see.
Businesses miss the ethical mark, however, if they don't make their policies clear before their customers place their orders. The right thing is both to post it clearly on site and also to include it in any other marketing materials such as Web sites -- as indeed the Oakland Zoo does on its Web site. If Robinson had known the McDonald's policy before he arrived, for example, he could have made sure that he had the right currency on hand.
Robinson has a choice, of course. He doesn't have to carry around smaller bills or use credit cards if he doesn't want to. If he finds doing so excessively inconvenient, he can choose not to do business with establishments that place limits on what currency they will take.
There's nothing unethical about a company setting its own policy, but there's also nothing unethical in Robinson responding by taking his business elsewhere.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
Sunday, June 29, 2008
SOUND OFF: WORDS JUMBLED
[UPDATE: July 29, 2008, Scrabulous is no longer available to users of Facebook in the U.S. and Canada.]
[UPDATE: On July 24, 2008, Hasbro filed a lawsuit against Scrabulous creators.]
One reader felt torn about playing the online word game Scrabulous on the Facebook networking site, because the game's developers hadn't sought permission from Hasbro -- which owns the rights to Scrabble, the board game that Scrabulous replicates. I asked my readers to decide whether it is OK to continue playing Scrabulous if they feel that it infringes on Hasbro's rights.
The results of an unscientific poll on my column's blog have 10 percent of my readers voting it OK to continue playing Scrabulous, 37 percent voting it not OK and another 53 percent voting it not OK -- but adding that they'll continue playing anyway.
Patrick Burris of Charlotte, N.C., believes that it should be left to the courts to decide whether one company's game infringes upon another's intellectual property.
But Carroll Straus, an attorney in Orange County, Calif., points out that the doctrine of fair use takes into account the degree to which such usage confuses the public and reduces the profitability of the original owner's use of its trademarked product. It will fall upon Hasbro to show how it has lost sales due to Scrabulous, she writes.
Check out other opinions here, or post your own or post your own by clicking on "comments" or "post a comment" below.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business and The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of The Right Thing, a Web log focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," The New York Times Syndicate, 500 Seventh Avenue, 8th floor, New York, NY 10018. Please remember to tell me who you are, where you're from, as well as where you read the column.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
[UPDATE: On July 24, 2008, Hasbro filed a lawsuit against Scrabulous creators.]
One reader felt torn about playing the online word game Scrabulous on the Facebook networking site, because the game's developers hadn't sought permission from Hasbro -- which owns the rights to Scrabble, the board game that Scrabulous replicates. I asked my readers to decide whether it is OK to continue playing Scrabulous if they feel that it infringes on Hasbro's rights.
The results of an unscientific poll on my column's blog have 10 percent of my readers voting it OK to continue playing Scrabulous, 37 percent voting it not OK and another 53 percent voting it not OK -- but adding that they'll continue playing anyway.
Patrick Burris of Charlotte, N.C., believes that it should be left to the courts to decide whether one company's game infringes upon another's intellectual property.
But Carroll Straus, an attorney in Orange County, Calif., points out that the doctrine of fair use takes into account the degree to which such usage confuses the public and reduces the profitability of the original owner's use of its trademarked product. It will fall upon Hasbro to show how it has lost sales due to Scrabulous, she writes.
Check out other opinions here, or post your own or post your own by clicking on "comments" or "post a comment" below.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business and The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of The Right Thing, a Web log focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," The New York Times Syndicate, 500 Seventh Avenue, 8th floor, New York, NY 10018. Please remember to tell me who you are, where you're from, as well as where you read the column.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
Sunday, June 22, 2008
SOUND OFF: FAKE ADS
In early June The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Philadelphia Daily News ran a series of fake advertisements to see how well online and print ads performed. One ad in particular, for a fake airline called Derrie-Air, attracted a sizable number of readers who clicked on the online ad.
Many observers felt that, in running the fake ads, the newspapers were deceiving their readers. As a result, they said, readers might distrust other information in the newspaper.
What do you think? Is it OK to run fake ads to gauge reader interest? Or is it a breach of trust? And did the newspapers damage their credibility as a result?
Post your thoughts here by clicking on "comments" or "post a comment" below. Please include your name, hometown, and state, province, or country. Readers' comments may appear in an upcoming column. Or e-mail your comments to me at rightthing@nytimes.com.
You can also respond to the poll about this question that appears on the right-hand side of the blog.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business (Smith Kerr, 2006), is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of The Right Thing, a Web log focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," The New York Times Syndicate, 500 Seventh Avenue, 8th floor, New York, NY 10018. Please remember to tell me who you are, where you're from, as well as where you read the column.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
Many observers felt that, in running the fake ads, the newspapers were deceiving their readers. As a result, they said, readers might distrust other information in the newspaper.
What do you think? Is it OK to run fake ads to gauge reader interest? Or is it a breach of trust? And did the newspapers damage their credibility as a result?
Post your thoughts here by clicking on "comments" or "post a comment" below. Please include your name, hometown, and state, province, or country. Readers' comments may appear in an upcoming column. Or e-mail your comments to me at rightthing@nytimes.com.
You can also respond to the poll about this question that appears on the right-hand side of the blog.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business (Smith Kerr, 2006), is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of The Right Thing, a Web log focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," The New York Times Syndicate, 500 Seventh Avenue, 8th floor, New York, NY 10018. Please remember to tell me who you are, where you're from, as well as where you read the column.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
THE RIGHT THING: THE PRICE IS RIGHT ... FOR NOW
I envy no one who has to go through the process of buying a house.
An endless search for a house that suits your needs and matches your budget. Negotiating a price that seems fair to the buyer and acceptable to the seller. Mind-numbing paperwork and details to get the deal closed and then, finally, you can collapse into your dream house ... and get to work on broken screens, rusty storm doors, suspicious traces of pests among your woodwork, peeling paint and the fireplace that blows smoke into your living room.
The process is no less taxing for a seller. After months of trying to unload your property, you finally find the perfect buyer. But he can't sell his former house, can't get financing or reneges on the deal because the building inspector tells him that an outlet plate in the garage is missing and an attic door is short a few screws.
Sellers mistrust buyers. Buyers mistrust sellers. It's a wonder any house ever changes hands.
While it would be nice to think that a handshake and someone's word were enough to seal a deal, they aren't. Even when specific conditions are written and agreed to as part of a sale, it's often a challenge to hold all parties to their commitments.
A reader from Ohio learned the importance of getting everything in writing not long ago, after he and his wife decided to sell their house and move to Florida. One of their longtime neighbors expressed an interest in buying their house, so, instead of putting it on the market, my reader had it appraised, after which he and the neighbor agreed on a selling price. Because they hadn't listed the house with a broker or advertised its sale, there were no counteroffers.
The day before he was to leave, however, the neighbors - one of whom is a real-estate agent - told my reader that her bank had appraised the house for $14,000 less than the agreed-upon price. With the move upon him, my reader negotiated and was able to get his neighbor up slightly, but the final price was still $6,000 less than the original agreement.
My reader's brother believes that the neighbor used the pressure of the imminent move in an unethical way by not revealing the lower appraisal earlier, enabling her to use it to coerce a lower price. He asked what I think.
It's impossible to get inside the head of the buyers to know what motivated them. All the same, it wasn't right for them to wait until the absolute last minute to change the deal. The right thing would have been for them to get the appraisal before they agreed to the price in the first place. There's no virtue in making a last-minute change, especially in doing so at what had to be the most inopportune time for the seller.
But my reader also had a responsibility to protect his and his wife's interests by getting that offer in writing. He may have been well-intentioned and trusting, but he was reckless with his family's fortunes. While he was able to salvage some of the lost price, the right thing would have been for both parties to agree to a deal in writing and stick to it.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
An endless search for a house that suits your needs and matches your budget. Negotiating a price that seems fair to the buyer and acceptable to the seller. Mind-numbing paperwork and details to get the deal closed and then, finally, you can collapse into your dream house ... and get to work on broken screens, rusty storm doors, suspicious traces of pests among your woodwork, peeling paint and the fireplace that blows smoke into your living room.
The process is no less taxing for a seller. After months of trying to unload your property, you finally find the perfect buyer. But he can't sell his former house, can't get financing or reneges on the deal because the building inspector tells him that an outlet plate in the garage is missing and an attic door is short a few screws.
Sellers mistrust buyers. Buyers mistrust sellers. It's a wonder any house ever changes hands.
While it would be nice to think that a handshake and someone's word were enough to seal a deal, they aren't. Even when specific conditions are written and agreed to as part of a sale, it's often a challenge to hold all parties to their commitments.
A reader from Ohio learned the importance of getting everything in writing not long ago, after he and his wife decided to sell their house and move to Florida. One of their longtime neighbors expressed an interest in buying their house, so, instead of putting it on the market, my reader had it appraised, after which he and the neighbor agreed on a selling price. Because they hadn't listed the house with a broker or advertised its sale, there were no counteroffers.
The day before he was to leave, however, the neighbors - one of whom is a real-estate agent - told my reader that her bank had appraised the house for $14,000 less than the agreed-upon price. With the move upon him, my reader negotiated and was able to get his neighbor up slightly, but the final price was still $6,000 less than the original agreement.
My reader's brother believes that the neighbor used the pressure of the imminent move in an unethical way by not revealing the lower appraisal earlier, enabling her to use it to coerce a lower price. He asked what I think.
It's impossible to get inside the head of the buyers to know what motivated them. All the same, it wasn't right for them to wait until the absolute last minute to change the deal. The right thing would have been for them to get the appraisal before they agreed to the price in the first place. There's no virtue in making a last-minute change, especially in doing so at what had to be the most inopportune time for the seller.
But my reader also had a responsibility to protect his and his wife's interests by getting that offer in writing. He may have been well-intentioned and trusting, but he was reckless with his family's fortunes. While he was able to salvage some of the lost price, the right thing would have been for both parties to agree to a deal in writing and stick to it.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
Sunday, June 15, 2008
THE RIGHT THING: PARTY OF THE OTHER PART
I don't write about etiquette. If you're looking for advice on how many months you have to give a couple a gift after their wedding or whether you should wait for a hostess to unfold her cloth napkin before you unfold yours, I'm not your guy.
But there are occasions when questions about ethics, which involves the moral rightness of a decision, and etiquette, which is concerned with how you should behave in social situations, overlap.
A reader from California writes to me that she is known for her "wonderful dinner parties." For these sit-down events she sets two tables, one for 12 people and the other for six. She places her married guests apart from their spouses so that they can mingle with people who will be "new and interesting."
Both tables are in the dining room, but the smaller table is slightly closer to the kitchen.
At a recent dinner party, one couple called her after they had left -- while the party was still going on -- and screamed at her that they had never been so humiliated in their lives.
"You are so Beverly Hills," the couple yelled. "You put us at the B table! Why did you put us with those old people instead of our friends?"
As someone who spends little time in Beverly Hills, I have no idea what they meant by "so Beverly Hills," but I do know that it wasn't meant as a compliment. My reader provides some guidance by noting that the callers seemed particularly incensed because there was a celebrity at the larger table, which in their minds made it the A table. She adds that she had deliberately separated the couple from their friends because the pairs had been giving one another the cold shoulder for several weeks.
"I found the rudeness uncalled for," my reader writes. "What should I have done?"
It was probably a breach of etiquette for the couple to berate their hostess while the party was still going on, but was it also a lapse in ethical judgment?
I believe so. They might have expressed their disappointment at not being seated with their friends in a civil manner, but instead chose to verbally attack my reader and accuse her of deliberately slighting them. Their behavior crossed into ethical territory when they decided to attack her. Not sending a thank-you note would have been a breach in etiquette, but shouting expletives about being seated near the kitchen goes a step further. That they called while the party was still in progress makes it a full-blown leap into doing the wrong thing.
The right thing for my reader to do was to let them know that she was sorry they were upset, explain that she had a dinner party to get back to and then seriously consider striking them from her list of future invitees.
Treating people badly lands firmly in unethical territory. Granted, how people behave at a swank dinner party ranks low on anyone's list of most egregious ethical lapses. It's how we behave in our day-to-day dealings that ultimately defines who we really are, though. Learning to be gracious is a lesson that will improve both our etiquette and our ethics.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
But there are occasions when questions about ethics, which involves the moral rightness of a decision, and etiquette, which is concerned with how you should behave in social situations, overlap.
A reader from California writes to me that she is known for her "wonderful dinner parties." For these sit-down events she sets two tables, one for 12 people and the other for six. She places her married guests apart from their spouses so that they can mingle with people who will be "new and interesting."
Both tables are in the dining room, but the smaller table is slightly closer to the kitchen.
At a recent dinner party, one couple called her after they had left -- while the party was still going on -- and screamed at her that they had never been so humiliated in their lives.
"You are so Beverly Hills," the couple yelled. "You put us at the B table! Why did you put us with those old people instead of our friends?"
As someone who spends little time in Beverly Hills, I have no idea what they meant by "so Beverly Hills," but I do know that it wasn't meant as a compliment. My reader provides some guidance by noting that the callers seemed particularly incensed because there was a celebrity at the larger table, which in their minds made it the A table. She adds that she had deliberately separated the couple from their friends because the pairs had been giving one another the cold shoulder for several weeks.
"I found the rudeness uncalled for," my reader writes. "What should I have done?"
It was probably a breach of etiquette for the couple to berate their hostess while the party was still going on, but was it also a lapse in ethical judgment?
I believe so. They might have expressed their disappointment at not being seated with their friends in a civil manner, but instead chose to verbally attack my reader and accuse her of deliberately slighting them. Their behavior crossed into ethical territory when they decided to attack her. Not sending a thank-you note would have been a breach in etiquette, but shouting expletives about being seated near the kitchen goes a step further. That they called while the party was still in progress makes it a full-blown leap into doing the wrong thing.
The right thing for my reader to do was to let them know that she was sorry they were upset, explain that she had a dinner party to get back to and then seriously consider striking them from her list of future invitees.
Treating people badly lands firmly in unethical territory. Granted, how people behave at a swank dinner party ranks low on anyone's list of most egregious ethical lapses. It's how we behave in our day-to-day dealings that ultimately defines who we really are, though. Learning to be gracious is a lesson that will improve both our etiquette and our ethics.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
SOUND OFF: SICK CALLS
I asked my readers whether or not it is OK to call in sick when you're not really sick, and the vast majority who responded came down firmly on the side of it not being OK. The results of an unscientific poll on my column's blog have 47 percent voting it not OK, 17 percent voting it OK, 19 percent voting it sometimes OK and another 17 percent voting it not OK but adding that they've done it anyway.
"If a person is not sick, they have no right to call in sick," writes Delaine P. Whitehead of Tustin, Calif. "A person can use any number of euphemisms to excuse such behavior, but it is still just a lie."
"If a large number of people are not honest with employers," writes Brenda Levy of Richmond, Va., "then the employer may be forced to change its policy, which would put everyone at a disadvantage."
Madilyn Bruening of Riverton, Utah, highlights how one employer has addressed such issues.
"A good friend has a job where employees are given two extra sick days per year to be used for their well-being," she writes. "The idea is that, when her job gets too stressful, she then can take one of these days to ditch work and recuperate."
Check out other opinions here, or post your own or post your own by clicking on "comments" or "post a comment" below.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business and The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of The Right Thing, a Web log focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," The New York Times Syndicate, 500 Seventh Avenue, 8th floor, New York, NY 10018. Please remember to tell me who you are, where you're from, as well as where you read the column.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
"If a person is not sick, they have no right to call in sick," writes Delaine P. Whitehead of Tustin, Calif. "A person can use any number of euphemisms to excuse such behavior, but it is still just a lie."
"If a large number of people are not honest with employers," writes Brenda Levy of Richmond, Va., "then the employer may be forced to change its policy, which would put everyone at a disadvantage."
Madilyn Bruening of Riverton, Utah, highlights how one employer has addressed such issues.
"A good friend has a job where employees are given two extra sick days per year to be used for their well-being," she writes. "The idea is that, when her job gets too stressful, she then can take one of these days to ditch work and recuperate."
Check out other opinions here, or post your own or post your own by clicking on "comments" or "post a comment" below.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business and The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of The Right Thing, a Web log focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," The New York Times Syndicate, 500 Seventh Avenue, 8th floor, New York, NY 10018. Please remember to tell me who you are, where you're from, as well as where you read the column.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
The Right Thing Stories
For the weekly newspaper ethics column I write for the New York Times Syndicate called "The Right Thing," I am always looking for stories of ethical challenges, dilemmas, and perplexing situations. If you have such a story or question based on an incident and would like it to be considered for the column, please email it to me at rightthing@nytimes.com. (Or you can post it here by clicking on "comments" or "post a comment" below.
Please make sure to include enough details about the story, the issue that you're wrestling with, and your name and the city and state or province where you are located. Include a way for me to contact you.If you know of others who might have interesting stories, please forward this email on to them.
If you're local paper doesn't carry The Right Thing column and you'd like it to, you can send an email to the editor of the paper suggesting they contact the New York Times Syndicate. Contact information is available at http://nytsyn.com/saleinfo.html. (Or contact Sales Manager Ana Muñoz at munoza@nytimes.com or 212.499.3333 and tell her the name of your local newspaper that you believe should be carrying the column.)
Thanks in advance for your stories.
Best,
Jeffrey Seglin
Please make sure to include enough details about the story, the issue that you're wrestling with, and your name and the city and state or province where you are located. Include a way for me to contact you.If you know of others who might have interesting stories, please forward this email on to them.
If you're local paper doesn't carry The Right Thing column and you'd like it to, you can send an email to the editor of the paper suggesting they contact the New York Times Syndicate. Contact information is available at http://nytsyn.com/saleinfo.html. (Or contact Sales Manager Ana Muñoz at munoza@nytimes.com or 212.499.3333 and tell her the name of your local newspaper that you believe should be carrying the column.)
Thanks in advance for your stories.
Best,
Jeffrey Seglin
Sunday, June 08, 2008
SOUND OFF: YARD-SALE SCORES
As summer approaches and yard sales pop up around the country, a frequent question from my readers is whether it's OK to take advantage of an unsuspecting seller who is offering what you know to be a valuable item for a fraction of its true worth.
I've previously written about specific instances of yard-sale finds in the column. (See Found Art and Knowing More than You're Telling.) In general, however, do you think it's right to take advantage of a yard-sale seller's ignorance of an item's value? Or should you point out to the sellers that they might want to do some quick research on their Faberge egg before putting it out with the shrimp-cocktail glasses at a nickel apiece?
Post your thoughts here by clicking on "comments" or "post a comment" below. Please include your name, hometown, and state, province, or country. Readers' comments may appear in an upcoming column. Or e-mail your comments to me at rightthing@nytimes.com.
You can also respond to the poll about this question that appears on the right-hand side of the blog.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business (Smith Kerr, 2006), is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of The Right Thing, a Web log focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," The New York Times Syndicate, 500 Seventh Avenue, 8th floor, New York, NY 10018. Please remember to tell me who you are, where you're from, as well as where you read the column.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
I've previously written about specific instances of yard-sale finds in the column. (See Found Art and Knowing More than You're Telling.) In general, however, do you think it's right to take advantage of a yard-sale seller's ignorance of an item's value? Or should you point out to the sellers that they might want to do some quick research on their Faberge egg before putting it out with the shrimp-cocktail glasses at a nickel apiece?
Post your thoughts here by clicking on "comments" or "post a comment" below. Please include your name, hometown, and state, province, or country. Readers' comments may appear in an upcoming column. Or e-mail your comments to me at rightthing@nytimes.com.
You can also respond to the poll about this question that appears on the right-hand side of the blog.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business (Smith Kerr, 2006), is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of The Right Thing, a Web log focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," The New York Times Syndicate, 500 Seventh Avenue, 8th floor, New York, NY 10018. Please remember to tell me who you are, where you're from, as well as where you read the column.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
THE RIGHT THING: DOG-DAY AFTERNOONS
"I know it's spring when the dog calls start," says Bill Hedrick, first assistant city prosecutor for Columbus, Ohio.
Hedrick has had city residents call his office in the wee hours of the morning -- "almost in tears," he says -- and leave voicemail messages saying, "Listen to this," followed by the sound of neighbors' dogs barking incessantly.
I spoke with Hedrick after a reader from Columbus, himself a dog owner, e-mailed to tell me that, every time a particular neighbor leaves her house, she leaves her dogs on her sun porch to allow them access to the backyard.
"They bark at every moving thing when the owner is not home," my reader writes.
After having had his fill of the noise one weekend, my reader went next door to talk with the owner. When there was no answer he left, but returned later with a printout of tips on how to control barking dogs. When there was still no answer, he left the tips along with his name, address and telephone number, as well as a note asking the owner to call him. She never called.
"At least six other neighbors agree that the dogs bark excessively," he says. "I'm at my wit's end."
While it's always risky to confront a neighbor you don't know, particularly in the middle of the night, my reader did the right thing by contacting his neighbor and trying to resolve the issue between them. Her lack of responsiveness, however, forces him to enlist his fellow neighbors and take the next step.
Some municipalities have no laws regulating barking dogs. Columbus is not one of them, though: Its "noisy animals" law is Article 2327.14 of the city's general-offenses code. So, if a dog barks excessively and the owner can't or won't curtail it, residents don't call animal control, they call the city attorney's office -- which is where Hedrick comes in.
If owners don't respond to a warning letter, Hedrick says, his office will schedule mediation. If mediation doesn't alleviate the problem, prosecution is possible. Fines run as much as $150, plus court costs, but cases rarely make it past the mediation stage.
"Typically," Hedrick says, "the warning letter takes care of the problem."
Hedrick's office does not disclose to the dog owner the name of the person who filed the initial complaint.
If a warning letter doesn't do the trick -- and, given her lack of response to my reader's note, it might not -- my reader and his neighbors may have to take the step of requesting mediation to resolve the problem.
There's nothing unethical about reporting the situation to the authorities. If the dogs' barking is a neighborhood-wide issue, it's entirely proper to want it stopped. It's not "tattling" to pursue peace and quiet, and my reader has gone out of his way to resolve the problem without involving the city.
At least one of my reader's neighbors has already shown willingness to put his name and face behind the complaint, and other neighbors should step up and do the same, if they agree that the dogs are a problem.
The more who come forward, the less likely it is that the dogs' owner can claim that the complaints come from a single neighbor with whom she has personal issues, as is often the case in such matters.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
Hedrick has had city residents call his office in the wee hours of the morning -- "almost in tears," he says -- and leave voicemail messages saying, "Listen to this," followed by the sound of neighbors' dogs barking incessantly.
I spoke with Hedrick after a reader from Columbus, himself a dog owner, e-mailed to tell me that, every time a particular neighbor leaves her house, she leaves her dogs on her sun porch to allow them access to the backyard.
"They bark at every moving thing when the owner is not home," my reader writes.
After having had his fill of the noise one weekend, my reader went next door to talk with the owner. When there was no answer he left, but returned later with a printout of tips on how to control barking dogs. When there was still no answer, he left the tips along with his name, address and telephone number, as well as a note asking the owner to call him. She never called.
"At least six other neighbors agree that the dogs bark excessively," he says. "I'm at my wit's end."
While it's always risky to confront a neighbor you don't know, particularly in the middle of the night, my reader did the right thing by contacting his neighbor and trying to resolve the issue between them. Her lack of responsiveness, however, forces him to enlist his fellow neighbors and take the next step.
Some municipalities have no laws regulating barking dogs. Columbus is not one of them, though: Its "noisy animals" law is Article 2327.14 of the city's general-offenses code. So, if a dog barks excessively and the owner can't or won't curtail it, residents don't call animal control, they call the city attorney's office -- which is where Hedrick comes in.
If owners don't respond to a warning letter, Hedrick says, his office will schedule mediation. If mediation doesn't alleviate the problem, prosecution is possible. Fines run as much as $150, plus court costs, but cases rarely make it past the mediation stage.
"Typically," Hedrick says, "the warning letter takes care of the problem."
Hedrick's office does not disclose to the dog owner the name of the person who filed the initial complaint.
If a warning letter doesn't do the trick -- and, given her lack of response to my reader's note, it might not -- my reader and his neighbors may have to take the step of requesting mediation to resolve the problem.
There's nothing unethical about reporting the situation to the authorities. If the dogs' barking is a neighborhood-wide issue, it's entirely proper to want it stopped. It's not "tattling" to pursue peace and quiet, and my reader has gone out of his way to resolve the problem without involving the city.
At least one of my reader's neighbors has already shown willingness to put his name and face behind the complaint, and other neighbors should step up and do the same, if they agree that the dogs are a problem.
The more who come forward, the less likely it is that the dogs' owner can claim that the complaints come from a single neighbor with whom she has personal issues, as is often the case in such matters.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
Sunday, June 01, 2008
THE RIGHT THING: THE PRICE IS RIGHT ... OR IS IT?
In a well-landscaped neighborhood in southern California, a new homeowner got involved with her homeowners association shortly after she moved in. Not long thereafter she became treasurer of the association's board.
As the new fiscal year approached and the association's budget was being updated, one of its service providers -- the landscaping service -- raised its rates by 67 percent compared to the previous year. The treasurer asked the board to entertain competitive bids to make sure that the rate increase was warranted, but the rest of the board refused.
Soon afterward the janitorial-service provider indicated that it was raising its rates by 20 percent. Again the treasurer asked the board to consider getting competitive bids to determine whether the increase would bring the service charges up to market rate or if they were exorbitantly out of whack. Once again the board refused.
"My frustration isn't that we're paying a lot," the treasurer writes. "It's that we don't know if we're paying a lot."
Perhaps the association was getting great deals in the past, she explains, and the service providers are merely bringing their charges up to established market levels. Then again, they may have raised their rates way above the current market.
"I just hate that we're making decisions out of ignorance or laziness," she says.
She asks if her board has an ethical responsibility to validate that it is spending the homeowners' money as efficiently as possible, rather than being carefree with expenses.
That's a loaded question, of course, since any board officer -- and I am myself on the boards of a couple of not-for-profit organizations -- knows that it's never ethical for any board to be reckless with its constituents' money.
My reader wonders, however, if she is being arrogant in insisting that her idea of getting competitive bids is correct, and can't decide whether her choice to be a thorn in the sides of the other board members by pushing them to live up to their responsibilities is worth it.
The information about the association's budget and its expenses is not hidden from the home owners. Most of the time, however, homeowners pay scant attention to specific details of the association's business. Only a quarter of the homeowners in my reader's neighborhood chose to attend the association's most recent annual meeting.
Still, their disinterest isn't a license to ignore their interests. The right thing for the board to do is to inform the homeowners about the sizable increases in the service providers' rates. It may be the members who decide how to proceed, or they may choose to leave that decision to the board. It doesn't matter -- what's important is that the issue should be raised.
My reader has a point, though. It may be that the homeowners like the service they're getting so much that they are willing to pay a premium for landscaping and janitorial work. Without knowing what others charge for comparable services, however, they have no way of knowing if they are paying above market rates.
It's the board's responsibility, as a steward for the families it represents, to see that they do know what the market rates are. The community members can't make an informed decision, one way or the other, unless the board does its job and alerts them to these significant increases and provides them with the information they need to understand the situation.
If they decide to stick with the current providers, well and good -- the board still will have done its job of protecting the interests of the homeowners it represents.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
As the new fiscal year approached and the association's budget was being updated, one of its service providers -- the landscaping service -- raised its rates by 67 percent compared to the previous year. The treasurer asked the board to entertain competitive bids to make sure that the rate increase was warranted, but the rest of the board refused.
Soon afterward the janitorial-service provider indicated that it was raising its rates by 20 percent. Again the treasurer asked the board to consider getting competitive bids to determine whether the increase would bring the service charges up to market rate or if they were exorbitantly out of whack. Once again the board refused.
"My frustration isn't that we're paying a lot," the treasurer writes. "It's that we don't know if we're paying a lot."
Perhaps the association was getting great deals in the past, she explains, and the service providers are merely bringing their charges up to established market levels. Then again, they may have raised their rates way above the current market.
"I just hate that we're making decisions out of ignorance or laziness," she says.
She asks if her board has an ethical responsibility to validate that it is spending the homeowners' money as efficiently as possible, rather than being carefree with expenses.
That's a loaded question, of course, since any board officer -- and I am myself on the boards of a couple of not-for-profit organizations -- knows that it's never ethical for any board to be reckless with its constituents' money.
My reader wonders, however, if she is being arrogant in insisting that her idea of getting competitive bids is correct, and can't decide whether her choice to be a thorn in the sides of the other board members by pushing them to live up to their responsibilities is worth it.
The information about the association's budget and its expenses is not hidden from the home owners. Most of the time, however, homeowners pay scant attention to specific details of the association's business. Only a quarter of the homeowners in my reader's neighborhood chose to attend the association's most recent annual meeting.
Still, their disinterest isn't a license to ignore their interests. The right thing for the board to do is to inform the homeowners about the sizable increases in the service providers' rates. It may be the members who decide how to proceed, or they may choose to leave that decision to the board. It doesn't matter -- what's important is that the issue should be raised.
My reader has a point, though. It may be that the homeowners like the service they're getting so much that they are willing to pay a premium for landscaping and janitorial work. Without knowing what others charge for comparable services, however, they have no way of knowing if they are paying above market rates.
It's the board's responsibility, as a steward for the families it represents, to see that they do know what the market rates are. The community members can't make an informed decision, one way or the other, unless the board does its job and alerts them to these significant increases and provides them with the information they need to understand the situation.
If they decide to stick with the current providers, well and good -- the board still will have done its job of protecting the interests of the homeowners it represents.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
SOUND OFF: WHAT'S IN A NAME?
My readers had various opinions as to whether the owner of a Philadelphia restaurant that opened in 1949 should change its name -- Chink's Steaks -- since it might well offend a particular ethnic group. The results of an unscientific poll on my column's blog have 57 percent of readers voting that the name should not be changed and 43 percent voting that it should.
"The owner has every right to keep the name," writes Maggie Lawrence of Culpepper, Va., "and people who want to be offended have every right to not eat there."
"There will always be someone who is offended by something," writes Jerry Wright of San Juan Capistrano, Calif. "Since the name has been around for years, it should remain so."
"On probably more than half of the reviews I read of Chink's, customers said that they liked the cheesesteaks despite the name," writes Kim Liao of Somerville, Mass. "Why force customers to `get over' an obvious linguistic issue in order to recommend your product?"
"Anything that might possibly be construed as a racial or derogatory term, as such, should not be a source of financial gain or empowerment at the emotional expense of others," writes Patrick Burris of Charlotte, N.C.
Check out other opinions here, or post your own or post your own by clicking on "comments" or "post a comment" below.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business and The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of The Right Thing, a Web log focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," The New York Times Syndicate, 500 Seventh Avenue, 8th floor, New York, NY 10018. Please remember to tell me who you are, where you're from, as well as where you read the column.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
"The owner has every right to keep the name," writes Maggie Lawrence of Culpepper, Va., "and people who want to be offended have every right to not eat there."
"There will always be someone who is offended by something," writes Jerry Wright of San Juan Capistrano, Calif. "Since the name has been around for years, it should remain so."
"On probably more than half of the reviews I read of Chink's, customers said that they liked the cheesesteaks despite the name," writes Kim Liao of Somerville, Mass. "Why force customers to `get over' an obvious linguistic issue in order to recommend your product?"
"Anything that might possibly be construed as a racial or derogatory term, as such, should not be a source of financial gain or empowerment at the emotional expense of others," writes Patrick Burris of Charlotte, N.C.
Check out other opinions here, or post your own or post your own by clicking on "comments" or "post a comment" below.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business and The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of The Right Thing, a Web log focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," The New York Times Syndicate, 500 Seventh Avenue, 8th floor, New York, NY 10018. Please remember to tell me who you are, where you're from, as well as where you read the column.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
Sunday, May 25, 2008
SOUND OFF: CROSS WORDS
André Mora, a reader from Seattle, is an avid player of the online word game Scrabulous, which he plays on the Facebook networking site. He feels torn, however, because the developers of Scrabulous designed their game to replicate the board game Scrabble -- without seeking permission from Hasbro, which owns the rights to that game.
"Discussions" between Hasbro and the developers of Scrabulous are ongoing, but in the meantime my reader and others are left to sort things out for themselves: Is Scrabulous a legitimate game in its own right, or an infringement on Hasbro's rights to Scrabble? And, if the latter, is it OK to continue playing Scrabulous, even if you believe that it was wrong for the company to have developed the game without Hasbro's consent, or should you stop playing Scrabulous until a Hasbro-approved version is available?
Post your thoughts here by clicking on "comments" or "post a comment" below. Please include your name, hometown, and state, province, or country. Readers' comments may appear in an upcoming column. Or e-mail your comments to me at rightthing@nytimes.com.
You can also respond to the poll about this question that appears on the right-hand side of the blog.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business (Smith Kerr, 2006), is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of The Right Thing, a Web log focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," The New York Times Syndicate, 500 Seventh Avenue, 8th floor, New York, NY 10018. Please remember to tell me who you are, where you're from, as well as where you read the column.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
"Discussions" between Hasbro and the developers of Scrabulous are ongoing, but in the meantime my reader and others are left to sort things out for themselves: Is Scrabulous a legitimate game in its own right, or an infringement on Hasbro's rights to Scrabble? And, if the latter, is it OK to continue playing Scrabulous, even if you believe that it was wrong for the company to have developed the game without Hasbro's consent, or should you stop playing Scrabulous until a Hasbro-approved version is available?
Post your thoughts here by clicking on "comments" or "post a comment" below. Please include your name, hometown, and state, province, or country. Readers' comments may appear in an upcoming column. Or e-mail your comments to me at rightthing@nytimes.com.
You can also respond to the poll about this question that appears on the right-hand side of the blog.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business (Smith Kerr, 2006), is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of The Right Thing, a Web log focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," The New York Times Syndicate, 500 Seventh Avenue, 8th floor, New York, NY 10018. Please remember to tell me who you are, where you're from, as well as where you read the column.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
THE RIGHT THING: `DON'T CALL US ... '
What does a potential employer owe a prospective employee who comes in for a job interview?
Certainly not a job, if she doesn't meet the company's needs. But, if that proves to be the case, is the prospective employer obliged to contact the interviewee to let her know that she didn't get the job?
A reader from California is a senior citizen and is looking for part-time work. She's not alone: The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that, in 2006, 38 percent of people 55 and older were working. In 1996 that number was 30 percent, and it's expected to reach almost 43 percent by 2016.
She has gone on several interviews, she writes, armed with a positive attitude and a willingness to answer every question to the best of her ability.
By the time the process was over, however, she ended up feeling like "a second-class citizen." Not because she didn't get the jobs, though -- it was how she learned that fact that sticks in her craw.
On two occasions, as her interview was coming to a close, the interviewer told her that the company would get in touch within a few days.
Would she get a response regardless of whether or not she got the job?
"Yes," each interviewer told her.
Each time, she never heard from the company.
She wants to know if the interviewers had an ethical obligation to let her know the outcome of her interviews. She also asks me if I think there was something she should have done differently that might have ensured that the interviewers would respond.
It's standard procedure for many employers, faced with a pile of submitted resumes, to winnow out the top candidates and discard the rest. Not a good practice, if you ask me, since those same employers never know when they might need to fill jobs in the future. Retaining resumes can be useful, and to have the basic courtesy of responding to all applicants can potentially result in positive future relationships.
Are employers ethically bound to respond to all applications, though? No. While it may be poor etiquette, there's nothing unethical about not responding, if that's the company's standard practice.
My reader's interviewers, however, fall into a different kettle of smelts.
First of all, a face-to-face interview is much different than a resume in the mail. It creates a relationship, however temporary, and thus makes etiquette more important. If someone makes the effort to come in and interview, the least the company can do is give them a courtesy call of rejection.
But is there an ethical obligation, as opposed to a duty by etiquette? Still no.
The equation changes, however, once the interviewer -- who is under no obligation to do so -- tells her that the company will call. At that point the interviewer has an ethical obligation to fulfill that promise and either get back to her or see that someone else from the company does.
Telling her that she'd get a call after the interview, either way, may have been a means of avoiding the uncomfortable task of revealing that it was each company's practice to notify only those candidates who made it to the next phase in the process. That awkwardness is understandable, but that doesn't excuse the violation of a specific commitment from one person to another.
My reader did nothing wrong by asking if the interviewers would contact her. In fact, it was an excellent question. The fault lies entirely with the interviewers, who should not have made promises that apparently they had no intention of keeping.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
Certainly not a job, if she doesn't meet the company's needs. But, if that proves to be the case, is the prospective employer obliged to contact the interviewee to let her know that she didn't get the job?
A reader from California is a senior citizen and is looking for part-time work. She's not alone: The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that, in 2006, 38 percent of people 55 and older were working. In 1996 that number was 30 percent, and it's expected to reach almost 43 percent by 2016.
She has gone on several interviews, she writes, armed with a positive attitude and a willingness to answer every question to the best of her ability.
By the time the process was over, however, she ended up feeling like "a second-class citizen." Not because she didn't get the jobs, though -- it was how she learned that fact that sticks in her craw.
On two occasions, as her interview was coming to a close, the interviewer told her that the company would get in touch within a few days.
Would she get a response regardless of whether or not she got the job?
"Yes," each interviewer told her.
Each time, she never heard from the company.
She wants to know if the interviewers had an ethical obligation to let her know the outcome of her interviews. She also asks me if I think there was something she should have done differently that might have ensured that the interviewers would respond.
It's standard procedure for many employers, faced with a pile of submitted resumes, to winnow out the top candidates and discard the rest. Not a good practice, if you ask me, since those same employers never know when they might need to fill jobs in the future. Retaining resumes can be useful, and to have the basic courtesy of responding to all applicants can potentially result in positive future relationships.
Are employers ethically bound to respond to all applications, though? No. While it may be poor etiquette, there's nothing unethical about not responding, if that's the company's standard practice.
My reader's interviewers, however, fall into a different kettle of smelts.
First of all, a face-to-face interview is much different than a resume in the mail. It creates a relationship, however temporary, and thus makes etiquette more important. If someone makes the effort to come in and interview, the least the company can do is give them a courtesy call of rejection.
But is there an ethical obligation, as opposed to a duty by etiquette? Still no.
The equation changes, however, once the interviewer -- who is under no obligation to do so -- tells her that the company will call. At that point the interviewer has an ethical obligation to fulfill that promise and either get back to her or see that someone else from the company does.
Telling her that she'd get a call after the interview, either way, may have been a means of avoiding the uncomfortable task of revealing that it was each company's practice to notify only those candidates who made it to the next phase in the process. That awkwardness is understandable, but that doesn't excuse the violation of a specific commitment from one person to another.
My reader did nothing wrong by asking if the interviewers would contact her. In fact, it was an excellent question. The fault lies entirely with the interviewers, who should not have made promises that apparently they had no intention of keeping.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
Sunday, May 18, 2008
THE RIGHT THING: `FREE STUFF' THAT NEEDS TO GO BACK
Several months ago, as I was descending the steps of a busy subway station, I saw an oversized change purse on the stairs. I picked it up.
The change purse contained a bank card, a credit card, a university identification card, a library card from a small town, some folding money, a handful of other cards and, well, change. I took a quick glance around the station, but saw no one resembling the photo on the university card. Whoever she was, she was long gone.
I tried e-mailing her at her college address, but the e-mail bounced back. I then called directory assistance and asked for a listing for her last name in her small town. Only one number came up, so I tried it. Busy signal. A few hours later, I tried again. Still busy.
The incident came to mind recently when I received an e-mail from a reader in Columbus, Ohio. While in the parking lot of a home-improvement center a few weeks ago, he discovered a bag in a shopping cart. Inside were some recent purchases from the store -- nothing too expensive, only a few garage hooks and an outlet strip.
"My first reaction was, `Goody, free stuff,"' he writes. Then, after placing the bag in his car for safekeeping, he went to the service desk to explain what he had found. The clerk told him that such things happen frequently. Sometimes the purchaser returns for the goods, sometimes not.
My reader figured that, if he left the goods at the service desk, chances were that they would be returned to the shelf within 48 hours if no one claimed them. So he left his telephone number with the clerk and asked him to give the number to anyone calling or returning to claim the goods.
"I figured, if anyone called and could give me a reasonable guess at what was in the bag, we could make arrangements to get the merchandise to its rightful owner," he writes. "I guess I did the right thing."
I might have simply left the goods with the store, but my reader's effort to get the stuff to its rightful owner, rather than keep it for himself, was indeed the right thing to do. Of course, he's now taken responsibility for storing a bag in his house in hope that someone will claim it.
When I found the change purse in the subway, I wasn't stuck with it for long. I eventually reached the owner -- her younger sister had been tying up the phone, she said -- and we made arrangements for me to return the purse to her at the subway station the following morning.
It's often simpler to return something yourself when a name happens to be attached to the goods. My reader went the extra mile by trying to return goods that he knew didn't belong to him, even when the absence of a name made things more complicated. Well done!
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
The change purse contained a bank card, a credit card, a university identification card, a library card from a small town, some folding money, a handful of other cards and, well, change. I took a quick glance around the station, but saw no one resembling the photo on the university card. Whoever she was, she was long gone.
I tried e-mailing her at her college address, but the e-mail bounced back. I then called directory assistance and asked for a listing for her last name in her small town. Only one number came up, so I tried it. Busy signal. A few hours later, I tried again. Still busy.
The incident came to mind recently when I received an e-mail from a reader in Columbus, Ohio. While in the parking lot of a home-improvement center a few weeks ago, he discovered a bag in a shopping cart. Inside were some recent purchases from the store -- nothing too expensive, only a few garage hooks and an outlet strip.
"My first reaction was, `Goody, free stuff,"' he writes. Then, after placing the bag in his car for safekeeping, he went to the service desk to explain what he had found. The clerk told him that such things happen frequently. Sometimes the purchaser returns for the goods, sometimes not.
My reader figured that, if he left the goods at the service desk, chances were that they would be returned to the shelf within 48 hours if no one claimed them. So he left his telephone number with the clerk and asked him to give the number to anyone calling or returning to claim the goods.
"I figured, if anyone called and could give me a reasonable guess at what was in the bag, we could make arrangements to get the merchandise to its rightful owner," he writes. "I guess I did the right thing."
I might have simply left the goods with the store, but my reader's effort to get the stuff to its rightful owner, rather than keep it for himself, was indeed the right thing to do. Of course, he's now taken responsibility for storing a bag in his house in hope that someone will claim it.
When I found the change purse in the subway, I wasn't stuck with it for long. I eventually reached the owner -- her younger sister had been tying up the phone, she said -- and we made arrangements for me to return the purse to her at the subway station the following morning.
It's often simpler to return something yourself when a name happens to be attached to the goods. My reader went the extra mile by trying to return goods that he knew didn't belong to him, even when the absence of a name made things more complicated. Well done!
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
SOUND OFF: DRUGS AND THE DOCTORS WHO PITCH THEM
When Dr. Robert Jarvik agreed to appear in commercials for Pfizer's cholesterol-lowering medication, Lipitor, some people felt that it was misleading because, while he has a medical degree, Jarvik is not licensed to practice medicine. So Pfizer recently dropped Jarvik as the medication's spokesman. I asked readers if the company made the right decision in dropping Jarvik.
"He did nothing unethical," writes Carroll Straus of Orange County, Calif.
Helen Homer of Santa Ana, Calif., agrees.
"Removing Dr. Jarvik from the ad was unnecessary," Homer writes.
Bill Wotring of Fullerton, Calif., has "no problem with the Lipitor ads showing an endorsement by Dr. Jarvik," he writes. "I found them informative and professional ... It is the reputation and endorsement of someone who knows something about hearts which make the ad credible."
On the other hand, George Zahka of Bradenton Beach, Fla., is glad that Jarvik is no longer with Pfizer, finding it "demeaning that the man who invented the artificial heart would lower himself and the profession by touting a product, as good as it may be."
Finally I received a long response from Jarvik himself.
"In my opinion Pfizer was wrong to capitulate to political pressure and the unfavorable publicity it generated," Jarvik writes. "The Lipitor ad campaign was truthful and tasteful. I believe it motivated hundreds of thousands of new patients to see their doctors, patients who never before had treatment for their high cholesterol. Many heart attacks and strokes will be prevented, and many people will avoid the disaster that otherwise awaited them."
Read Jarvik's full response, Check out other opinions here, or post your own or post your own by clicking on "comments" or "post a comment" below.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business and The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of The Right Thing, a Web log focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," The New York Times Syndicate, 500 Seventh Avenue, 8th floor, New York, NY 10018. Please remember to tell me who you are, where you're from, as well as where you read the column.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
"He did nothing unethical," writes Carroll Straus of Orange County, Calif.
Helen Homer of Santa Ana, Calif., agrees.
"Removing Dr. Jarvik from the ad was unnecessary," Homer writes.
Bill Wotring of Fullerton, Calif., has "no problem with the Lipitor ads showing an endorsement by Dr. Jarvik," he writes. "I found them informative and professional ... It is the reputation and endorsement of someone who knows something about hearts which make the ad credible."
On the other hand, George Zahka of Bradenton Beach, Fla., is glad that Jarvik is no longer with Pfizer, finding it "demeaning that the man who invented the artificial heart would lower himself and the profession by touting a product, as good as it may be."
Finally I received a long response from Jarvik himself.
"In my opinion Pfizer was wrong to capitulate to political pressure and the unfavorable publicity it generated," Jarvik writes. "The Lipitor ad campaign was truthful and tasteful. I believe it motivated hundreds of thousands of new patients to see their doctors, patients who never before had treatment for their high cholesterol. Many heart attacks and strokes will be prevented, and many people will avoid the disaster that otherwise awaited them."
Read Jarvik's full response, Check out other opinions here, or post your own or post your own by clicking on "comments" or "post a comment" below.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business and The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of The Right Thing, a Web log focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," The New York Times Syndicate, 500 Seventh Avenue, 8th floor, New York, NY 10018. Please remember to tell me who you are, where you're from, as well as where you read the column.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
Sunday, May 11, 2008
SOUND OFF: ARE YOU SICK OR WHAT?
Last month I wrote about a reader who wanted to know if it was OK to call in sick on a Monday because he had fallen ill over the weekend and hadn't been able to complete his planned chores. By Sunday night he was feeling better, so he wanted to use Monday to get the chores done.
My response was to say that, while it was his prerogative to take a personal day, it was wrong to call in sick when he wasn't.
A greater-than-usual response from my readers argued that I had missed the mark, maintaining that it's perfectly OK to call in sick if you want to ... even if you're not sick.
I'm not convinced. Sure, businesses could do a better job by simply giving people a certain number of personal days per year and letting them use them however they wish. But if sick days are meant for use when you're actually sick, shouldn't you be honest with your employer?
So I'm putting the question to my readers at large: Is it OK to call in sick when you're not really sick?
Post your thoughts here by clicking on "comments" or "post a comment" below. Please include your name, hometown, and state, province, or country. Readers' comments may appear in an upcoming column. Or e-mail your comments to me at rightthing@nytimes.com.
You can also respond to the poll about this question that appears on the right-hand side of the blog.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business (Smith Kerr, 2006), is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of The Right Thing, a Web log focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," The New York Times Syndicate, 500 Seventh Avenue, 8th floor, New York, NY 10018. Please remember to tell me who you are, where you're from, as well as where you read the column.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
My response was to say that, while it was his prerogative to take a personal day, it was wrong to call in sick when he wasn't.
A greater-than-usual response from my readers argued that I had missed the mark, maintaining that it's perfectly OK to call in sick if you want to ... even if you're not sick.
I'm not convinced. Sure, businesses could do a better job by simply giving people a certain number of personal days per year and letting them use them however they wish. But if sick days are meant for use when you're actually sick, shouldn't you be honest with your employer?
So I'm putting the question to my readers at large: Is it OK to call in sick when you're not really sick?
Post your thoughts here by clicking on "comments" or "post a comment" below. Please include your name, hometown, and state, province, or country. Readers' comments may appear in an upcoming column. Or e-mail your comments to me at rightthing@nytimes.com.
You can also respond to the poll about this question that appears on the right-hand side of the blog.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business (Smith Kerr, 2006), is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of The Right Thing, a Web log focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," The New York Times Syndicate, 500 Seventh Avenue, 8th floor, New York, NY 10018. Please remember to tell me who you are, where you're from, as well as where you read the column.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
THE RIGHT THING: THE TRASH DONOR
In a suburban neighborhood in Texas, residents roll out their trash receptacles for curbside pickup each week. Each residence is permitted three cans' worth of trash, with any extra incurring an additional charge.
Excess trash is supposed to be placed in sturdy trash bags and tagged with a sticker that can be purchased for $2 at the local grocery store. If the bags are untagged, the city adds a $2.50-per-bag charge to the resident's monthly bill.
One of my readers lives in that neighborhood, and she keeps a supply of stickers on hand for those times when her household has excess trash.
"The problem," she writes, "is that my husband thinks it is fine to take our excess trash bag and place it in one of the neighbor's half-empty trash cans, once they have been rolled onto the street."
One of the neighbors, described by my reader as "a crotchety woman who never speaks to us or makes eye contact," has taken issue with the husband's practice.
"We've lived here for 13 years," my reader writes, "and only had one conversation with her. She never waves like the other neighbors or steps to our yard to chat like other neighbors do. We just accept it and go on."
Until now.
After the husband put trash in her receptacle, the neighbor took the trash out of the can, held onto it until the sanitation truck had come and gone, and then placed the trash bag on top of the husband's car.
Later in the day the neighbor went to my reader's house and began to "rant and rave" at her, she says. She denounced the husband and made clear that she was sick of him putting his trash in her cans.
"Couldn't you just pay the $2 for excess trash or get a bigger trash can, instead of stinking up my trash can with your trash?" the neighbor asked. "I will report him to the authorities if he is ever observed doing this again."
My reader apologized for upsetting her neighbor and said that she would talk to her husband, but the situation still irritates her -- especially because her husband is adamant that there is nothing wrong with what he does.
"I happen to agree with her that it is inappropriate," she writes. "But the way she handled it was inappropriate, in my opinion."
My reader's husband is wrong. The right thing for him to do would be to ask permission of any neighbors before putting his extra trash in their cans. It's the neighborly thing to do, and the ethical thing as well. That their neighbor is aloof and uncommunicative doesn't in any way justify his intrusion into her trash.
Was the neighbor right to put the trash bag on top of the husband's car? Well, it did get his attention, and some people might have emptied it over the car. But it seems like an overreaction: The neighbor's right response would have been to simply tell the husband that she knows he's been making the unwelcome deposits and ask him to stop.
My reader would rather simply use the $2 stickers and not upset her neighbor. She should do exactly that -- and her husband should respect her wishes and do the right thing as well.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
Excess trash is supposed to be placed in sturdy trash bags and tagged with a sticker that can be purchased for $2 at the local grocery store. If the bags are untagged, the city adds a $2.50-per-bag charge to the resident's monthly bill.
One of my readers lives in that neighborhood, and she keeps a supply of stickers on hand for those times when her household has excess trash.
"The problem," she writes, "is that my husband thinks it is fine to take our excess trash bag and place it in one of the neighbor's half-empty trash cans, once they have been rolled onto the street."
One of the neighbors, described by my reader as "a crotchety woman who never speaks to us or makes eye contact," has taken issue with the husband's practice.
"We've lived here for 13 years," my reader writes, "and only had one conversation with her. She never waves like the other neighbors or steps to our yard to chat like other neighbors do. We just accept it and go on."
Until now.
After the husband put trash in her receptacle, the neighbor took the trash out of the can, held onto it until the sanitation truck had come and gone, and then placed the trash bag on top of the husband's car.
Later in the day the neighbor went to my reader's house and began to "rant and rave" at her, she says. She denounced the husband and made clear that she was sick of him putting his trash in her cans.
"Couldn't you just pay the $2 for excess trash or get a bigger trash can, instead of stinking up my trash can with your trash?" the neighbor asked. "I will report him to the authorities if he is ever observed doing this again."
My reader apologized for upsetting her neighbor and said that she would talk to her husband, but the situation still irritates her -- especially because her husband is adamant that there is nothing wrong with what he does.
"I happen to agree with her that it is inappropriate," she writes. "But the way she handled it was inappropriate, in my opinion."
My reader's husband is wrong. The right thing for him to do would be to ask permission of any neighbors before putting his extra trash in their cans. It's the neighborly thing to do, and the ethical thing as well. That their neighbor is aloof and uncommunicative doesn't in any way justify his intrusion into her trash.
Was the neighbor right to put the trash bag on top of the husband's car? Well, it did get his attention, and some people might have emptied it over the car. But it seems like an overreaction: The neighbor's right response would have been to simply tell the husband that she knows he's been making the unwelcome deposits and ask him to stop.
My reader would rather simply use the $2 stickers and not upset her neighbor. She should do exactly that -- and her husband should respect her wishes and do the right thing as well.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
Sunday, May 04, 2008
THE RIGHT THING: TEN CHARMS, TEN HEADACHES
Before she died in the late 1980s, my reader's mother gave him and his wife some of her jewelry. For years the cache sat ignored in an obscure corner of my reader's home.
One of the items was a gold charm bracelet featuring 10 charms, one for each of his mother's grandchildren. Each has the child's name on one side and his or her birth date on the other.
"I thought my two older sisters might want to have it," my reader says, "as opposed to our children having to decide what to do with it when my wife and I pass on."
If his sisters weren't interested in the bracelet, my reader suggested having it appraised, since gold prices were soaring, peaking at $1,020 an ounce in mid-March, before sliding back to $925 as I write this column. My reader offered to split the proceeds with his sisters, if they decided to sell the bracelet.
"I thought this was better than the risk of it being lost through theft, natural disaster or loss in the old-folks home," he says.
A rational discussion followed, but one of the grandchildren objected strongly to the notion that they would even consider selling such a keepsake. Instead, she thought that it should go to the grandchild who had been closest to my reader's deceased mother.
My reader believes that he did the right thing by offering the bracelet to his sisters.
"Since it was mine," he reasons, "I could have had it melted down and made a few bucks ... if my sentimental wife would have let me. Is there a right thing to do when the choices are between sentimentality and profiting from an inherited but unwanted item, when it seemed like a good time to do so?"
I regularly receive letters from readers who are struggling with how to be fair in disbursing goods to heirs. However hard they try to be fair, they invariably end up annoying or alienating some member of the family who doesn't agree with how the prospective disburser plans to dole out the goods.
My reader is absolutely correct in saying that, since the bracelet was his, he was well within his ethical rights to do with it whatever he pleased. But he went the extra ethical step by seriously considering the effect his actions might have on other stakeholders -- namely, his sisters.
Regardless of the negative response from one of the grandchildren, my reader did the right thing by contacting his sisters for their thoughts about the proper handling of the charm bracelet. Even after getting their response, however, he is still free to do whatever he wants with the bracelet, even if they disagree. It is, after all, his.
As it turns out, another grandchild came up with a solution that satisfies everyone, at least in the short term: Each child will receive his or her charm, to do with as he or she pleases. After the charms are gone, all my reader needs to decide is what to do with his leftover gold bracelet.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
One of the items was a gold charm bracelet featuring 10 charms, one for each of his mother's grandchildren. Each has the child's name on one side and his or her birth date on the other.
"I thought my two older sisters might want to have it," my reader says, "as opposed to our children having to decide what to do with it when my wife and I pass on."
If his sisters weren't interested in the bracelet, my reader suggested having it appraised, since gold prices were soaring, peaking at $1,020 an ounce in mid-March, before sliding back to $925 as I write this column. My reader offered to split the proceeds with his sisters, if they decided to sell the bracelet.
"I thought this was better than the risk of it being lost through theft, natural disaster or loss in the old-folks home," he says.
A rational discussion followed, but one of the grandchildren objected strongly to the notion that they would even consider selling such a keepsake. Instead, she thought that it should go to the grandchild who had been closest to my reader's deceased mother.
My reader believes that he did the right thing by offering the bracelet to his sisters.
"Since it was mine," he reasons, "I could have had it melted down and made a few bucks ... if my sentimental wife would have let me. Is there a right thing to do when the choices are between sentimentality and profiting from an inherited but unwanted item, when it seemed like a good time to do so?"
I regularly receive letters from readers who are struggling with how to be fair in disbursing goods to heirs. However hard they try to be fair, they invariably end up annoying or alienating some member of the family who doesn't agree with how the prospective disburser plans to dole out the goods.
My reader is absolutely correct in saying that, since the bracelet was his, he was well within his ethical rights to do with it whatever he pleased. But he went the extra ethical step by seriously considering the effect his actions might have on other stakeholders -- namely, his sisters.
Regardless of the negative response from one of the grandchildren, my reader did the right thing by contacting his sisters for their thoughts about the proper handling of the charm bracelet. Even after getting their response, however, he is still free to do whatever he wants with the bracelet, even if they disagree. It is, after all, his.
As it turns out, another grandchild came up with a solution that satisfies everyone, at least in the short term: Each child will receive his or her charm, to do with as he or she pleases. After the charms are gone, all my reader needs to decide is what to do with his leftover gold bracelet.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
SOUND OFF: VIDEO VIGILANTE
My readers thought that the guy in Oklahoma City who videotapes customers soliciting prostitutes and then posts the video on his Web site, in an effort to expose these men to public shame, is out of line.
"If this man is into humiliating bad behavior to discourage it, and not just exploiting it, the same as the solicitor himself," writes Robin Brooks of Fullerton, Calif., "then he should approach them, tell them that they have been filmed and ask them to sign a release, as would anyone else using the picture of a stranger as a model for monetary gain."
Charlie Seng, of Lancaster, S.C., agrees.
"As with most do-gooders and busybodies," Seng writes, "this guy who videotapes supposed clients of prostitutes should be taken off the streets and put in jail for being a public nuisance."
"Let's hope that none of us who have ever gotten lost in a big city and asked a stranger for directions get photographed by a creep trying to capture people talking to strangers so he can sell the video," writes Jan Bohren of Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y. "This is a pretty lame occupation, don't you think? Does the phrase `get a life' ring a bell?"
Check out other opinions at "I Know What You Did Last Night," or post your own or post your own by clicking on "comments" or "post a comment" below.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business and The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of The Right Thing, a Web log focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," The New York Times Syndicate, 500 Seventh Avenue, 8th floor, New York, NY 10018. Please remember to tell me who you are, where you're from, as well as where you read the column.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
SOUND OFF: CHANGING FACES, CHANGING NAMES
Joseph Groh likes the name of his Philadelphia restaurant fine the way it is. He bought the restaurant after the death of the guy who had opened it in 1949. Now, however, some Asian-American groups and individuals want Groh to change the name that's been in place since the doors opened: "Chink's Steaks."
"It's definitely a derogatory term," Ginny Gong, national president of the Organization of Chinese Americans, told The Washington Post.
On the other hand, Groh told the newspaper that he sees the name as part of the restaurant's tradition and sees no need to change it.
Should Groh consider changing the name, given that it clearly offends a particular ethnic group? Or is it right for him to hold to tradition and keep the name? (You can also answer the poll about the name on the right-hand channel of this blog.)
Post your thoughts here by clicking on "comments" or "post a comment" below. Please include your name, hometown, and state, province, or country. Readers' comments may appear in an upcoming column. Or e-mail your comments to me at rightthing@nytimes.com.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business (Smith Kerr, 2006), is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of The Right Thing, a Web log focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," The New York Times Syndicate, 500 Seventh Avenue, 8th floor, New York, NY 10018. Please remember to tell me who you are, where you're from, as well as where you read the column.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
"It's definitely a derogatory term," Ginny Gong, national president of the Organization of Chinese Americans, told The Washington Post.
On the other hand, Groh told the newspaper that he sees the name as part of the restaurant's tradition and sees no need to change it.
Should Groh consider changing the name, given that it clearly offends a particular ethnic group? Or is it right for him to hold to tradition and keep the name? (You can also answer the poll about the name on the right-hand channel of this blog.)
Post your thoughts here by clicking on "comments" or "post a comment" below. Please include your name, hometown, and state, province, or country. Readers' comments may appear in an upcoming column. Or e-mail your comments to me at rightthing@nytimes.com.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business (Smith Kerr, 2006), is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of The Right Thing, a Web log focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," The New York Times Syndicate, 500 Seventh Avenue, 8th floor, New York, NY 10018. Please remember to tell me who you are, where you're from, as well as where you read the column.
c.2008 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
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