Last month Centerburg High School, located in central Ohio, canceled its graduation ceremonies. The reason: Administrators had discovered that a large percentage of the graduating class had been cheating on exams throughout their final semester.
The plot was masterminded by a student who had hacked onto the school's computer system, accessed teachers' files, downloaded upcoming exams and distributed copies to classmates. It came to light when a video referring to the cheating as "the biggest prank ever" was found on a school computer.
The cheating apparently was widespread, with most of the graduating class either participating in the cheating or at least being aware of it and remaining silent.
Unable to identify everyone who was involved in the caper, Superintendent Dorothy Holden decided to cancel graduation ceremonies and instead mail diplomas to students. Her intention, she said, was to send a message that cheating will not be tolerated and that it is not OK to turn a blind eye to such misconduct.
William Jacobson, a reader in Cypress, Calif., alerted me to the incident. He believes that, by choosing the path she did, Holden has sent a message precisely opposite the one she intended.
"Far from letting students know that cheating cannot be tolerated," he writes, "she still graduated these students who had cheated all semester. She is making no (distinction between) those who cheated, those who only knew about the cheating (and) those who were innocent bystanders."
Jacobson has three questions: Is it ethical for the school to punish the noncheating students as well as the cheaters? Is it ethical to punish students for knowing about the cheating and not reporting it? Is it ethical for the school to graduate those who cheated along with those who didn't?
Rarely can incidents like this be resolved with one clear-cut response. It would be good to believe that students who were aware of the cheating would alert school administrators. Unless students are instructed how to do such reporting, however, and unless it is made clear to them why to do so is important to their own integrity and the integrity of their school, the hazards of speaking up against their own classmates may be overwhelming.
Those who are truly innocent bystanders should not be punished, of course. But in this situation, as is often the case, it's difficult to discern the truly innocent from those who simply kept quiet about something they knew or even those who actively participated but did not get caught.
To answer Jacobson's first question, if the cheating was as widespread as seems to be the case -and if there's no way to definitively determine who did and who didn't cheat - I believe a punishment for the class as a whole, one that deprives them of a social occasion but does no long-term damage to any student's educational prospects, is acceptable. Not ideal, but acceptable.
Should students be punished for knowing about the cheating, not participating in it but failing to report it? If the school has a clear honor code that lays out students' responsibility not only to behave honestly but also to report any infractions that they may witness, then obviously it is fair to hold them accountable for not reporting this widespread cheating.
If there is no honor code, the situation is not as clear-cut. I still believe, however, that the scope of the problem justifies punishment. This is not a case of one student failing to report an individual cheater, but rather of a systemic breach of conduct which threatens the integrity of the educational process as a whole.
As to Jacobson's third question, I agree that it sends a counterproductive message to allow known cheaters to pass the courses in which they cheated and to receive their diplomas, by mail or otherwise. All students whose active participation in the scheme can be confirmed should receive a substantial punishment that is clearly more severe than those only suspected, those who looked the other way or, obviously, those who were not involved.
Looking ahead, the right thing for the high-school administrators to do is to establish a clear set of guidelines covering students' responsibilities in the case of cheating by other students. Then they should work hard to get their students to embrace those guidelines and follow them, recognizing that, if they don't, it will be the whole school that loses.¶
c.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
Sunday, July 26, 2009
SOUND OFF: DID THE KILLER WIN?
After an anti-abortion zealot murdered Dr. George Tiller, a Kansas physician who operated an abortion clinic, his family decided to close the clinic. Even some opponents of abortion were bothered by the decision, Stephanie Simon reported in The Wall Street Journal, because they feared that "extremists might conclude that violence gets results where legal protests don't."
Seventy-seven percent of the readers who responded to an informal poll on my column's blog said that the doctor's survivors are free to act as they see fit, regardless of the circumstances.
"This family has suffered a tragic loss," writes Dagmar Roman of New Windsor, N.Y. "No matter which side of the abortion issue you're on, the decision to close the clinic is theirs and theirs alone. It's no one else's concern how they choose to handle their grief."
"The family ... has every right to decide what to do with the clinic," agrees Bert Hoogendam of Sarnia, Ontario. "The family has decided to close the facility, so let it be!"
Check out other opinions here, 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.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
Seventy-seven percent of the readers who responded to an informal poll on my column's blog said that the doctor's survivors are free to act as they see fit, regardless of the circumstances.
"This family has suffered a tragic loss," writes Dagmar Roman of New Windsor, N.Y. "No matter which side of the abortion issue you're on, the decision to close the clinic is theirs and theirs alone. It's no one else's concern how they choose to handle their grief."
"The family ... has every right to decide what to do with the clinic," agrees Bert Hoogendam of Sarnia, Ontario. "The family has decided to close the facility, so let it be!"
Check out other opinions here, 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.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
Sunday, July 19, 2009
SOUND OFF: WHO PAYS FOR THE MEMORIES?
Estimates of the cost to the City of Los Angeles for security and other services associated with the Michael Jackson memorial tribute at the Staples Center hovered around $4 million. City and state budgets are feeling the economic pinch these days, and Los Angeles is no exception. That's why Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa had asked Jackson's fans to help cover those costs through donations to the city.
Should the city be expected to pick up the tab for the costs associated with the memorial? Should fans have footed the bill by paying for tickets, rather than getting them for free by lottery? Should wealthy friends of Jackson have ponied up the cash? Or should the cost be covered by the Jackson estate?¶
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 with this question that will appear on the right-hand side of the blog until polling is closed.
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.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
Should the city be expected to pick up the tab for the costs associated with the memorial? Should fans have footed the bill by paying for tickets, rather than getting them for free by lottery? Should wealthy friends of Jackson have ponied up the cash? Or should the cost be covered by the Jackson estate?¶
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 with this question that will appear on the right-hand side of the blog until polling is closed.
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.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
THE RIGHT THING: YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT I JUST HEARD ...
As has been the case for a number of years, a reader's annual performance review struck her as a thrown-together affair. The morning of the scheduled review, her supervisor told her that she would need to reschedule their meeting since she had not had a chance to write the review. But at noon the supervisor told her that she'd be able to do it as scheduled after all.
It wasn't, overall, a stellar review. Some items struck my reader, a child-care worker, as contradictory: She was chastised for not working as well as she could with outside vendors in one portion of the review, for example, but in another was told that her job required her not to deal with anyone outside the office.
My reader has never actually been given a written job description for the position she has held for more than five years. As a result she couldn't help seeing the expectations upon which she was being measured for her annual review as a moving target.
But where my reader wonders if her boss has crossed an ethical line is in the source of some of the comments her supervisor made during their meeting: conversation overheard in the lunch room.
The supervisor told my reader that she had overheard other workers in the lunchroom talking about some problems they had in working with my reader, such as her occasional lateness to work and her not responding to telephone and e-mail messages.
Is it right, my reader wants to know, for a supervisor to base an official performance review on overheard conversation?
No, it isn't.
Because the supervisor was not part of this conversation, she has no context for the discussion, no way of knowing how serious the other employees' concerns are or how justified they may be. Eavesdropping on employee-lunchroom chatter is hardly a virtue, but it's also not a useful means of gathering credible information.
It's entirely legitimate for her supervisor to use the annual review to discuss any issues of unresponsiveness or tardiness that my reader may have, though it would be better to raise them before the annual review, so that the employee would have a chance to correct the problems before her review comes around. Any manager is within his or her rights to call out an employee on substantiated inappropriate behavior or poor performance.
The right thing for the supervisor to have done, however, was to base her review of my reader's performance on information which she herself had witnessed or which she had gathered directly from other employees with their knowledge. Checking her employee's attendance record is fair game. So is speaking to my reader's colleagues, to see what they think of her performance on the job, or talking with clients of the company to get their feedback.
In other words, the overheard conversation is merely an indication of a possible problem _ in itself it is nothing. To base a performance review on that conversation, without substantiating its content in any way, is unfair not only to the employee on the receiving end of the review but also to the employees who didn't know that they were being listened to by management. Besides which, it's plain old lazy.
My reader's boss should step up her own performance a bit and be more responsible in the way she collects and uses information about her employees for their reviews. While she's at it, she should get around to making sure that her employees have written job descriptions or, at the very least, that they are clearly told what is expected of them on the job.
c.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
Sunday, July 12, 2009
THE RIGHT THING: HOW FREE ARE FREEBIES?
Whenever I stay at a particular hotel in downtown Madison, Wisc., I know that I don't have to worry about remembering to pack shaving cream, toothpaste or other basic toiletries to use on the road. The desk clerk routinely offers me such sundries upon check-in.
So I understood the basic context of an e-mail from a reader in North Carolina who has an ethical quandary involving this sort of freebie.
A former colleague of my reader's is a volunteer for an organization that provides food and shelter to homeless people during the winter. The colleague sent my reader and others an appeal for donations of small, sample-size containers of goods such as soap, shampoo, toothpaste, razors and shaving cream.
"While his appeal noted that such items can be purchased inexpensively," my reader writes, "it also pointed out that, since they are available at hotels and motels, we should bring them back when traveling or on vacation."
My reader normally leaves any unused "freebies" at the place he's staying. He reflects that, while hotels may consider the disappearance of these goods to be "part of the cost of doing business," perhaps "other travelers would rather have lower room rates than, in effect, contribute to a cause they don't care about."
His question: "Is it ethical to collect these items for the purpose of donating them to this worthwhile cause?"
Many hotels, in an effort to be perceived as more environment-friendly, have taken to asking guests whether they want their towels laundered daily. So far, though, they've yet to give guests the option of choosing a lower room rate if they don't use the free shampoo and soap, although it's a novel cost-saving idea.
Unlike the linen, towels or alarm clocks placed in hotel rooms for a guest's use during their stay _ and only during their stay _ bars of soap and bottles of shampoo are consumable. If there are two bars of soap in the bathroom, one on the sink and another in the shower, and a guest decides to unwrap only one and save the other for later use, given that the hike from the sink to the shower is not exactly arduous, he is not using more than the hotel has given him for personal consumption. If, like many travelers, he returns home with an occasional bar of unused hotel soap packed among his belongings, it seems like a worthy endeavor to donate such goods to a not-for-profit that can put them to good use.
My reader's ex-colleague goes too far, however, when he suggests that travelers set out to collect more than was intended for use during their individual hotel stay. Saving a bar of soap intended for personal use is one thing, but grabbing a handful from a maid's cart is quite another.
As I have often said in this column, if you've obtained something wrongly, it doesn't matter what you do with it, it's still wrong. Robbing from the rich is still robbing, whether you give it to the poor or blow it in Las Vegas. That applies to money, valuables and even, yes, little bars of soap.
The right thing for the shelter to do is to request that individuals donate toiletries that they either have purchased on their own or have been given for their own use. It should not encourage the wrongful acquisition of such items, regardless of how noble its intentions.
c.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)SOUND OFF: CASH FOR CRITICS?
While 72 percent of readers responding to an informal poll on my column's blog questioned the credibility of reporters who accept free travel to cover their industries, many who wrote in agreed with the 20 percent of readers who believed that an honest reporter can nevertheless maintain his or her objectivity under such circumstances. Granted, some respondents had a vested interest in the issue.
"If you don't want the writers to get handouts from the industry they are reviewing," writes Penney A. of Columbus, Ohio, "then you need to find another way to pay their way. If not, then you will be left with `free' reviews from online people who may really have an agenda to promote their company!"
As a travel writer, Rob R. of California struggles with this question a great deal.
"I certainly make an effort to pay my expenses whenever possible," he writes. "There is simply no way I would be able to do my job without accepting free travel or accommodation from some of the places I am writing about ... The alternative would allow only independently wealthy people ... to become travel writers."
Check out other opinions here, 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.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
Sunday, July 05, 2009
SOUND OFF: A FRENCH COVER-UP
Recently President Nicolas Sarkozy of France told his country's parliament, "The burqa is not welcome on French territory." He referred to that garment, worn by some Muslim women to cover their entire bodies, as "a sign of enslavement and debasement."
According to The Wall Street Journal, some Muslim groups objected, saying that such a stance could be taken as anti-Islamic. Sarkozy replied that he does not view the burqa as a religious symbol.
Was Sarkozy out of line to express his disapproval of a garment whose use is largely limited to female members of a particular religious group? Or was he correct in calling attention to the larger issue he identified?
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 with this question that will appear on the right-hand side of the blog until polling is closed.
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.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
According to The Wall Street Journal, some Muslim groups objected, saying that such a stance could be taken as anti-Islamic. Sarkozy replied that he does not view the burqa as a religious symbol.
Was Sarkozy out of line to express his disapproval of a garment whose use is largely limited to female members of a particular religious group? Or was he correct in calling attention to the larger issue he identified?
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 with this question that will appear on the right-hand side of the blog until polling is closed.
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.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
THE RIGHT THING: SHOULD SHE LET THE CAT OUT OF THE BAG?
A board member at a cat-rescue shelter confided in one of my readers that, during the past six months, six cats had been allowed to starve to death at this "non-kill," not-for-profit shelter.
"The cats wouldn't eat," my reader reports, "and the employees and management made no effort to locate foster homes which might have mitigated the problem. These poor cats, once people's pets, died painful, lonely deaths in their cages, basically not attended to properly, if at all."
My reader, who has volunteered at the shelter for the past year, feels compelled to blow the whistle to her local media about the starved cats who suffered such painful and inexcusable deaths. Her goal, she writes, would be to shed light on how poorly the shelter is run. She fears, however, that such publicity would cause donations to the center to dry up.
She has a bigger worry, though: The shelter's board members have signed a "loyalty oath" promising not to disclose any information about shelter operations to anyone not a member of the board, on penalty of dismissal. If she contacts the media, she fears, it will be clear who told her the facts and her informant will be removed from the board.
This board member, who is facing personal financial troubles, occasionally receives free care for the nearly dozen cats she looks after. Losing her seat on the board, and the free or at-cost medical care from the shelter, would be a hardship.
"Do I just go to the media," my reader asks, "and let the chips fall where they may?"
If her informant is then dismissed from the board, my reader wants to know if she is ethically obliged to assume her vet bills.
"Deep inside I know I am, aren't I?" she asks.
My reader clearly has competing issues here. The biggest question is whether her concern for the shelter cats' well-being should outweigh her concern about her informant's possibly getting in trouble _ and losing medical care for her own cats _ as a consequence of revealing the conditions at the shelter. And, of course, she's worried that speaking up on the cats' behalf might hurt the shelter's donations ... which would be bad for the cats.
If my reader's concerns are justified and her information is correct, both of which seem to be the case, she has an obligation to act. Her informant _ both as a board member and as a personal protector of cats _ the rest of the board and my reader herself, as a shelter volunteer, are united in their desire to help cats. Letting this situation continue would be unjustifiable for all concerned, which is probably why her informant mentioned the matter in the first place.
My reader should confront the board, but not until she has enlisted the assistance of those in the community who would help her to do so. If this means going to the local media with the story, she should not hesitate to share her evidence of wrongdoing.
Her informant may be exposed, but she's already been compromised: As a board member, she should have used her position to call attention to the deplorable conditions. The welfare of the shelter's cats must be a higher priority at this stage.
And my reader has absolutely no obligation to assume her informant's vet bills. Doing the right thing does not imply personal responsibility for anyone who may suffer as a result. If she feels sorry for the cats and wants to help out, she obviously can do so, but it's a matter of choice, not obligation.
Will airing of the shelter's problems hurt donations? Probably, but hopefully the shelter's board, whether the same board or a new one, will make every effort to demonstrate that these problems are in the past. In any event, to allow donors to unknowingly contribute to a poorly run shelter that negligently kills cats would be unconscionable.
Everyone involved with the shelter has a responsibility to hew to the mission of the organization, which is to protect the welfare of the cats under the shelter's care. The right thing for my reader, her informant and the rest of the board to do is to make sure that cats are not starved or mistreated while in their care. Any other political, financial or personal issues must be secondary.
If they cannot do this, then they have no business running an organization of this nature.
c.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
"The cats wouldn't eat," my reader reports, "and the employees and management made no effort to locate foster homes which might have mitigated the problem. These poor cats, once people's pets, died painful, lonely deaths in their cages, basically not attended to properly, if at all."
My reader, who has volunteered at the shelter for the past year, feels compelled to blow the whistle to her local media about the starved cats who suffered such painful and inexcusable deaths. Her goal, she writes, would be to shed light on how poorly the shelter is run. She fears, however, that such publicity would cause donations to the center to dry up.
She has a bigger worry, though: The shelter's board members have signed a "loyalty oath" promising not to disclose any information about shelter operations to anyone not a member of the board, on penalty of dismissal. If she contacts the media, she fears, it will be clear who told her the facts and her informant will be removed from the board.
This board member, who is facing personal financial troubles, occasionally receives free care for the nearly dozen cats she looks after. Losing her seat on the board, and the free or at-cost medical care from the shelter, would be a hardship.
"Do I just go to the media," my reader asks, "and let the chips fall where they may?"
If her informant is then dismissed from the board, my reader wants to know if she is ethically obliged to assume her vet bills.
"Deep inside I know I am, aren't I?" she asks.
My reader clearly has competing issues here. The biggest question is whether her concern for the shelter cats' well-being should outweigh her concern about her informant's possibly getting in trouble _ and losing medical care for her own cats _ as a consequence of revealing the conditions at the shelter. And, of course, she's worried that speaking up on the cats' behalf might hurt the shelter's donations ... which would be bad for the cats.
If my reader's concerns are justified and her information is correct, both of which seem to be the case, she has an obligation to act. Her informant _ both as a board member and as a personal protector of cats _ the rest of the board and my reader herself, as a shelter volunteer, are united in their desire to help cats. Letting this situation continue would be unjustifiable for all concerned, which is probably why her informant mentioned the matter in the first place.
My reader should confront the board, but not until she has enlisted the assistance of those in the community who would help her to do so. If this means going to the local media with the story, she should not hesitate to share her evidence of wrongdoing.
Her informant may be exposed, but she's already been compromised: As a board member, she should have used her position to call attention to the deplorable conditions. The welfare of the shelter's cats must be a higher priority at this stage.
And my reader has absolutely no obligation to assume her informant's vet bills. Doing the right thing does not imply personal responsibility for anyone who may suffer as a result. If she feels sorry for the cats and wants to help out, she obviously can do so, but it's a matter of choice, not obligation.
Will airing of the shelter's problems hurt donations? Probably, but hopefully the shelter's board, whether the same board or a new one, will make every effort to demonstrate that these problems are in the past. In any event, to allow donors to unknowingly contribute to a poorly run shelter that negligently kills cats would be unconscionable.
Everyone involved with the shelter has a responsibility to hew to the mission of the organization, which is to protect the welfare of the cats under the shelter's care. The right thing for my reader, her informant and the rest of the board to do is to make sure that cats are not starved or mistreated while in their care. Any other political, financial or personal issues must be secondary.
If they cannot do this, then they have no business running an organization of this nature.
c.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
Sunday, June 28, 2009
THE RIGHT THING: WHEN THE BOSS ASKS FOR MORE
A reader has a part-time, hourly job with a six-month contract that is due to expire within a month. Her contract calls for her to work 20 hours a week, but from the very start she has been clocking in from 32 hours to 38 hours a week.
Before committing to the job, she had told her boss that she planned to take a vacation _ her honeymoon, in fact _ a few weeks into the job. As the time for her honeymoon drew near, however, her boss asked her to move back the date of her vacation. She agreed, and rescheduled the trip for a few months later.
When the newly appointed time for her honeymoon rolled around, her boss again asked my reader to move it. Again she complied.
"Now," she writes, "I plan to take my honeymoon in four months, about three months after the end date of my current contract."
Even though her contract is soon to expire, however, her boss talks as if she will still be on the job in three months, despite the fact that no new contract has been signed or negotiated.
My reader is starting "to feel taken advantage of," she writes. "I figured that it would be legitimate for me to make vacation and other plans after the end date of the contract, since the company had no legal obligations to me. What sort of ethical obligations do I have to stay here and re-sign the contract and make my plans around this job?
"And what does this sort of behavior say about my boss's ethics?"
To answer the second question first, this boss is apparently someone who asks her employees, even her part-timers, to alter their plans to meet the needs of the company. There's nothing wrong with that. The boss's job is to see that the company's needs are met and if, as in this case, the employee agrees to adjust her plans, it's reasonable for the boss to assume that the adjustments are OK with her.
Nothing that my reader tells me suggests anything unethical about her boss's behavior. She may be demanding, self-interested and lacking in empathy for the personal needs of her employees, but that doesn't make her unethical.
Moving on to the first question, my reader has absolutely no obligation, ethical or otherwise, to continue with the company after her contract is up, let alone to rearrange her life plans accordingly. The whole point of a short-term contract is that neither party is bound beyond the short term.
That she even raises the question suggests that my reader's real problem is that she has trouble saying no to her boss. If it's the boss's job to see to the company's needs, it's the employee's job to see to her own needs.
Particularly in this case, when my reader had told her boss about her honeymoon plans even before signing the initial contract, there is no ethical constraint to prevent her from declining to make adjustments to her plans that go beyond the agreed-upon terms of her contract. When the boss asked if she could reschedule the first time, she should have said no.
Granted, some employees have a hard time viewing their boss's requests as mere requests. The power differential creates an intimidation factor, even if the boss has no intention of coming across that way.
Nonetheless, an employee shouldn't expect his or her boss to be a mind-reader or an advocate for employee rights. A request is a request and, particularly when the parameters of the relationship are laid out contractually, there's nothing wrong with respectfully declining requests that don't fit within an employee's outside plans.
The right thing for my reader to do is to be honest with her boss. She should call her attention to the fact that their contract is about the expire, and that her future employment there is not a given. If, as it seems, her boss still wants her services and if she still wants to work there, they should negotiate a new contract.
At that time she should make clear that she intends to take her twice-readjusted honeymoon as currently scheduled. And when the seemingly inevitable request for a postponement is made, she should respectfully decline to reschedule.
c.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
Before committing to the job, she had told her boss that she planned to take a vacation _ her honeymoon, in fact _ a few weeks into the job. As the time for her honeymoon drew near, however, her boss asked her to move back the date of her vacation. She agreed, and rescheduled the trip for a few months later.
When the newly appointed time for her honeymoon rolled around, her boss again asked my reader to move it. Again she complied.
"Now," she writes, "I plan to take my honeymoon in four months, about three months after the end date of my current contract."
Even though her contract is soon to expire, however, her boss talks as if she will still be on the job in three months, despite the fact that no new contract has been signed or negotiated.
My reader is starting "to feel taken advantage of," she writes. "I figured that it would be legitimate for me to make vacation and other plans after the end date of the contract, since the company had no legal obligations to me. What sort of ethical obligations do I have to stay here and re-sign the contract and make my plans around this job?
"And what does this sort of behavior say about my boss's ethics?"
To answer the second question first, this boss is apparently someone who asks her employees, even her part-timers, to alter their plans to meet the needs of the company. There's nothing wrong with that. The boss's job is to see that the company's needs are met and if, as in this case, the employee agrees to adjust her plans, it's reasonable for the boss to assume that the adjustments are OK with her.
Nothing that my reader tells me suggests anything unethical about her boss's behavior. She may be demanding, self-interested and lacking in empathy for the personal needs of her employees, but that doesn't make her unethical.
Moving on to the first question, my reader has absolutely no obligation, ethical or otherwise, to continue with the company after her contract is up, let alone to rearrange her life plans accordingly. The whole point of a short-term contract is that neither party is bound beyond the short term.
That she even raises the question suggests that my reader's real problem is that she has trouble saying no to her boss. If it's the boss's job to see to the company's needs, it's the employee's job to see to her own needs.
Particularly in this case, when my reader had told her boss about her honeymoon plans even before signing the initial contract, there is no ethical constraint to prevent her from declining to make adjustments to her plans that go beyond the agreed-upon terms of her contract. When the boss asked if she could reschedule the first time, she should have said no.
Granted, some employees have a hard time viewing their boss's requests as mere requests. The power differential creates an intimidation factor, even if the boss has no intention of coming across that way.
Nonetheless, an employee shouldn't expect his or her boss to be a mind-reader or an advocate for employee rights. A request is a request and, particularly when the parameters of the relationship are laid out contractually, there's nothing wrong with respectfully declining requests that don't fit within an employee's outside plans.
The right thing for my reader to do is to be honest with her boss. She should call her attention to the fact that their contract is about the expire, and that her future employment there is not a given. If, as it seems, her boss still wants her services and if she still wants to work there, they should negotiate a new contract.
At that time she should make clear that she intends to take her twice-readjusted honeymoon as currently scheduled. And when the seemingly inevitable request for a postponement is made, she should respectfully decline to reschedule.
c.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
SOUND OFF: DRINK UP ... TO A POINT
In an informal poll on my column's blog, 70 percent of participating readers believed that, when a restaurant offers free refills on drinks, a one-drink-per-person rule is implied, making it wrong to share a drink with someone else and then collect a free refill.
William Jacobson of Cypress, Calif., shares the majority view, which runs counter to the verdict previously expressed in my column.
"When you purchase a free-refills drink," Jacobson writes, "what you actually purchase is a cup and a license (privilege) from the restaurant to fill your cup with their drink. This privilege can be revoked for abuse. Sharing your drink with someone else abuses the common understanding of your agreement, so the restaurant is within its rights to stop you from further refills."
Louise Macaulay of Yorba Linda, Calif., disagrees. She has "never seen a Soda Nazi stationed by the beverage dispenser," she writes, so her guess is that management doesn't have a problem with sharing refills.
"Go ahead and have one free refill," advises Maggie Lawrence of Culpepper, Va. "Just don't be a pig."
Check out other opinions here, 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.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
William Jacobson of Cypress, Calif., shares the majority view, which runs counter to the verdict previously expressed in my column.
"When you purchase a free-refills drink," Jacobson writes, "what you actually purchase is a cup and a license (privilege) from the restaurant to fill your cup with their drink. This privilege can be revoked for abuse. Sharing your drink with someone else abuses the common understanding of your agreement, so the restaurant is within its rights to stop you from further refills."
Louise Macaulay of Yorba Linda, Calif., disagrees. She has "never seen a Soda Nazi stationed by the beverage dispenser," she writes, so her guess is that management doesn't have a problem with sharing refills.
"Go ahead and have one free refill," advises Maggie Lawrence of Culpepper, Va. "Just don't be a pig."
Check out other opinions here, 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.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
Sunday, June 21, 2009
SOUND OFF: CLOSING A CLINIC
After Dr. George Tiller, a Kansas physician who operated an abortion clinic, was murdered by an anti-abortion zealot, his family decided to close the clinic. Some opponents of abortion were bothered by the decision, Stephanie Simon reports in The Wall Street Journal, because they feared that "extremists might conclude that violence gets results where legal protests don't."
What do you think? Does the family have an ethical obligation to find a way to keep the clinic open, to avoid having the murderer get what he wanted? Or is the doctor's family free to act as they see fit, regardless of the circumstances?
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 with this question that will appear on the right-hand side of the blog until polling is closed.
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.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
THE RIGHT THING: DOING GOOD BADLY
When a child is stricken with a disease, it can be harrowing for all concerned. When that disease is rare, one with little ongoing funding for research, it can be even more devastating.
One of the partners in a firm where one of my readers works is facing such circumstances. To counteract the lack of funding, he has established his own foundation to fund research into this disease.
"All very laudable and understandable," my reader writes.
While the partner tries to keep his foundation work separate from his work for the firm, she adds, "there is some inevitable bleed-over, especially since the foundation's staff work in his firm's offices."
Even more bleed-over occurs when the foundation hosts its annual fund-raising dinner to raise money for its research fund. The firm's executives are invited to attend this black-tie event, but the rank-and-file employees are not given the same opportunity.
My reader understands that the partner cannot ethically extend an invitation to the fund-raiser to every employee. Doing so might make some employees feel that they were being coerced to give to this cause, even if they could not afford to do so. They might fear that, if they didn't give, their standing at the firm would be jeopardized.
Nevertheless, she says, by inviting only the executives, the partner breeds resentment among the uninvited, lower-tier employees, who already feel that the firm's management style is very "ivory tower, us-and-them."
"The perceived snub of this annual exclusion is like rubbing salt in a wound for some employees," my reader writes. "There is a great deal of quiet grumbling in the lunch room around the time of the event."
Is the partner handling this in an ethical manner?
There's nothing unethical in raising money to try to find a cure for a rare disease. My reader is right in finding the partner's desire to do so laudable.
The partner is also right in choosing not to put the rank-and-file employees in a position in which they might feel pressured to contribute to his foundation. In such a situation, whether they contributed or whether they didn't, hard feelings wood be inevitable.
By not keeping his foundation work entirely out of his workplace, however, he has created an impression that somehow the non-executive employees are less significant than his executive colleagues. He may intend only to spare the feelings of those who cannot afford his foundation's fund-raiser, but in reality he probably has no idea of who can afford what. In making this decision for them, he's making unfair assumptions about them.
So, if he's wrong to invite them and wrong not to invite them, what's the answer? Obviously he shouldn't put himself into this position in the first place.
In other words, his mistake lies in not keeping his work and his cause separate and clearly defined. If the foundation were a not-for-profit offshoot of the firm, it might be reasonable for its staff to share offices with the firm. If the other executives sat on the board of the foundation, it would make sense for them to get the pricey invites not sent to others at the firm.
Neither is the case, however, so the right thing for the partner to do is to draw a clear line between his work for the firm and his work for the foundation, starting by finding new office space for the foundation. That way, if others at the firm choose to contribute to the foundation or to participate in its annual events _ regardless of their rank in the firm's hierarchy _ they can do so on their own time and without any sense that their professional interests may somehow be involved.
The partner has done nothing wrong, in short, but he's done the right thing in the wrong way. It's time to straighten things out.¶
c.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
One of the partners in a firm where one of my readers works is facing such circumstances. To counteract the lack of funding, he has established his own foundation to fund research into this disease.
"All very laudable and understandable," my reader writes.
While the partner tries to keep his foundation work separate from his work for the firm, she adds, "there is some inevitable bleed-over, especially since the foundation's staff work in his firm's offices."
Even more bleed-over occurs when the foundation hosts its annual fund-raising dinner to raise money for its research fund. The firm's executives are invited to attend this black-tie event, but the rank-and-file employees are not given the same opportunity.
My reader understands that the partner cannot ethically extend an invitation to the fund-raiser to every employee. Doing so might make some employees feel that they were being coerced to give to this cause, even if they could not afford to do so. They might fear that, if they didn't give, their standing at the firm would be jeopardized.
Nevertheless, she says, by inviting only the executives, the partner breeds resentment among the uninvited, lower-tier employees, who already feel that the firm's management style is very "ivory tower, us-and-them."
"The perceived snub of this annual exclusion is like rubbing salt in a wound for some employees," my reader writes. "There is a great deal of quiet grumbling in the lunch room around the time of the event."
Is the partner handling this in an ethical manner?
There's nothing unethical in raising money to try to find a cure for a rare disease. My reader is right in finding the partner's desire to do so laudable.
The partner is also right in choosing not to put the rank-and-file employees in a position in which they might feel pressured to contribute to his foundation. In such a situation, whether they contributed or whether they didn't, hard feelings wood be inevitable.
By not keeping his foundation work entirely out of his workplace, however, he has created an impression that somehow the non-executive employees are less significant than his executive colleagues. He may intend only to spare the feelings of those who cannot afford his foundation's fund-raiser, but in reality he probably has no idea of who can afford what. In making this decision for them, he's making unfair assumptions about them.
So, if he's wrong to invite them and wrong not to invite them, what's the answer? Obviously he shouldn't put himself into this position in the first place.
In other words, his mistake lies in not keeping his work and his cause separate and clearly defined. If the foundation were a not-for-profit offshoot of the firm, it might be reasonable for its staff to share offices with the firm. If the other executives sat on the board of the foundation, it would make sense for them to get the pricey invites not sent to others at the firm.
Neither is the case, however, so the right thing for the partner to do is to draw a clear line between his work for the firm and his work for the foundation, starting by finding new office space for the foundation. That way, if others at the firm choose to contribute to the foundation or to participate in its annual events _ regardless of their rank in the firm's hierarchy _ they can do so on their own time and without any sense that their professional interests may somehow be involved.
The partner has done nothing wrong, in short, but he's done the right thing in the wrong way. It's time to straighten things out.¶
c.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
Monday, June 15, 2009
THE RIGHT THING: THROW THE BOOK AT HER?
Take a quick glance at the Web site of the American Library Association, and you'll get a sense of how very dire the state of funding for public libraries has become. Across the country budget shortfalls are threatening the ability of public libraries to keep their doors open. The overall funding picture is grim.
Yet these shortfalls come at a time when public libraries are experiencing record usage. According to the ALA's 2009 State of America's Libraries Report, nearly 1.4 billion visitors checked out more than 2 billion items in 2008. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has reported a substantial increase in usage in Canada. At a time when economic pressures make buying a book, upgrading a computer or even picking up a daily newspaper a meaningful expenditure, many people are rediscovering the rich resources of their public libraries.
Because of limited funds, however, it falls upon library managers to be more rigorous than ever about how they spend their money. Public libraries are, after all, taxpayer-supported institutions, and there are plenty of people keeping an eye open for any inappropriate use of funds.
A reader in New England has such a concern, even though she herself is a librarian. She's concerned that the longtime director of her city's public library may be using library funds inappropriately.
The director relies on public transportation to get to and from work. When the weather is particularly rough, however, she calls the library's custodian _ who is, of course, a city employee _ and has him drive the library van to pick her up and bring her to work. It's about a 10-mile round trip.
In the past the library trustees have offered to use library trust funds to pay for the director's transportation in inclement weather, but she has declined.
"The city probably doesn't know what the director is doing," my reader writes. "Most of the library staff are aware of this arrangement and disapprove, but feel powerless to do anything."
She wants to know if the director is behaving ethically and, if not, what can be done.
If the director had accepted the trustees' offer to pay for her transportation during inclement weather, there would be no ethical issue here. Taxpayers might groan about footing the bill, but the director would be in the clear as long as the arrangement was out in the open and accounted for.
But by turning down the offer and then making use of a library vehicle, and thereby incurring city expense, she is putting public services to private use without the consent of the library's trustees. And, yes, that's unethical.
The right thing for the director to do would be to inform the trustees that she is finding it difficult to get to work on some bad-weather days, and that she would like to reconsider their offer of a transportation allowance as part of her compensation.
Chances are that they would agree. Perhaps they'd even want to continue the current arrangement, which would make it perfectly acceptable. The key is not how she gets to work, but that any expenditure of public funds be aired and approved in advance.
If nobody on her staff can convince her to do this, or feels comfortable in making the attempt, then my reader _ ideally with a group of fellow employees _ should do the right thing and inform the board of the situation. It is the responsibility of the trustees to make sure that taxpayers' funds are being used appropriately and are being accounted for properly.
And, of course, the library staffers are also taxpayers and shouldn't be afraid to look out for their own interest.
c.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
SOUND OFF: IN A DISASTER THERE ARE MANY NEEDS
In an unscientific poll on my column's blog, 69 percent of the readers who responded said that, if a natural disaster hit their town, they would turn down relief if they were not as hard hit as others in the region. But my readers didn't find a simple answer to the question.
"Of course a person is not entitled to relief from a disaster that spared him/her _ at least not in terms of food, blankets and other physical materials," writes Phil Clutts of Harrisburg, N.C. "However, assuming that person experienced the same dread as everyone else, empathized with his or her fellow citizens' pain and losses, and/or experienced a degree of inconvenience because of closed roads or businesses, say, I wouldn't fault him or her for accepting free tickets to events."
Cynthia Dodd of West Haven, Conn., agrees that "just being in a disaster area is traumatizing." She doesn't believe that "red tape" should be allowed to stop "the non-needy" from getting assistance if they deem it necessary.
"All in the town must experience mental stress as a consequence of the disaster," writes Paul Peacock of New York, "and clearly events to relieve that stress would be welcome."
Check out other opinions here, 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.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
Sunday, June 07, 2009
SOUND OFF: VINO VERITAS?
In his blog, "Dr. Vino," Tyler Colman recently revealed that writers for a well-known wine-industry newsletter, The Wine Advocate, had accepted paid trips to cover the industry. The newsletter's founder, Robert M. Parker Jr., has maintained the importance of paying his own way on such trips, The Wall Street Journal subsequently reported, but one of the writers racked up a $25,000 tab for travel, hotel and meals that was paid by Wine Australia.
Do such payments call into question a reporter's credibility, or do you think that an honest reporter can maintain his or her objectivity under such circumstances? Does it make a difference that Parker previously had stressed the importance of paying his own way to cover the industry?
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 with this question that will appear on the right-hand side of the blog until polling is closed.
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.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
THE RIGHT THING: DRAWING A LINE IN THE WATER
A reader in North Carolina is trying to sort out the difference between "the sensible thing" and "the right thing" after hearing the story of a couple of newlyweds who are friends of his daughter.
One weekend the newlywed wife was alone on the couple's boat, moored at a pier, when she was approached by a much smaller boat with two people aboard. One of them, a woman, asked if she could use the bathroom on the larger boat. The newlywed said that it would be OK.
Once on board, however, the young woman said that she needed her boyfriend to come aboard as well, to bring her some personal necessities.
Again the newlywed wife agreed, and the boyfriend boarded. The newlywed wife felt, however, that the two were spending an inordinate amount of time in the bathroom.
At this point the newlywed husband arrived on the scene, and his wife explained the situation. He decided to investigate, and found that the guests were consuming drugs.
"Get off of my boat," he told them.
The visiting couple got belligerent and a fight ensued. The interlopers finally left, but the newlyweds weren't speaking because the husband was mad at his wife for letting them onto the boat in the first place.
My reader believes, however, that the husband is out of line, since his new wife's "kindly nature (is) part of what made her lovable to him in the first place."
There are two issues here, but only one of them has an ethical component.
Whether or not the newlywed wife should have let the strangers onto the boat isn't an ethical question. Courtesy is a matter of etiquette, and as such can and should be balanced with other considerations such as legal liability and personal safety. How one strikes this balance varies from person to person, and clearly the newlywed husband and wife set the boundaries somewhat differently.
There is no moral imperative here, though, so the question is not whether the husband or the wife has the right answer. His answer is probably more sensible, but that doesn't necessarily make it right.
The other question, the one my reader specifically asked, is whether the husband is justified in being angry at his wife. He would have acted differently than she did, but does that justify his losing his temper with her?
I'm pretty sure that, if I came aboard my boat and found a young couple doing drugs in the bathroom, I'd be angry. Fortunately, I don't own a boat.
My reader has a valid point here, however. While the young husband has every right to be angry, his anger seems misdirected: He should be upset with the couple who took advantage of his wife's hospitality, not at his wife herself. He did the right thing in kicking the drug abusers off his boat, of course, but his anger should have ended there.
Marriage imposes a complex series of ethical obligations, and one of them is that a family's basic policies must be arrived at through discussion, agreement and, when necessary, compromise. Neither party can assume that his or her view automatically prevails unless it's previously been discussed and agreed upon.
I'm guessing that the husband's anger derived in large part from adrenalin left over from the confrontation and from retrospective dismay at the possible harm to which his wife had been exposed. He doesn't want to see her hurt, and feels that she heedlessly put herself in jeopardy.
That's a reasonable point of view, but it's not the only one.
The right thing for him to do is to get past the initial confrontation, calm down and then discuss the matter with his wife. If she agrees that a policy of not allowing any strangers on the boat is a good idea, then that can be their policy. If she feels that hospitality is too important to her to be discarded simply because two individuals took advantage of it, and merely hopes to be more judicious in deciding who is and isn't allowed aboard in the future, that's also a reasonable point of view.
The important thing is that the policy be mutually agreed upon. Until it has been, the husband should try to avoid getting angry at his wife for being the kind of person he fell in love with in the first place.
c.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
One weekend the newlywed wife was alone on the couple's boat, moored at a pier, when she was approached by a much smaller boat with two people aboard. One of them, a woman, asked if she could use the bathroom on the larger boat. The newlywed said that it would be OK.
Once on board, however, the young woman said that she needed her boyfriend to come aboard as well, to bring her some personal necessities.
Again the newlywed wife agreed, and the boyfriend boarded. The newlywed wife felt, however, that the two were spending an inordinate amount of time in the bathroom.
At this point the newlywed husband arrived on the scene, and his wife explained the situation. He decided to investigate, and found that the guests were consuming drugs.
"Get off of my boat," he told them.
The visiting couple got belligerent and a fight ensued. The interlopers finally left, but the newlyweds weren't speaking because the husband was mad at his wife for letting them onto the boat in the first place.
My reader believes, however, that the husband is out of line, since his new wife's "kindly nature (is) part of what made her lovable to him in the first place."
There are two issues here, but only one of them has an ethical component.
Whether or not the newlywed wife should have let the strangers onto the boat isn't an ethical question. Courtesy is a matter of etiquette, and as such can and should be balanced with other considerations such as legal liability and personal safety. How one strikes this balance varies from person to person, and clearly the newlywed husband and wife set the boundaries somewhat differently.
There is no moral imperative here, though, so the question is not whether the husband or the wife has the right answer. His answer is probably more sensible, but that doesn't necessarily make it right.
The other question, the one my reader specifically asked, is whether the husband is justified in being angry at his wife. He would have acted differently than she did, but does that justify his losing his temper with her?
I'm pretty sure that, if I came aboard my boat and found a young couple doing drugs in the bathroom, I'd be angry. Fortunately, I don't own a boat.
My reader has a valid point here, however. While the young husband has every right to be angry, his anger seems misdirected: He should be upset with the couple who took advantage of his wife's hospitality, not at his wife herself. He did the right thing in kicking the drug abusers off his boat, of course, but his anger should have ended there.
Marriage imposes a complex series of ethical obligations, and one of them is that a family's basic policies must be arrived at through discussion, agreement and, when necessary, compromise. Neither party can assume that his or her view automatically prevails unless it's previously been discussed and agreed upon.
I'm guessing that the husband's anger derived in large part from adrenalin left over from the confrontation and from retrospective dismay at the possible harm to which his wife had been exposed. He doesn't want to see her hurt, and feels that she heedlessly put herself in jeopardy.
That's a reasonable point of view, but it's not the only one.
The right thing for him to do is to get past the initial confrontation, calm down and then discuss the matter with his wife. If she agrees that a policy of not allowing any strangers on the boat is a good idea, then that can be their policy. If she feels that hospitality is too important to her to be discarded simply because two individuals took advantage of it, and merely hopes to be more judicious in deciding who is and isn't allowed aboard in the future, that's also a reasonable point of view.
The important thing is that the policy be mutually agreed upon. Until it has been, the husband should try to avoid getting angry at his wife for being the kind of person he fell in love with in the first place.
c.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
Sunday, May 31, 2009
THE RIGHT THING: TYPHOID MARY AT THE RECEPTION DESK
"My company wants to discourage the use of sick days for financial and staffing reasons," a regular reader from Huntington Beach, Calif., writes.
At a time when many companies are exploring all options to trim costs, it's not surprising that some are looking at employee benefits for potential savings. As with many well-intentioned efforts, however, this one may have unintended consequences.
Her company has reduced the number of hours each employee is allotted for sickness each year, she reports. Employees are not permitted to accrue sick time and carry over hours into the following year.
Furthermore, to encourage employees not to use even the sick days they have, the company rewards them with a paid day off for every six months in which they have perfect work attendance.
"So now," my reader writes, "colleagues come in sick and spread their sickness to others."
My reader sees the new sick-day policy as shortsighted, in part because it pits co-workers against one another.
"An individual may well want an extra day off, rather than be home ill, but the rest of us don't deserve to risk exposure and sickness just for that person's pleasure," she writes. "Isn't this company policy unethical?"
It's natural for companies to reward employees for a desired behavior. Some companies have taken to rewarding employees who participate in wellness programs, for example. So offering employees an incentive to maintain perfect work attendance may be well intentioned, if company management sees it as an incentive for workers to take care of themselves better.
Where this policy goes awry, however, is that it also serves as an incentive for workers to retain their eligibility for the extra day by coming in even when sick. Workers who do so expose their co-workers to germs and risk spreading the illness within the company, which is obviously not something that management should want to encourage.
So the policy is flawed. But is it unethical?
It might be, but I believe that it isn't.
The question is one of intention: If management deliberately set out to entice sick workers to come in anyway, it's not only unethical but also counterproductive. An office can be crippled by an epidemic set off by one ailing worker showing up when he or she ought to have stayed home.
I don't believe, however, that this is the intention of the company's incentive program.
The elephant in the room here is that the company likely believes -- and rightly so, to judge by past surveys of my column's readers -- that workers are using sick days for reasons other than sickness. Management isn't trying to get sick people to come into work, but rather trying to get people who aren't sick not to call in sick.
That's a legitimate goal for the company to pursue, and thus the policy is not unethical, whether or not it has unintended consequences.
Part of the ethical responsibility here lies on the employees themselves. They should know that showing up to work while infected with a communicable illness is virtually never appropriate. Many of us are guilty of having done this very thing, of course, without thinking through how our choices might affect our co-workers. We should take time to rethink such behavior.
Nonetheless, if the company's new policy is actually causing employees who should be home sick to show up at the office instead, the company's managers do have an ethical responsibility not to ignore the situation.
The right thing for them to do is to reassess the program to see if this problem exists and, if so, how it can be addressed.
One solution might be to eliminate the six-months reward for individuals and instead reward all employees with an extra day if overall sick days are down at the end of the designated period. A solution that doesn't pit one employee's interests against another's is inherently better than one that does, because a team spirit is by definition better for the company's interests.
It's obviously possible for a program that is entirely ethical and conceived with the best of intentions to actually make things worse. That shouldn't stop companies from looking for solutions to their problems, but they should be prepared to evaluate the results and make the necessary adjustments if things go wrong.
c.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
At a time when many companies are exploring all options to trim costs, it's not surprising that some are looking at employee benefits for potential savings. As with many well-intentioned efforts, however, this one may have unintended consequences.
Her company has reduced the number of hours each employee is allotted for sickness each year, she reports. Employees are not permitted to accrue sick time and carry over hours into the following year.
Furthermore, to encourage employees not to use even the sick days they have, the company rewards them with a paid day off for every six months in which they have perfect work attendance.
"So now," my reader writes, "colleagues come in sick and spread their sickness to others."
My reader sees the new sick-day policy as shortsighted, in part because it pits co-workers against one another.
"An individual may well want an extra day off, rather than be home ill, but the rest of us don't deserve to risk exposure and sickness just for that person's pleasure," she writes. "Isn't this company policy unethical?"
It's natural for companies to reward employees for a desired behavior. Some companies have taken to rewarding employees who participate in wellness programs, for example. So offering employees an incentive to maintain perfect work attendance may be well intentioned, if company management sees it as an incentive for workers to take care of themselves better.
Where this policy goes awry, however, is that it also serves as an incentive for workers to retain their eligibility for the extra day by coming in even when sick. Workers who do so expose their co-workers to germs and risk spreading the illness within the company, which is obviously not something that management should want to encourage.
So the policy is flawed. But is it unethical?
It might be, but I believe that it isn't.
The question is one of intention: If management deliberately set out to entice sick workers to come in anyway, it's not only unethical but also counterproductive. An office can be crippled by an epidemic set off by one ailing worker showing up when he or she ought to have stayed home.
I don't believe, however, that this is the intention of the company's incentive program.
The elephant in the room here is that the company likely believes -- and rightly so, to judge by past surveys of my column's readers -- that workers are using sick days for reasons other than sickness. Management isn't trying to get sick people to come into work, but rather trying to get people who aren't sick not to call in sick.
That's a legitimate goal for the company to pursue, and thus the policy is not unethical, whether or not it has unintended consequences.
Part of the ethical responsibility here lies on the employees themselves. They should know that showing up to work while infected with a communicable illness is virtually never appropriate. Many of us are guilty of having done this very thing, of course, without thinking through how our choices might affect our co-workers. We should take time to rethink such behavior.
Nonetheless, if the company's new policy is actually causing employees who should be home sick to show up at the office instead, the company's managers do have an ethical responsibility not to ignore the situation.
The right thing for them to do is to reassess the program to see if this problem exists and, if so, how it can be addressed.
One solution might be to eliminate the six-months reward for individuals and instead reward all employees with an extra day if overall sick days are down at the end of the designated period. A solution that doesn't pit one employee's interests against another's is inherently better than one that does, because a team spirit is by definition better for the company's interests.
It's obviously possible for a program that is entirely ethical and conceived with the best of intentions to actually make things worse. That shouldn't stop companies from looking for solutions to their problems, but they should be prepared to evaluate the results and make the necessary adjustments if things go wrong.
c.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
SOUND OFF: TARZAN, GUV OF THE JUNGLE?
A federal judge in Chicago has prevented former Gov. Rod Blagojevich of Illinois from traveling to Costa Rica to appear in an NBC reality show called "I'm a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here!" Blagojevich is free on bail, but faces trial on corruption charges.
In an informal poll on my column's blog, 61 percent of the respondents disagreed with the judge, arguing that Blagojevich remains innocent until proven guilty and therefore should be allowed to make money in any legal fashion -- even if my readers don't seem to think much either of Blagojevich or of the show.
Shmuel Ross of Brooklyn, N.Y., finds the job offer fitting: "Given that Blagojevich is an accused criminal whose alleged crimes were committed while in public office," Ross writes, "he's a perfect choice for a network reality-television show."
"I would think that anybody hammered in the press for misdoings he did not commit would either want to keep a low profile until the trial or present facts that would vindicate him," writes Phil Clutts of Harrisburg, N.C.
"I wouldn't have a problem with Blago going to the jungles of Costa Rica if they'd give the show a more accurate name," writes another reader, who prefers to remain anonymous. "I suggest `I Think I'm Important -- Does Anybody Care?"'
Check out other opinions here, 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.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
Sunday, May 24, 2009
SOUND OFF: DRINK AS MUCH AS YOU WANT?
Several weeks ago I wrote about a husband and wife who were eating at a restaurant that offered free refills on drinks. The husband wanted to know if it was OK to buy one drink to share with his wife and then refill it. His wife thought it was fine, but he had his doubts.
My take was that, so long as the company had no policy against it, it was fine for them to share the refillable drink. Readers were split on whether my advice held water.
So now I put the question to each of you: In a restaurant that offers refillable drinks, is it OK to buy one drink, share it with someone and then refill it? Or is a one-refillable-drink-per-one-person rule implied, even if not formally stated?
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 with this question that will appear on the right-hand side of the blog until polling is closed.
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.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
THE RIGHT THING: NOW HEAR THIS ... LIKE IT OR NOT
A reader from Colorado is hearing more than he wants to hear.
He drives a company car, and the vehicle is equipped with a citizens' band radio to allow drivers to communicate with company headquarters and with other drivers. It is supposed to be used strictly for business, and in particular the company has a clear policy prohibiting "cussing" or the telling of any sort of "sexual jokes" over the CB radio.
"But they will not enforce these rules," he writes. "Do I have to continually listen to foul language in my workplace if I find it offensive? Whom do I talk to about this?"
There is a difference between etiquette and ethics, though many situations straddle that boundary. In many contexts this would simply be an issue of etiquette: It's rude for anyone to indulge in obscene language or offensive jokes within the hearing of anyone who might object. If my reader was sitting in a bar and was being subjected to objectionable conversation from the next table, he could rightly condemn the offenders as rude.
In this case, though, there's an added component that makes this an ethical issue, and his fellow drivers' conduct not merely rude but wrong.
A workplace is not a bar, and the public airwaves are not any old workplace. What goes over the radio -- including over CB frequencies -- in the United States is regulated by the Federal Communications Commission, and its provisions about "permissible communications" for CB users clearly prohibit "obscene, profane or indecent words, language or meaning."
By using profanity and telling obscene jokes over their CB radios, my reader's co-workers are not only being rude to him and to who knows how many others within range of their transmissions, but also they are probably in violation of FCC regulations. The penalties for such violations range from cease-and-desist orders to hefty fines or imprisonment. And because they are doing this as representatives of their company, they are exposing the company to potential liability as well, the way a casual obscenity uttered by the singer Bono on live television got NBC in trouble, though nobody suggested that the network had caused his remark or even had known it was coming.
By using the company's own radios to place it in jeopardy, his co-workers are being not only rude but also, yes, unethical.
For that reason, my reader shouldn't have to wait for the FCC to intervene in his situation. Since the company itself is at risk because of this conduct, it should enforce its own policy against such misuse of company-owned CB radios.
The right thing for my reader to do is to tell his supervisor that, while he himself finds such utterances offensive, he is also concerned that they are placing the company in legal jeopardy. If his supervisor is one of the offenders, he should report his concerns to the company's human-resources department.
In either case, he is under no obligation to list the names of those who might be violating company policy. If company bosses want to know, they can tune in like anybody else.
The right thing for the company to do is to address his concerns. It should begin by monitoring the radio frequency on which company dispatches are made. The company should also make it clear to everyone who uses a company CB radio that monitoring is ongoing and that infractions of this company policy will not be tolerated, not only because they could result in hefty government fines but also because they are inappropriate in any workplace and shows a lack of respect for co-workers.
If the company refuses to address the issue, it should be ashamed. Furthermore, in that case my reader and others at the company would be fully within their rights to report the behavior to the FCC.
Whatever happened to the company thereafter would be its own fault for not living up to its own policies.
c.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
He drives a company car, and the vehicle is equipped with a citizens' band radio to allow drivers to communicate with company headquarters and with other drivers. It is supposed to be used strictly for business, and in particular the company has a clear policy prohibiting "cussing" or the telling of any sort of "sexual jokes" over the CB radio.
"But they will not enforce these rules," he writes. "Do I have to continually listen to foul language in my workplace if I find it offensive? Whom do I talk to about this?"
There is a difference between etiquette and ethics, though many situations straddle that boundary. In many contexts this would simply be an issue of etiquette: It's rude for anyone to indulge in obscene language or offensive jokes within the hearing of anyone who might object. If my reader was sitting in a bar and was being subjected to objectionable conversation from the next table, he could rightly condemn the offenders as rude.
In this case, though, there's an added component that makes this an ethical issue, and his fellow drivers' conduct not merely rude but wrong.
A workplace is not a bar, and the public airwaves are not any old workplace. What goes over the radio -- including over CB frequencies -- in the United States is regulated by the Federal Communications Commission, and its provisions about "permissible communications" for CB users clearly prohibit "obscene, profane or indecent words, language or meaning."
By using profanity and telling obscene jokes over their CB radios, my reader's co-workers are not only being rude to him and to who knows how many others within range of their transmissions, but also they are probably in violation of FCC regulations. The penalties for such violations range from cease-and-desist orders to hefty fines or imprisonment. And because they are doing this as representatives of their company, they are exposing the company to potential liability as well, the way a casual obscenity uttered by the singer Bono on live television got NBC in trouble, though nobody suggested that the network had caused his remark or even had known it was coming.
By using the company's own radios to place it in jeopardy, his co-workers are being not only rude but also, yes, unethical.
For that reason, my reader shouldn't have to wait for the FCC to intervene in his situation. Since the company itself is at risk because of this conduct, it should enforce its own policy against such misuse of company-owned CB radios.
The right thing for my reader to do is to tell his supervisor that, while he himself finds such utterances offensive, he is also concerned that they are placing the company in legal jeopardy. If his supervisor is one of the offenders, he should report his concerns to the company's human-resources department.
In either case, he is under no obligation to list the names of those who might be violating company policy. If company bosses want to know, they can tune in like anybody else.
The right thing for the company to do is to address his concerns. It should begin by monitoring the radio frequency on which company dispatches are made. The company should also make it clear to everyone who uses a company CB radio that monitoring is ongoing and that infractions of this company policy will not be tolerated, not only because they could result in hefty government fines but also because they are inappropriate in any workplace and shows a lack of respect for co-workers.
If the company refuses to address the issue, it should be ashamed. Furthermore, in that case my reader and others at the company would be fully within their rights to report the behavior to the FCC.
Whatever happened to the company thereafter would be its own fault for not living up to its own policies.
c.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
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