When a spouse strips the assets

For 20 years, a married couple kept a joint investment account with a well-known brokerage firm. In addition to their investment portfolio, there were liquid funds in a checking account each could use for expenses. They didn't use this checking account as their primary checking account, but each from time to time wrote a check on the investment account for major expenses. 

Earlier this year, however, the wife discovered that her husband had been regularly writing checks made out to "cash" for thousands of dollars. During a 10-year period, her husband wrote checks for more than $350,000 made out to "cash."

The husband admitted that he used a significant portion of the funds to go to strip clubs. "He was pretending to go to work every day, when in fact he was either driving around waiting for the strip clubs to open, or spending the day in the clubs," his now ex-wife writes.

The couple divorced in June. 

You might guess that my reader's question might have to do with the ethics of a husband who spends joint funds on such endeavors. It's not. 

"Did our financial adviser have an ethical obligation to advise me about this activity?" she wants to know. 

The couple only met with their financial adviser -- the broker for their investment account -- once a year. 

Since her discovery, the wife decided to change brokers. When her former broker asked her why, she told him that she felt he should have given her a heads up about all the checks made out to "cash." She says that even a comment from him that they might want to restructure their investments to accommodate their new spending pattern would have sufficed. His response, she writes, was simply to say, "Oh." 

My reader has every right to be furious with her ex-husband for spending their joint account funds on personal expenses about which she apparently had no knowledge. 

But her beef is with her ex-husband, not her ex-broker. Unless he gave them advice that went against their instructions or if he failed to make note that they were living beyond their means when he assisted then in creating a financial plan, it was not his business to keep tabs on what they were using their checking account for. 

The checks her husband wrote were written over a decade. Both of their names were on the account and each had access to the funds. That her husband used the money for a purpose his wife found objectionable is clear, but that's an issue between the two of them. 

It's unfortunate that no red flags arose for my reader during the time her husband was spending their money on his extracurricular activities. But in a relationship presumably built on trust, it's not unusual that she would not have suspected such behavior. 

The right thing is for my reader to cast responsibility for her husband's behavior squarely on his shoulders. 

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics.

Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net. 

(c) 2011 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by Tribune Media Services, Inc.

If the diaper fits, pay for it

A reader just outside of Boston and his wife recently became parents for the first time. To help make sure they remain stocked with goods they need for their new baby, the couple has a standing order for diapers with Amazon.com. They use the site for a number of other purchases, as well. 

Recently, my reader’s wife ordered a new sheet for their baby’s bed and two sippy cups. A few days later they received two boxes, each with a bedsheet and a two-pack of sippy cups in it. 

“Our initial thought was that my wife had probably double-clicked on her order, but in checking we found that it was probably an Amazon error,” my reader writes. Their credit card was only charged once, and the invoice slip in each box carried the exact same order number. Amazon seems to have filled their order twice, but charged them only once. 

My reader tells me that while he was all for keeping both orders, his wife was more concerned with doing what was right. They agreed that it was probably right to let Amazon know about the mistake and ask for the company to send a mailing label so they could return one of the orders. 

His wife agreed, but she was still upset about an earlier flap they had had with their standing diaper order. Amazon had shipped the wrong size diapers and it took several e-mails to get the issue sorted out. When the correct shipment finally arrived the couple sent back the incorrect shipment. A few weeks later they got an e-mail from Amazon claiming it hadn’t received the returned diapers and was therefore going to re-charge their credit card for the amount. 

Before his wife had time to deal with this charge error, the double order mistake occurred.

 Because the prices of the bed sheet and cups and the shipment of wrong-size diapers were about the same, my reader’s wife wants “to call it a wash.” 

“This seems fair enough to me,” my reader writes, “but I’m guessing that it’s not strictly the right thing to do.” 

The impulse to assume all’s even because the value of the wrongly shipped goods and wrongly charged goods are roughly equal makes sense. But strictly speaking, that doesn’t resolve the issue. 

For one, Amazon still wrongly charged the couple and should know about it. What’s more, the couple received goods for which they didn’t pay and they should let Amazon know that. 

Just as it wouldn’t be kosher to not report income on income tax forms because you hadn’t taken an equivalent amount of deductions, it’s not OK to assume that the two wrongs with Amazon equal out. (Granted, Amazon doesn’t have the foreboding power of the IRS.) 

The right thing would be for my reader or his wife to contact Amazon to let it know of the error and to ask the company if they can just keep the wrong shipped goods to make up for the error, if that’s what the couple would like to do. They could also use this opportunity to let Amazon know that if the error isn’t resolved swiftly that they will consider dropping their standing order with the company. (The little publicized toll-free customer service number at Amazon is 800-201-7575.) 

By doing this, the couple not only does what’s right by acknowledging they received goods for which they didn’t pay, they also put Amazon on notice that if the company can’t get the order and charging straight, it will lose a valued customer. 

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today’s Business, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. 

Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net. 

© 2011 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by Tribune Media Services, Inc.

Let the ring shine for you

When England’s Prince William proposed to Kate Middleton, he used the blue sapphire and diamond ring that had belonged to his mother, Princess Diana. The cost of that ring originally ran around 30,000 pounds.

It didn’t take long for those inspired by the ring to put a less-costly knockoff on their or their intended’s finger.

Almost immediately after the engagement was announced, a manufacturer in China began replicating the ring and selling it online for under 20 bucks. Of course, the replica doesn’t contain sapphires or diamonds. And the band on the finer versions of the replica is made of silver-coated copper. But still, for those who loved the design of the ring, it’s relatively cheap to put their fingers on one.

Few soon-to-be engaged couples are likely to find a Kate Middleton knockoff ring to be the jewelry that seals their marriage deal. But many might be inspired by the look of a ring they happen to see and like that is either too costly or not the just-right design.

When a reader and her fiance were shopping for engagement rings at a shopping mall, they found a setting they liked by an artist. It wasn’t, however, exactly what they were looking for. “We wanted a metal at a different price point,” my reader writes, “and we wanted a setting that would accommodate a different shape of stone.”

The couple didn’t know the name of the artist who designed the ring. “It didn’t occur to us at the time to try harder to find who he was” so he could do a custom design. Instead, they used his setting design as an inspiration, then made the changes they wanted and commissioed a local jeweler to make the ring for them.

Later, when she thought more about it, my reader began to feel badly about using the artist’s design as a jumping-off point for her engagement ring and having someone else make it. So she went back to the store in the shopping mall to see if the original setting was still there so she could try to find out who the artist was “to perhaps buy something else from him to make karmic amends.”

Alas, the ring was no longer for sale and neither was anything else from the artist.

“I feel solidly that it was not the ethical thing for us to do,” my reader writes, “and I would not do it again if I had a chance.” She asks: “Is there a point at which using an artist's design as ‘inspiration’ is OK, or is it just stealing?”

My reader is being too hard on herself. Sure, it would have been nice if she had tried to contact the artist whose design she originally liked to see if he might be able to design something inspired by that design but more to her liking.

But unless she and her fiance replicated the design exactly, no harm, no foul. Finding inspiration in a piece of art is far different from commissioning someone to make a cheaper exact knockoff of the original.

The right thing is for my reader and her husband to enjoy their rings and the design they came up with to reflect their new life together. If that shopping mall store ever does get in more jewelry from that original artist, good on them if they choose to buy a little something from him to reward him for inspiring them.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today’s Business, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. 

Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net.

© 2011 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.

When written agreements don’t reflect the truth

About a year ago, a reader from Boston who is a freelance consultant started doing work for a new client. The client sent her a contract, part of which has the consultant agree that the client will be her only client for the duration of the contract. The contract is renewable every three months.

In a face-to-face meeting when they were first talking about doing business together, my reader told her client that she would not be giving up her regular existing clients, but the new client put the exclusivity clause in the contract anyway.

My reader signed the contract even though she knew she already had several other clients for whom she planned to continue doing work.

“They don’t have room to complain because I deliver all of their work on time and they like what I give them,” my reader tells me. “I wasn’t willing to let go of long-term clients whose work is intermittent but regular.”

My reader acknowledges that her workload gets “crazy at times,” but she always gives this contracted client priority. “They ask a lot of me,” she says. “It’s nice getting a regular monthly paycheck, but it’s not enough to warrant dropping my other clients.”

All has been going well between my reader and her client over the past year. No questions have come up about my reader’s other clients.

But now the CEO of her client company wants to connect on LinkedIn, a business-oriented social networking site. Many LinkedIn members list their work experience and current work projects. My reader’s LinkedIn page includes copious details about her extensive body of current work.

In a perfect world, listing professional relationships on a site like LinkedIn could be a boon to someone’s business. Such listings can let the world of prospective clients know how highly your work is in demand.

But my reader now finds herself worried about what her client will learn when she sees her page.

“She’s going to see all of my present clients and work I do, which is a lot!” my reader says.

Still, she says she’s going to accept her client’s request on LinkedIn, but not say anything and just see what happens.

It’s a worry that didn’t need to happen.

My reader did the right thing by telling her client right off the bat that she had existing clients with whom she planned to continue working. But by not requesting that her contract be corrected to reflect this by excising the exclusivity clause, she now finds herself in a predicament. By signing the contract, she agreed to something she knew did not accurately reflect what she planned to do.

Since the contract comes up for renewal every three months, the right thing would be to make sure that the language in it is corrected to reflect her work reality. She’d be wise also to try to rectify this before she agrees to link up with her client on LinkedIn because it would be better for my reader to clear the air before her client discovers that the agreement she thought she had with my reader does not reflect reality. 

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today’s Business, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics.

Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net.

© 2011 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by Tribune Media Services, Inc.

That’s the way the basketball bounces

The girls high school basketball game was turning into a blowout. My reader’s daughter’s team led by more than 30 points.

As the fourth quarter began, the team still had three starters in the game. On the bench, however, were six girls who had yet to hit the court at all. Finally, the coach substituted in five of the players who hadn’t seen court time yet.

Less than 10 seconds later, however, the coach quickly called a time out and put one of the starters back in. “This player was hot,” my reader writes, “and the coaching staff realized that she had a chance to tie or break a school record for three-point baskets.”

The coach wanted to make sure she hit the record. So he instructed the other four girls on the floor — the ones who had just gotten into the game — to get her the ball for a three-point shot.

“It took her four more team possessions to get her record-tying three-point basket,” my reader writes.

“There were kids on the bench who had played minimal minutes all season,” he writes. “Here was a game in which they could have gotten some quality playing time. A few may have even scored their first baskets of the year. Yet this coach found it more important to try to have one player break a record of another kid whose record was a good one against a good quality team.”

My reader’s faith in her daughter’s coach and his values has been challenged. “When did crushing another team become more important than playing your whole team?”

“Maybe a daily reminder of what his job is really supposed to be would be helpful,” my reader writes. He is contemplating getting the coach a plaque that reads, “Men do not embarrass young women.”

My reader wants to know if it is ethical or right as a high school varsity coach to put the needs or wants of one child ahead of her teammates.

Clearly, my reader is upset. But I’m not convinced that the coach can be condemned for wanting to “crush the other team” if he replaced his starters and then took four more team possessions to get the one girl her record-tying basket. If he really had been trying to crush the other team, he likely would have kept all of his starters in for the duration of the game.

That still brings up the question of whether it was right to want to feed the ball to this one girl to give her a shot at the record rather than giving the other girls on the team a chance to get game time and simply have a shot at the basket.

The game was already sewn up and the coach’s decision to give a star player a chance to achieve something extraordinary seems a reasonable decision. Does it send the message that every player should get an equal chance? No. Does it reinforce the importance of teamwork in winning a game? Probably not.

If the coach insisted in every game that this one player be given the ball to shoot, that might cross the line into unfairness and simply be bad coaching. But on this one occasion if the coach decided that the girls might work together to give a teammate the chance to accomplish something truly remarkable, that seems a perfectly ethical choice to make.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today’s Business, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics.

Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net.

© 2011 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.

How sick is the new sick policy?

Most of us have had the odd occasion when we decided to go to work even though we felt slightly under the weather. Perhaps not with a full-blown case of the flu, but a nasty bout of hay fever or a dalliance with stomach upset that might not be enough to keep us from our appointed rounds.

But as irreplaceable as we might view ourselves, is it responsible to go to work when you are sick enough to spread whatever you have to co-workers?

A reader from Huntington Beach, Calif., believes her company may be unintentionally causing employees to come to work when it would be in their own interest and those of their colleagues to stay home and get healthy.

Her company recently changed its sick-leave policy because it wanted, she writes, to discourage the use of sick days for financial and staffing reasons. “They have reallocated the number of hours each employee is allotted for sickness each year and they do not allow accrual of sick hours.”

What’s worse, she argues, is that the company’s management is also incentivizing employees to not use their sick days by rewarding them with a day off for every six months they have perfect attendance. “So now colleagues come in sick and spread their sickness to others,” she writes.

Clearly, she believes this policy is not only shortsighted, but also pits coworkers against each other. “An individual may well want an extra day off rather than be home ill, but the rest of us don't deserve to risk exposure and sickness just for that person's pleasure.”

Is the company wrong to want to encourage its employees to take as few sick days as possible by rewarding them when they don’t?

There may be a variety of reasons why my reader’s company came up with its policy of rewarding employees when they take few sick days. Perhaps management believed that employees were misusing sick days to get time off when they weren’t actually ill. Short of requiring a sick note from a doctor, the company would have to take the employee’s word about their health status. Or perhaps, rather than allowing employees to accrue sick days from one year to the next that they could use for long stretches or be compensated for when they leave the company, it seemed a better idea to reward an extra personal day for every six months of perfect attendance.

If a company enacts a policy because it doesn’t trust its employees when they say they’re sick, then no change in sick-day policy will cure that lack of trust. If it’s a trust issue, a company would be wise to look deeper at the root of the problem.

But even if the company trusts its employees and enacted the new policy out of a desire to be more efficient, it still has the responsibility to make sure that the new setup doesn’t result in the unintended consequence of encouraging an office full of sick co-workers.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with changing a sick- or personal-day policy. But the right thing to do is to make sure that in your effort to make things better, you haven’t unintentionally made things far worse for everyone involved.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today’s Business, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net.

© 2011 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.

Sales that end with an ugh

I’m not what you would call a fashion plate. It’s rare that I’m up with whatever the latest fashion trend happens to be. The first time I heard of Ugg boots was when a writing student of mine wrote a column for a local alternative weekly about how overexposed and ugly the boots are. Uggs were apparently reaching saturation just as they first crossed my awareness.

It was fortunate, though, that I learned of them when I did since it prepared me for an e-mail from A.C., a reader from Ohio. She had bought a pair of Ugg boots for her daughter from a website. The retail price, she reports, would have been $160, but she paid $85,which included shipping.

“The boots came and, unfortunately, they were two sizes too big,” she writes. Since there wasn’t any method to return the boots indicated on the packaging, my reader decided to cut her losses and sell them to a resale store. “If not for the size, we would have been happy to have kept them.”

The store’s buyer paid her $40 for the boots and marked them for resale at $80.

That night on her local news broadcast, my reader saw a clip warning consumers about purchasing counterfeit Ugg boots off of the Internet. She went online to get some tips on how to recognize a knockoff. Since she didn’t have the boots with her, it was difficult for her to remember the fine points of the boots. But she did recall that the box her boots came in did not mirror the description of what a genuine Ugg boots box should look like. “My box’s lid was simply a lid,” she writes, “whereas the genuine Ugg boots box is hinged.”

My reader called the resale store the next day to explain how she had purchased her boots and that she was no longer confident they were genuine. She didn’t explain why she believed this, but she did offer to buy them back so that someone else wouldn’t purchase them believing them to be “the real deal.”

The sales clerk she spoke with assured her that the staff at the resale store is trained to spot fakes, and then thanked my reader for caring.

“She never really gave me a chance to speak about why I thought they might be fakes,” my reader writes. She decided that if they passed the store’s staff trained eyes, then perhaps they were made in the same manufacturing plant as the genuine Uggs.

Still bothered by all of this, my reader returned to the store two days later and found that the boots had already been sold. Now she’s left wondering whether she did the right thing. “Should I have called them back and explained about the difference in the box?”

Once my reader grew concerned that she might have purchased a knockoff pair of boots, she did the right thing by calling the store to let it know of her concern. She’s right that it would be unfortunate if someone bought them thinking they had a genuine pair, but my reader had no obligation beyond telling the store that they might have fake goods on their hands. It might have been good for the clerk she spoke with to have taken her concerns a bit more seriously, but once my reader alerted the store of the possible issue, it was its responsibility to investigate and make sure it wasn’t mislabeling products for sale.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today’s Business,” is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net.

© 2011 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.

Praise the Lord and pass the application

The second short essay question on the admissions application for a master’s degree in education reads: “What do you see in your life that might indicate that you are walking with the Lord?” This is preceded by a question asking you to explain how you came to know Jesus as your savior as well as the scriptural basis for your salvation.

The private college based in the Pacific Northwest makes it clear on its application that it expects its students to adhere to a “lifestyle commitment” which holds, among other things, that “learning and the Christian faith are inseparable.” On the online application, students are asked to check off a box that indicates their agreement to abide by the “lifestyle commitment.”

As applications go, this one is pretty clear in its expectations of applicants.

A reader from Portland, Ore., believes that this college “offers what seems to be the perfect program” for her. She already has a master’s degree in English, but believes that more career opportunities will open up for her if she adds a graduate degree in education. She especially likes this program because it offers a specialty in curriculum design.

The problem is that she finds the religious questions posed on the application “rather intrusive.”

“Even if I were not an atheist,” she writes, “I would feel uncomfortable talking about my relationship with God.” She does write that she would gladly take any religion courses that might be required if she is admitted. What’s more, the program is offered completely online so she won’t have to move or even commute to classes.

There are two other graduate programs in my reader’s area, neither of which requires answers to such questions on the application. But neither is as convenient an option as the school that asks the religious questions.

“Is it unethical to lie on these essays?” she asks. “I certainly know enough about religion to create these responses, but the thought of that much lying is off-putting,” she writes, telling me that she grew up in the South surrounded by Baptists, the religion with which this college is affiliated.

The fact that the thought of “that much lying” is off-putting should give my reader the clue that something is wrong for even contemplating faking a story about her strong relationship with God to get into a convenient master’s program.

Even if there were no other options available in her area, lying on the application in an effort to gain admission would not be justified. Little good comes from any relationship that begins with a lie. A relationship to a graduate school is no exception.

If she’s honest on the application about her atheism, it’s very likely she will not be admitted. But such knowledge still doesn’t justify lying.

The right thing is for my reader to find a graduate program that matches her needs whose culture does not prohibit her from telling the truth about herself. She should not lie about her beliefs to get into a program that’s more convenient for her.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today’s Business, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics.

Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net.

© 2011 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.

The great toy train robbery conundrum

When my now-12-year-old grandson, Evan, was a toddler until he was 6 or 7, he was heavily into wooden Thomas the Tank Engine trains. He knew the names of all of the trains — and it seemed as if there were an endless number of them — and he knew which ones he wanted to add to his collection next.

Evan would save up his money and, when he had enough, he would buy another train. For years he was focused on these trains and rarely was distracted by other toys he wanted to buy for himself. He was also riveted to a series of videos we kept on store for him called “I Love Toy Trains.” His family once took a trip to Steamtown, a National Historic site in Scranton, Pa., that featured real steam engines and train cars on its grounds and a museum chock full of everything you could imagine dealing with trains.

Trains, it seemed were his passion.

Evan’s devotion to trains at that age was not unique. An e-mail from a reader near Boston reminded me of Evan’s once consuming devotion.

“We already own a ton of trains,” my reader wrote. “Mostly through Craigslist, we have scored unbelievable trains.” When last Christmas rolled around, she did not want to buy her son any more trains. He had enough, she figured.

But she broke down and went to Toys R Us with a 20 percent-off coupon she had received in the mail with the intention of buying him the GeoTrax Christmas Deluxe Edition that retailed for $129. It was on sale for $99. With the coupon, it would run her $80. “OK,” she figured, “that’s not too bad. I’ll do that for him.”

She brought her one huge item up to the register where the cashier scanned it, took her coupon, and asked for $21.94. “I just swiped my card, took the box, and walked out of there.” The cashier was talking to a co-worker “and not paying attention either,” my reader writes.

She put the package in her car and settled into the front seat. It was only then that she read the receipt: “Ken & Barbie Accessories” that scanned for $19.99.

“I realized it was totally not my error,” she wrote. “It was theirs, but I don’t quite know what I was supposed to do.”

Even though it was the store’s mistake, the right thing to do would have been to point out the error to the store. Clearly, it’s the store’s error, but my reader knows that — rather than having been some extra-special Christmas-time discount — the price she paid was for a less expensive item. Just as if she had been handed back too much change from a cash purchase, the right thing is to set matters right. It presented little hardship to do so, particularly since she was still sitting in the store’s parking lot.

Given that the store made the error in coding the prices for its products, it’s unlikely that my reader was the first person to be charged $19.99 for a $99 item. The store management would have been wise to recognize this, acknowledge its error and offer to honor the price that was erroneously charged. After all, she’d be pointing out an error that would save the store bundles on any further errant ring-ups. It’s rarely a bad idea to reward customers for their honesty — particularly when it’s your mistake.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today’s Business, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics.

Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net.

© 2011 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.

"Ordinary Ethics" on "All Sides with Ann Fisher" WOSU

 

"All Sides with Ann Fisher" discussing Joshua Edwards, the naked man who begged for shelter and froze to death in Columbus last week. Joe Blundo's column give background on the story. Joe appears on the show. I join the discussion around minute 14.

The good buy earrings

Twenty years ago, a reader from Charleston, S.C., bought a pair of diamond earrings. For years, she enjoyed wearing them. But earlier this year, she lost one of the diamond earrings.

My reader might not be able to recover the sentimental value of the earring, but fortunately for her, she’s been able to recover its cost. “We’d had the earrings insured for more than 20 years,” she writes.

Her insurance company offered her a cash settlement of $5,000 for the lost earring, which was the amount for which it had been insured.

My reader had gone to a jewelry store to have a jeweler examine the remaining earring and was told that the lost earring could indeed be replaced for $5,000. That would give her an earring that would match the size, clarity, and setting of the earring that remained from the pair.

After receiving the insurance check for $5,000, my reader visited two other jewelry stores to see about trading in the remaining earring to upgrade her pair, or to replace the lost earring. A jeweler at one of the stores told her that he could replace the lost earring for one that matched the remaining one for $2,400, far below the price the earlier jeweler had cited — and far less than the amount the insurance company had given her for her loss.

“Should I repay the insurance company the $2,600 difference?” she asks.

If my reader is seeking legal advice, she’s come to the wrong place. I’m not a lawyer, nor am I a specialist in insurance matters. And I’m even less of an expert on diamond jewelry.

But what my reader seems to be asking is a question that falls squarely in the ethics arena, which is my turf. She believes that there might be something wrong with choosing to buy the replacement earring from the less-expensive source rather than go with the $5,000 priced replacement, unless she makes up the difference to her insurer.

If the policy was indeed a cash settlement that didn’t require replacement, my reader has absolutely no obligation to replace the earring at all, let alone return any cash if she can find a cheaper substitute. She could decide to spend the $5,000 on something else, or to bank the money if she doesn’t want a replacement. She’d only be obligated to pay it back if she happens to find the lost insured earring.

Even if she finds the lost earring, paying back such funds is not always as simple as it might seem. Another one of my readers reports that he has been trying without success for almost 40 years to repay his insurance company what they paid him for his wife’s diamond engagement ring after it showed up a couple of years after he reported it lost.

The right thing for my reader to do is to base her decision on whether she wants to buy a replacement earring. If she does, she is free to spend as much or as little of the insurance settlement as she deems necessary . . . and she can do so with a clear conscience.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today’s Business,” is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics.

Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net.

© 2011 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.

Does a comeback kid owe those he harmed along the way?

Most everyone loves a comeback story. That’s borne out by Ted Williams, the homeless man in Columbus, Ohio, who quickly gained attention after a video of him by The Columbus Dispatch’s Doral Chenoweth went viral earlier this month.

In his younger days, Williams, now 53, had been a radio announcer. You only need to listen to a few seconds of Chenoweth’s interview with him to get an earful of his powerful voice. Williams had ended up homeless after run-ins with alcohol, drugs and the law.

But now, he and his cardboard sign declared in the video, he was clean and trying to rebuild his life.

People took notice of Chenoweth’s video that was posted on YouTube. Within days, it received millions of hits. (The original posting has since been pulled from YouTube since it is copyrighted by the Dispatch, on whose site it can still be seen.)

Rapidly, offers began to pour in for Williams — radio interviews, a voiceover offer from the Cleveland Cavaliers, an advertisement for Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, appearances on the network morning talk shows, a feeler from Oprah about doing something on her new cable network, and more. A tearful on-air reunion was staged in New York City between Williams and his estranged 90-year-old mother.

But with the upside of the attention came more details about Williams’ arrest record for theft and forgery — crimes, he told interviewers, he had committed to support his drug habit. He served some jail time for his transgressions.

Regardless of the background, the Cavaliers and others stood by their offers and most commenters on various news websites genuinely wanted to see Williams turn his life around. It’d be good to believe he’s on the path to doing so.

As he sorts through the offers and begins his new life, a question raised by some observers is why this fellow deserves a second chance when there are other out-of-work voiceover professionals who managed to steer clear of drugs and crime. It’s a good question, but such concerns don’t negate the fact that Williams has every right to try to improve his life and that people who want to have every right to help him do so.

While the jail sentences he served may represent a debt paid for some crimes he committed, a question looms, however, of whether Williams has an obligation to repay the people from whom he stole over the years. He may not have a legal obligation to do so and he might not be able to recall everyone he stole from nor how much over the years. But now that he finds himself in a position where his opportunities for income might be steady, is he ethically obligated to set right his past actions?

If he truly wants to start clean and establish that he is a new man trying to set things right, I believe he has such an obligation.

Once the hubbub dies down and he’s able to get established in a home and on a job, the right thing for Williams to do is to try to figure out all of the people over the years from whom he has stolen and then reach out to them to offer a plan for restitution.

Most everyone loves a comeback story. When that person’s comeback involves helping those he harmed along the way to be made whole as well, it’s a story we can love even more.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today’s Business, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics.

Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net.

© 2011 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.

Appreciating teachers in an era of shrinking resources

A public school teacher from Ohio writes that every fall, a local office-supply superstore has a teacher appreciation day. Teachers are given free supplies, discounts on certain items and the opportunity to purchase more items at a sale price than the general public can. Teachers also can get a reward card that earns cash back or free copying services for purchases they make in the store.

My reader recognizes that the office-supply store has made a business decision to use these appreciation days as a way to get more teachers into its stores. “Because of budget cuts in districts throughout Ohio,” he writes, “teachers are spending even more of their money to buy things they feel they need in their classrooms. From the teacher’s perspective, it’s a win-win situation.”

My reader assumes that the store is hoping that by attracting more teachers to shop there that that will in turn translate into more of their students shopping at the store, as well.

Granted, teachers may become more familiar with the items stocked by the store because they shop there, but my reader wonders if it is unethical for teachers to recommend to students and parents that they buy their school supplies at the store. “What about the teacher who buys school supplies in quantity from the store at a discount and then resells them to students at a higher price?”

There’s no question that budgets for most public schools around the country are being squeezed. (In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that I serve as the chair of the board of trustees for a public charter school outside of Boston.) Many teachers dip into their own pocketbooks to pay for supplies and items that were once routinely supplied by the school system. Parents too are often expected to pony up cash for participation in educational endeavors that once were better funded.

If a teacher recommends a particular store to parents for their children where they can purchase supplies, such an action doesn’t seem to cross ethical lines as long as the teacher is not receiving any payment or reward for doing so.

But if the teacher is making a profit by buying goods cheaply and then selling them at a higher price to his students, that seems to cross a line. The discount given to the teacher is presumably for him to be able to afford to buy the items he needs to use in the classroom, not to make a profit from students. If he wanted to sell the items to the students for whatever it cost him to buy them, as long as that doesn’t violate any agreement with the office-supply store, that seems fair game.

Some teachers are finding that websites like donorschoose.org that allow them to list the supplies they need for a given project so anyone can decide to donate are a good outlet for finding ways to fund projects that otherwise might go unfunded. (Readers of the book Waiting for Superman, which relates to the recent documentary on public education, will find that they receive a $15 coupon in the book which they can use to donate to any project listed on donorschoose.org.)

The right thing is for teachers, parents and administrators to be creative in how they approach teaching in an environment of shrinking budgets. But no teacher worth his salt would ever see such opportunities as a way to turn a profit on his students.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today’s Business, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics.

Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net.

© 2011 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.

Use me, but don't steal me

A regular reader of my column from New York believes he has me all figured out when it comes to the ethics of selling used records or CDs. It’s clear from how he opened his e-mail to me that he’s read my previous columns about making or downloading unauthorized copies of music or movies.

“You’ve made your stance clear,” he writes. “Your position (with which, incidentally, I agree) is that this is nothing more or less than theft of intellectual property of the artists, producers and distributors of these works. If you want the music, you should pay for the privilege...and pay the rightful owners.”

But my reader wants to know how my clear stance squares with the sale of used records, CDs and DVDs.

If you buy used CDs or DVDs at a garage sale, over the Internet or at a used-book store, he writes, you’re getting the same music or movie, but not a penny goes to the owner of the intellectual property, only to the owner of the physical recording.

“Assuming the original owner bought the recording legally, is this OK?” he asks. “What if it has changed hands several times?” Is it OK only if the recording is no longer in print and thus not acquirable from the original distributor — or is that simply a rationalization? It’s not OK to steal a 1952 Cadillac, for example, simply because they don’t make them anymore.”

He wants to know if it’s OK to buy a used CD or DVD that is still available new if you’re buying it specifically to save money, “that is, getting it cheaper in large part because the seller doesn’t have to pay the royalties that the original record store did?”

“As I write this,” he observes, “it seems as if your position clearly would be that buying used records does not pass ethical muster...but can you really believe that everyone who ever bought a used record or DVD — or, heck, a used book — is guilty of unethical behavior?”

While I appreciate my longtime reader’s loyalty, his assumption is wrong. There is nothing ethically wrong with a rightful owner of a CD or DVD that was purchased legally selling that copy to someone else for whatever price he paid. While it may frustrate me a bit to see used copies of my books for sale in bookstores and online knowing that I will not see a penny from the subsequent sales of the books I write to make a living, the person who purchased the book originally is free to sell his copy once he is finished with it.

Selling a used copy is a far different situation than making an unauthorized copy where the creator and copyright owner is never paid for the work copied.

My reader’s parallel example of the 1952 Cadillac doesn’t hold up. Selling a used copy of a CD, DVD, or book would be more akin to selling a used 1952 Cadillac rather than stealing one. The transfer of legal ownership of used cars happens all the time. So too should used CDs, DVDs, and books be able to change hands whenever the rightful owner decides it’s time to part with the goods.

The right thing is to pay for that which you want to own and then decide what you want to do with it after you own it.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today’s Business, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics.

Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net.

© 2010 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.

Money for nothing

A couple of months ago, the Bureau of Broadcast Measurement (BBM) called J.P., a reader from London, Ontario, and asked if he would participate in a survey that involved completing a radio listening diary for a week. The BBM is an audience measurement company for Canadian radio and television broadcasters. (It's comparable to Nielsen Media Research or Arbitron in the United States.)

J.P. reports that he "willingly complied" with the request, believing that "my input might have some, however minor, influence on what was broadcast." To encourage J.P.'s cooperation, BBM included a toonie (a $2 coin) with the survey.

J.P. dutifully filled out the survey and sent it back to BBM. He would have completed and returned it regardless of whether any money had been included in his survey package. After all, he had agreed over the phone to participate.

In mid-December, J.P. received another package from BBM, this one unsolicited. He hadn't been called ahead this time to assess his willingness to receive the package that contained a 70-page consumer product survey. But accompanying the new lengthier survey was a crisp $5 bill.

"I have no intention of completing this survey," writes J.P.

His first inclination was to place the unanswered survey and the $5 bill in the postage-paid envelope and send it back to BBM. But, he observes, that this might cost BBM more in postage than the $5 they sent him. He wonders if he should just pocket the $5 and drop the survey in the recycling bin. A third option J.P. doesn't raise, of course, is to put the $5 bill in the postage-paid envelope and just return it to BBM.

J.P. is wrestling with what the right response should be.

"No one called to ask my permission," he writes. "Am I under any obligation to respond in any way?"

In the past, I've written about not-for-profit businesses that send potential donors personalized mailing address labels as an inducement to contribute to some cause. More than a few readers wonder if it's ethical to use such labels if you don't donate to the cause. My take has always been that it's perfectly fine to do so since you didn't request the labels and were offered them as a gift just to consider giving.

When cash is involved, it might somehow feel different to a reader. But if, as J.P. reported, the $5 was given to encourage him to fill out the survey and not as an agreed-upon payment for doing so, he has no ethical obligation to return it. Presumably, his lack of responsiveness will signal the end of BBM's efforts to entice him to fill out future surveys by using such nominal cash incentives.

Once J.P. decides for certain that he has no intention of filling out the survey, the right thing is for him to do as he pleases with the $5 bill. It was meant to entice him, not to obligate him to fill out an unsolicited survey. He's under no obligation to do anything but consider the request, which he appears to have done.

Given that it's the holiday season, J.P. may decide to donate his newfound $5 riches to a worthy charity. But that, too, is his decision to make.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics.

Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net.

c) 2010 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by Tribune Media Services, Inc.

My subway stop

Last week, I had to leave work early.

Since it was late afternoon, the subway car was filled with students who had just gotten out of school. Shortly before we arrived at my stop, I heard a commotion breaking out on the other end of the car. One of the adult passengers standing near me kept repeating, “Go to the other end of the car and pull the alarm.” I hadn’t a clue what he was talking about.

Still, I started walking toward the other end of the car — nearer to where the commotion seemed to originate. It was then I saw a teenage girl pummeling a smaller teenage boy who was sitting in one of the passenger seats. As she was finishing, a teenage boy took his turn pummeling the seated victim. Other kids were hovering around as were adults who had done nothing to try to break up the beating.

A momentary panic hit me. I’m not a small guy, but with graying beard, book in hand, backpack on my shoulder, and glasses perched on my forehead, I’m hardly menacing. Do I step in and risk a gang of teenagers descending on me? Do I walk to the other end of the car and “pull the alarm,” now that that fellow’s instructions had become clear? Or do I do as everyone else seems to have done and mind my own business?

I regularly dole out advice to readers who find themselves in such situations, but what’s the right thing for me to do here?

I would never advise readers to put themselves in harm’s way in such a situation. Jumping in and starting to wrestle with the kids who are pummeling the seated teenager seems fraught with peril. But standing by while this kid is getting hurt just isn’t right.

Half expecting — or at least hoping — that other adults will help out if I insinuate myself into the situation, I continue walking toward the entangled teenagers and shout, “Cut it out!”

Remarkably, the pummelers retreat. The victim gets up and moves to the other side of the train as quickly as he can. He’s pulled his hood up over his head and is slumping against the door, but he appears to be a safe distance from his attackers.

When the doors open to my stop, he also gets off the car. I walk him up the stairs to the station attendant, tell her that the kids who accosted him are on the last car of the train, and I sit with him. It’s only then that I notice that his nose his bleeding and a black eye is beginning to welt up. The attendant radios for medical help and also says she will call ahead to alert authorities that the accosters are still on the train — along with witnesses to the incident.

The victim’s cousin gets off the next train and comes to sit with him. I give the station attendant my card and tell her to call if they need to know what I saw.

I don’t know what caused the fight. I don’t know who the others involved were. But I do know that in such situations the right thing to do is something, anything . . . even if it’s something as simple as yelling out, “Stop it! Stop it now!”

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today’s Business, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics.

Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net.

© 2010 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.

I am not a clinical psychologist

I am not a clinical psychologist.

My opening declaration might seem a bit of non sequitur for those readers who never entertained the notion that I might be a clinical psychologist. But there’s a reason for my opening salvo.

Last week, I appeared on a local morning news program to discuss a piece I had contributed to an article in Whole Living magazine on the ethics of forgiveness. I’ve appeared on the news show before and, as has been the case previously, the producers and hosts were very well prepared, asked terrific questions and treated me graciously throughout my visit. The television segment aired live, but I knew I would be able to see it later on the show’s website.

I left the television studio to retrieve my car from its lot. As I was preparing to start the car, my cell phone rang. It was my wife.

“The segment went great,” she said, commenting upon how easily the host engaged me in conversation on the topic. She paused. “But they misidentified you.” I had thought that maybe the station had misspelled my name or the name of the college where I teach. “No,” she said. “They identified you as a ‘clinical psychologist.’”

Uh-oh. Like I wrote at the top, I’m not a clinical psychologist.

But the honest mistake (another contributor to the Whole Living article is indeed a clinical psychologist) led me to the question: How much of an obligation do I have to set people straight when I’m identified as something I’m not?

On a smaller scale, such misidentifications have happened before. Students or others who e-mail me for the first time occasionally address me as “Dr. Seglin,” assuming that because I’m a college professor, I have a doctorate. I don’t, so I try to correct them at the end of my e-mail response without making them feel foolish for making such an assumption.

But the clinical psychologist label was broadcast on television, so I had no idea how many people saw the label or how to reach all of them. Nowhere on the station’s online description to the clip was the reference made and the anchor who interviewed me identified me correctly throughout our discussion.

I also recalled the episode of the BBC comedy “As Time Goes By” when the Judi Dench character introduces her boyfriend as a psychiatrist (which he wasn’t) in an effort to change topics with her deceased husband’s sister. When the sister-in-law’s husband seeks out the non-psychiatrist’s services, he responds, “I am not a psychiatrist.” The fake patient believes this is a therapeutic tool to entice him to figure out his own problems and no matter the protests continues to believe the non-psychiatrist is in fact a psychiatrist.

When I write, “I am not a clinical psychologist,” I mean it. I’m not.

The right thing for me to do is to make this point clear to viewers of the clip. So when I posted it on my column’s blog, I introduced it by pointing out the error. When I sent it to my college’s public affairs office, I did the same. When friends, students or colleagues view the segment and tell me they didn’t know I was a clinical psychologist, I assure them I am not.

When we receive credit for degrees we haven’t earned, even if it’s in passing, the right thing is to correct the mistake. It’s not only the right thing to do, but also prevents such errors from taking on a life of their own.

As someone who is married to a therapist and sees the kind of hard work she does every day, I can assure you I am not a clinical psychologist.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today’s Business, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics.

Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net.


© 2010 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.

Every choice you make defines you

The choices we make define us. Ideally, we're proud of these choices, recognizing that when faced with a challenging situation, we opted to do what we knew was right regardless of any fears about possible consequences.

But often, we find ourselves making choices that in retrospect we knew were wrong at the time. The effect of such decisions can linger long past the event. These choices define us, too.

Many years ago, when a reader from Wisconsin was the director of a not-for-profit organization, he found himself facing such a choice. His not-for-profit generated money by reselling used goods that were donated to his organization's resale store. My reader managed 50 employees and reported to a board of trustees consisting of a dozen people.

My reader recalls that the president of the board was "mean-spirited behind closed doors." Both the president and his girlfriend liked to be "stroked and flattered" and exhibited signs of "self-importance."

One day when the president and his girlfriend were visiting one of the not-for-profit's workshops, she noticed that her former brother-in-law was working there.

"She immediately grew hostile," my reader writes, "and told her boyfriend, the president, that she wanted him fired."

Several minutes later, the president told my reader that he had to fire the former brother-in-law. "There was no cause other than his girlfriend was demanding it. He told me I had to get rid of him by the end of the day."

If he didn't appease his boss, my reader was convinced he would become the target of the girlfriend's wrath. Fearing retaliation, my reader gave in and fired the former brother-in-law at the end of the day.

"I still carry the shame and self-disappointment that I allowed myself to be 'bullied' into doing this," my reader writes.

My reader knows he could have stood up to his boss and refused to fire the former brother-in-law. He feared, however, that the consequences of not doing so might have been worse for him. Even if he stood his ground, the president might still have had the brother-in-law fired by someone else. He could have stood up to his boss only to find both the former brother-in-law's and his own job in peril.

Years later, however, he finds himself haunted by his decision. He had a chance to choose what he believed was right, but when push came to shove, he caved and accommodated a boss he knew to be vindictive.

Granted, in an environment where jobs are scarce, the courage to stand up for an injustice brought to bear on someone else grows incredibly difficult when your own job may be on the line. We'd all like to think we'd have the conviction to do what we have no doubt to be right when faced with such a choice.

That one choice made years ago, in part, defines who my reader is today. "On that day, I lacked the courage to do the right thing," my reader writes. But the lingering effects of that one choice have bolstered his courage to choose to do the right thing even when he knows there might be risks. That one choice may partly define him, but it doesn't limit him from being able to recognize that he never wants to allow himself to be bullied into again making a choice he doesn't believe is the right thing to do.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics.

Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net.

(c) 2010 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by Tribune Media Services, Inc.