The return of the power saw

I don't own a lot of power tools. On the odd occasion that I really need a power tool for a project, I tend to borrow it from my son-in-law, preferably with him in tow to operate the power tool.

But the occasion arose this summer where I needed to cut up large planks of wood from an old deck we were dismantling so we could re-purpose some of that wood. It would have taken far longer to saw the wood with a hand saw than it did to dismantle the entire deck. My son-in-law and his tools were not handy, so I decided to purchase a circular saw from the hardware store to do the job.

Once figuring out how to attach the blade to the saw for the first time (thank you, help boards on the Internet), the job went pretty easily. I sawed through large planks in seconds and created neat piles of short lengths of 2 inches-by-6 inches. All went well until I got to the last plank.

When I went to cut the last plank, the motor made an odd sound and the saw stopped working. I'd been using the power saw for less than an hour, but I let it sit idle for an hour or so in case I had somehow overtaxed the motor. But when I went to use the saw again, it still didn't work.

Since it was still early evening, I decided to return to the hardware store.

I told the clerk why I had purchased the saw, what had happened, and how the saw had stopped working. He asked if I still needed a saw to get the job done. If I did, he said, he'd be glad to exchange it for a new one. If not, he told me I could return the saw for a refund.

I told him that the job was practically done and that I could use a hand saw on the final board.

No problem, he told me. He took the saw back and refunded the purchase price.

A neighbor who had been checking up on my work throughout the day noticed that I was hand sawing the last plank and pointed out that essentially I had purchased the circular saw in the morning, used it for a job, and then returned it after I was almost done.

"Was that ethical?" he asked. His point was that I had used a piece of equipment without having to pay for it.

I had a choice. I could have done precisely what my neighbor suggested I did -- just go back to the hardware store and return the circular saw without explanation. I could have done this regardless of whether the saw had stopped working. But I tried to do what I thought was the right thing by explaining to the clerk exactly how much I had used the saw, as well as how I no longer needed it for the job.

Perhaps I was a bit more forthcoming than I needed to be with the clerk, but it seemed the right thing to do. What would you have done? 

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 a lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. 

Follow him on Twitter: @jseglin 

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

(c) 2013 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNECONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Must I take this job offer if a better one comes along?

Job hunting can be brutal for anyone. For recent college graduates facing a mountain of debt from student loans, it can seem even more overwhelming.

Granted, having an undergraduate or graduate degree can give someone an edge in landing a good position, but the often overwhelming debt that can go along with that earned degree can be daunting.

Recently graduated students are eager to have as many employment options as possible. Who wants to shut the door on an OK job if the job of your dreams might not be quickly forthcoming?

I wasn't surprised when I received a note from a recent graduate, asking: "Is it ethical to accept a job today with the possibility that I might renege at some later date?"

He wanted to know what happens if after agreeing to a job offer, a better one comes up. "Assuming I haven't started the first job, is it unethical to renege on this acceptance?"

The student wrestling with the question seems to believe that while the security of having a job offer in the back pocket while you continue to search seems comforting, there's something unethical about it, especially if he continues to job hunt after he's accepted that initial offer.

In an ideal world, I suppose, each of us would find one job we love and an employer who loves us and remained gainfully and fulfillingly employed for the rest of our careers. No one would ever have to worry about where the next job or stellar employee came from. That world doesn't exist for employee or employer.

Accepting a job implies a commitment to taking that job and doing your utmost to do good work for your new employer. It also implies that an employer will honor its commitment to providing the job promised when you interviewed. More often than not these days, these too can be ideal rather than real situations.

Just as things might change with an employer that make a job quite a bit different than what was promised, an employee's situation might change.

If a better offer comes along before the initial job offered commences is it wrong to take the better job? I don't believe so.

The right thing is to be forthcoming with the initial prospective employer as soon as possible and to let it know you've decided to accept an offer elsewhere. If possible, it's far better to do this before you start the job for a number of reasons. For one, the employer has not committed time and resources to training you for the new job. Plus, on a practical personal level, jumping from job to job after very short tenures can raise concerns among future prospective employers.

Honoring commitments is important. But just as few employers are likely to guarantee a job for life to an employee, an employee shouldn't be expected not to accept the offer that is in his best long-term interests. As long as he doesn't lie to a prospective employer and works to act as swiftly as possible in notifying the employer if he decides not to take a job offer, then he is on solid ground in doing what's right. 

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 a lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. 

Follow him on Twitter: @jseglin 

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

(c) 2013 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNECONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Disclosing one another's email addresses

A psychotherapist reached out to ask me if she thought a lawyer acquaintance had acted inappropriately. The psychotherapist regularly serves as a supervisor to visits that noncustodial parents have with their children. As a condition of the visit, a third party in addition to the noncustodial parent and child must be present to ensure the safety of the child. Because these visitations are often court ordered, the noncustodial parent's lawyer will often contact the psychotherapist to help set up the initial visits.

After one such meeting with the parent and child, the psychotherapist emailed the lawyer to report that one visit had occurred and to fill him in on the status of future visits. While the psychotherapist and lawyer had established a policy of keeping one another updated via email, the psychotherapist had a policy of not emailing her clients, but instead speaking with them by phone to set up appointments.

She was taken aback when the lawyer responded to her email by copying the noncustodial parent to suggest that they follow up with one another about future visits via email.

The psychotherapist wants to know if the lawyer crossed a line by copying the noncustodial parent, disclosing her email address and suggesting he email her.

I believe he did.

Where the lawyer went wrong was in not consulting the psychotherapist first to tell her that he planned to copy the client on his email to her and suggest the email contact.

Such gaffes occur regularly in other situations. When, for example, a friend decides that you might be able to help someone he knows with something and wants to introduce the two of you, he might send an email to each of you simultaneously rather than emailing you first to ask if you are OK with him doing this.

The right thing in such circumstances is to ask the recipients first before sharing their email addresses with others. Many people will agree to help via email, but it should be up to them before they are put on the spot.

Granted, many of our email addresses are widely available to anyone who wants to find them. But it should have been up to the psychotherapist how private she wanted her email to be and how she preferred to have contact with her clients.

The same is true for the rest of us.

We should be the ones to decide when and with whom to share email addresses or other contact information. Our professional acquaintances and friends should understand that just because they can share a colleague's or friend's contact information with anyone they want doesn't mean they should without clearing it with the colleague or friend first.

The psychotherapist says that what's done is done. Now that her client has her email address, she'll simply request that he continue contacting her by phone. But she plans to let the lawyer know that she'd prefer in the future that he not share her email address with existing clients without consulting with her first. She's hopeful that the lawyer will not bill the client for the time she spends clarifying this issue with him. 

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 a lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. 

 

Follow him on Twitter: @jseglin 

 

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

 

(c) 2013 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNECONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Who gets into the hall?

On the last Sunday in July, the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, N.Y., inducted its latest class of hall of famers. Typically, the sportswriters who vote on those Major League Baseball players who are eligible give at least one player a nod into the Hall. This year, no player got enough votes. Three people did get inducted -- a team owner, an umpire, a 19th-century catcher -- but they came via the veterans committee. All three were inducted posthumously.

It's not the first time sportswriters dunned the eligible crowd. The last time was 1996. But this year was different. It seemed to be a message that the sportswriters were closing the doors to the Hall of Fame to those who either admitted using performance-enhancing drugs while playing the game or are alleged to have used them.

The New York Times reported that Ozzie Smith, the Hall of Fame former shortstop for the St. Louis Cardinals, said that "being rejected by voters 'is one of the things you have to weigh when you decide to do something wrong. ... You have to realize you won't get in'."

Dennis McNamara, the nephew of Hank O'Day, the umpire elected into the Hall, told the crowd assembled in Cooperstown that the lesson of his uncle "is do your best with honesty and integrity -- a lesson that might be in the minds of some players not elected."

Perhaps Smith and McNamara are correct -- that if you get caught or suspected of using steroids to boost your performance, you don't deserve a place among the baseball immortals in the Hall. But do some of these players still deserve to be considered given their overall contribution to the game?

Some sportswriters obviously think so given the healthy percentage of votes some of the higher profile players suspected of steroid use received. Sports bars and baseball stadiums are littered with vocal supporters of these players.

Still others believe a spot in the Hall of Fame should be reserved for those players whose prowess was based on skills not amplified by steroids.

One former major league player told me that he thinks that, eventually, some of the players who had a storied career before their steroid use was obvious might find their way into the Hall, essentially arguing to discount their statistics after the steroid use began. If they juiced up from the get-go, he felt they had no place being honored.

This year's vote may have been meant as a symbolic message that steroid use will keep you out of the Hall. If that was the intent, then it's important that from now on the veterans committee holds true to this stance and restrains from letting in the biggest culprits. Otherwise, it's a hollow gesture.

The right thing falls back on assessing how people choose to behave when they decide to be together. If no one cares about steroid use in the league or among the fans, then there's no reason not to vote for players suspected of steroid use. But if the decision is made to base the votes to the best of their knowledge on letting in players whose performance was not enhanced by steroids, then the sportswriters sent the right message this year.

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 a lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. 

Follow him on Twitter: @jseglin 

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

(c) 2013 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNECONTENT AGENCY, LLC.