Doing right even when it might embarrass others

When H.D. decided to replace the lighting fixture in his home bathroom, he decided to buy a new one from the nearby big-box hardware store. He lived in an old house and the existing bathroom fixture hadn't been changed in more than 40 years, but he was hoping it would be a simple job.

H.D. drove to the store, found a fixture he thought might look good, purchased it and returned home. After he tried to install it, he decided it didn't look as good as he hoped so he took the fixture off the wall, put it in its box, and returned to the store to find a different one.

Once in the store, H.D. found a few fixtures in the lighting section he liked better. He then solicited the help of a customer service representative.

The customer service rep was very helpful and offered to open up a few boxes containing the other fixtures in which H.D. was interested so he could see them up close. The customer service representative was very attentive and spent several minutes helping H.D.

Eventually, H.D. decided on the one he liked best. It cost a few dollars more than the earlier one that H.D. had purchased. H.D. explained to the customer service representative that he had to return the fixture he bought before purchasing this new one.

"Do you have your receipt for the old one?" the customer service representative asked.

H.D. told him that he did. The customer service representative then offered to put the more expensive fixture in the old fixture's box and told H.D. he could just leave the store with it.

Even though it seemed that the customer service representative was trying to do him a favor, the offer didn't feel quite right to H.D. since the new fixture cost a few dollars more. Still, H.D. didn't want to embarrass the customer service representative by declining his offer. So he let the customer service representative put the more expensive fixture in the less expensive one's box and left the store.

"What should I have done?" asks H.D.

By allowing his concern about embarrassing the customer service representative guide his decision, after he made his offer, H.D. effectively stole from the big box store. His instinct about the offer not feeling "quite right" was a good one.

The right thing would have been to decline the offer, return the less-expensive fixture, and then pay the asking price for the new fixture. H.D. was wrong to participate in deceiving the store by leaving with a more expensive item in the wrong box. It would have been no different had he pocketed a handful of nails equal to the price difference and left the store without paying.

If the customer service representative had the discretion to offer the slightly more expensive item for the same price, he should have told H.D. that. He didn't indicate that he did and the suggestion of switching boxes suggests he knew what he was doing was wrong. Wanting to help H.D. find the right fixture was a good thing to do. That's part of the customer representative's job. Offering to help him defraud his employer was wrong. 

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

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

Follow him on Twitter: @jseglin 

(c) 2015 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Should counselor tell client she lives close by?

For several years, A.L. has worked as a mental health counselor in a neighborhood health center in the Northeast. She sees clients of all ages, most of whom live in the part of the city where the center is located.

A.L. also lives close to the center, but until recently her clients lived in neighborhoods other than hers. A few weeks ago, as A.L. was meeting with a client for the first time, she started collecting basic information and family history, as she does with all new clients. She had no recollection of ever having seen the client before, but when it came time for her to give her address, A.L. noticed that the client lived on the same street as she did, about five or six houses down the block.

Typically, A.L. says that she does not disclose personal information about herself during her meetings with clients. She stays focused on the clients' needs and works with them to address whatever issues they might be facing.

But A.L. is concerned that she might run into the new client in her day-to-day life. If she does run into her new client in the neighborhood, she wonders if she might find it odd that A.L. never mentioned living so close by.

She's run into clients before at the grocery store, a close-by shopping mall, or the movie theater. On such occasions, she always waits for the clients to acknowledge her before she says anything to them, out of respect for their privacy.

Still, A.L. wants to know if she should tell her new client that they are neighbors since they live so close to one another. Doing so might avoid some awkwardness if they run into one another, she figures, but it also would go against how she has decided to disclose her personal information to clients in the past. She wants to know the right thing to do.

I am not a mental health counselor nor a psychologist, so I do not know if A.L. licensing agency has a particular set of guidelines that address such instances. If it does, obviously A.L should consult and follow any professional guidelines.

Absent her concerns being specifically addressed in her professional guidelines, when it comes to disclosing any personal information about herself, the right thing for A.L. to do is to treat this new client precisely in the same manner she has disclosed information to other clients in the past.

It's important for the new client to know about A.L.'s experience and credentials. If it hasn't been relevant or useful for A.L. to disclose personal information, then she should stick with that approach.

If A.L. does happen to run into her new client in their neighborhood, she has experience on how to deal with such occasions. Just as she has waited for clients to make the first acknowledgment in the past when she has run into them in public places, she should wait for the new client to do so as well.

The important thing is for A.L. to continue her practice of focusing on her clients' needs. Unless disclosing her home's proximity to the client's is relevant to the client's care, the right thing is not to disclose the information. 

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

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

Follow him on Twitter: @jseglin 

(c) 2015 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Should I tell my emailing friend he's offensive?

For several years, D.R. has been on a friend's email routing list. Whenever the friend receives an email he finds amusing or provocative, he forwards it on to a dozen or so friends so they can share in the laughter. D.R., who receives the emails on his personal email account, rarely finds the emails, which are typically full of musings on aging or observations about the decay of society, funny or thought-provoking.

The friend rarely emails D.R. with anything other than a forwarded email, so D.R. has reached the point where, more often than not, he simply deletes any emails from the friend if he sees they are being forwarded to a group of recipients. Occasionally, if D.R. does read an email and it repeats a long-debunked myth about a particular celebrity or politician, he will respond to his friend with a link to the information (typically from Snopes.com or Politifact.com) correcting the myth with words like, "Not true. See here," followed by the link.

But lately the friend's emails have taken on a disturbing tone. D.R. has noticed that some of the emails being forwarded could be construed as sexist, racist, or anti-Semitic. D.R. never thought of his friend as a racist, sexist, or anti-Semitic before, but the emails he is forwarding present him in this light to D.R.

D.R. doesn't believe debunking such emails will get to the real issue of how offensive and inappropriate he finds them. He can't imagine that his friend doesn't know that these particular emails are tinged with such hateful sentiment. He could choose to stop reading group emails from the friend entirely and just delete them as they arrive.

"But is that enough?" asks D.R. "Shouldn't I tell him how offensive I find these particular emails?"

If the emails offend D.R., simply deleting them is not enough. At the very least, he should ask his friend to take him off of his email routing list for these things he forwards. (Given that he doesn't find even the inoffensive ones interesting, he would have been wise to do this long ago.)

But if D.R. truly finds some of the messages to be offensive, the right thing would be to tell his friend how offensive he finds them and why.

D.R. is unlikely to change his friend's viewpoint if these emails reflect how he thinks about such things. But if no one says anything to the friend, he will simply continue to forward on such things, giving no thought to how they are being received.

D.R. might find that the friend doesn't pay as much attention to the type of things he forwards on as D.R. thinks he does. Some people too freely forward on, repost, or retweet stuff they haven't bothered to read closely. Pointing out the offensiveness gives D.R.'s friend a chance to think more carefully about what he chooses to forward on to others. It also gives him the opportunity to let the originator of such emails know how offensive they are.

But D.R.'s friend might be fully aware of the nature of his emails. Now he will know how offensive D.R. finds them and to take D.R. off of his email routing list, since D.R. wants nothing to do with the spread of such things. 

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

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

Follow him on Twitter: @jseglin 

(c) 2015 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.