A powerful conversion after lousy customer service

When his daughter was planning a trip to Iceland, J.K., a reader from Boston, read the travel materials supplied by the tour group organizing her trip and discovered that she would need a plug adapter if she wanted to plug in any of the electronics she might bring with her. What the materials didn't say is whether she would also need a voltage converter since Iceland operates on a 220-volt system and North America operates at 110.

Most laptops, cellphones, and tablets have an automatic voltage converter built into their plugs, something that J.K. confirmed by reading the tiny print on the plugs themselves. The only item his daughter would need to be able to charge those items is a plug adapter.

J.K. researched online to find out what kind of plug adapter she'd need for Iceland. Then he rifled through his desk and found that he had just the kind she needed.

What J.K. didn't have was a voltage converter. His daughter would need one to charge her camera's battery. Again, he took to the internet and found a local office supply store that seemed to carry several different types.

When J.K. and his daughter got to the store, it wasn't clear which, if any, of the plug adapters was also a voltage converter. The packaging on each item was sealed tight so they couldn't get to the instructions or specifications.

On his smartphone, J.K. searched for a toll-free number for the company that manufactured some of the converters in stock, found it, and gave it a call. After finally getting through to a live customer service person, J.K. read the various model numbers to him and asked if any of them was also a voltage converter. The customer service representative said he would look the item up on his computer to see, ultimately telling J.K. that there was nothing on his screen indicating the items were voltage converters, so, "No, I suspect they're not."

After a bit of back and forth, J.K. got off the phone. He went to the information desk to ask if someone who might know something about the adapters could help him. When the clerk came over, he asked if he knew if any of the adapters was also a voltage converter. The fellow took a look at the packages and pointed out very small print (even smaller than J.K. remembers seeing on the plugs of his daughter's electronics) that indicated one of the items was indeed also a converter.

He bought it and it worked great for his daughter while she was in Iceland.

"Wasn't it unethical for the guy on the phone to tell me the adapter wasn't also a converter when he really just didn't know?"

Bad training? Maybe. Poor customer service? Perhaps. Not giving its customer service representative the tools they need to do their jobs competently? Certainly. The manufacturer could and should do a better job of training its customer service representatives to know its products.

But incompetence doesn't make the guy unethical as much as it makes him and the manufacturer look incompetent. Were it not for the knowledgeable office supply store guy helping them out, the manufacturer might have lost the business.

Fortunately, J.K.'s daughter got what she needed, and the pictures she shared with her father when she got home made them both happy. 

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) 2017 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

If I suspect my co-worker is cheating, should I report it?

For several years, a reader has struggled with how or if to address what she sees as unethical behavior in her workplace. At the large organization where she works, all hourly employees are "required" to record their work hours on a telephone "punch in and out" system. One of her co-workers for years has not used the telephone system and instead has submitted a handwritten time card, which the boss then inputs into the system.

"Those of us who work with that person know that lunches taken are not one hour, but closer to two hours most days," the reader writes. "Every day."

She also reports that his start times are actually later than what she and some of her coworkers believe is being reported. Plus, he's leaving before he puts in a full eight-hour day.

"The boss has always come in late, so may not know this," the reader writes. She and her co-workers believe, however, that the boss does know that the information he's inputting into the system is not accurate. He certainly knows that the co-worker is not meeting the "requirement" of using the telephone system to accurately record his hours.

After the boss retired about a year ago, a new administrator "has allowed the same fraud" to continue.

While she and her co-workers don't want to "tattle or be responsible for someone losing their job," they want to know how to get this to stop.

"Our company is always talking about doing the right thing and principles of responsibility and we are tired of this fraud being perpetrated by the employee and administration," she writes. The company has a compliance hotline, but she isn't sure that it is anonymous.

"Should we write a letter to the administrator?" she asks. "Or should we continue to ignore it?"

If the reader has evidence that the coworker is behaving unethically and defrauding her company by getting paid for hours he doesn't work, then she should report it. The challenge, however, is that without seeing the co-worker's paycheck or the handwritten information he submits, it's hard to know how much time he's actually reporting or how much time the boss has been recording for him. She and others may have witnessed the coworker violating the company rules by not punching in to the required system, however, so that violation seems backed by evidence.

If the suspicion exists that the coworker and the boss are behaving unethically and this is causing the reader and others concern, the right thing would be to first use the compliance hotline that the company has in place. Since the behavior is clearly resulting in the reader and her coworkers' questioning how seriously the company is about employees doing the right thing, her next step might be for them to ask for a meeting with the administrator to discuss their concerns.

Sixty percent of workers who responded to a KPMG survey on integrity in the workplace indicated that unethical behavior is likely to result if employees believe a company's "code of conduct is not taken seriously."

The right thing for the reader's company to do is to take her and her colleagues' concerns seriously and make sure that management is holding everyone to the same ethical behavior on the job. 

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) 2017 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.