What to do when someone sees you on a job interview

A couple of decades ago, I was interviewing for a job at Microsoft. I was relatively happy at my job in Boston, but when a recruiter called, described the job, and asked if I'd be interested in flying out to Redmond, Wash., to talk to the team starting up a new project, I thought it would be interesting to learn more.

As I was leaving the initial interview with human resources, I heard someone in the parking lot shout out "Jeff." Given that I didn't know anyone who worked at Microsoft at the time, the shout caught me off guard. I turned and saw it was an old professional friend from New York, who happened to be in Redmond to interview for a different job.

The old friend knew many of my co-workers at the time and I his. It was early in the interview process for me, so I hadn't let my employer know I was being recruited. What if the old friend tipped my boss or colleagues off about seeing me before I told anyone?

I was reminded of the encounter when a reader told me that while he was being interviewed for a job over lunch recently, he was surprised to see a couple his firm's clients eating at a few tables over. He continued to talk with his interviewers. By the time they were ready to leave, the clients were long gone.

He was concerned that the clients might say something to his current employer, so he wrestled with what he should do to stave off a potentially awkward situation. Should he, he wondered, tell his employer that he had been to lunch with a competitor who had been wooing him for a new job? Or perhaps he should call the clients, mention that he had seen them and that he was sorry he didn't have a chance to acknowledge them, but then ask them to be discrete about having seen him?

What if he said nothing and his boss confronted him? Should he concoct some story about why he was lunching with competitors?

It is perfectly reasonable and not an act of betrayal for employees to explore other job possibilities. As long as they do so on their own time and don't lie to their current bosses, going on job interviews is nothing to be embarrassed by.

Concocting a story -- a lie -- would be wrong could end up backfiring.

But broadcasting that you're off on a job interview is simply dumb.

Calling the clients you saw who may have had no idea who you were with and asking them to essentially cover for you hardly seems above board.

The right thing for the reader is to go about his business and do his job. If he's offered the new position and decides to take it, then he should give his current boss a reasonable amount of notice. If he doesn't get offered the job, no harm, no foul. Employees are allowed to seek out other opportunities from time to time.

My old friend and I were each offered jobs at Microsoft. He took it. I didn't, but somewhere in my files, I still have my visitor's name badge from that day to remind me not to overreact when unexpected encounters occur. 

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) 2014 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Homeowner floored by refinisher's manner

Just how responsible are you for letting others know about your experiences with businesses they recommended or may use themselves?

N.L., a reader from the New England area, recently decided to have the wooden floors in her house refinished. Because she wanted to have some sense that the floor refinisher might do a good job, she asked the owner of the company that painted her house several years earlier for a reference.

After receiving the reference from the painter, N.L. met with the floor refinisher. He measured the rooms and gave her a price for the job. She alerted him to the fact that the floors in one of the rooms had been particularly troublesome since they had wooden pegs covering screws. Over the years, many of the pegs had come loose and she had had to replace them.

"No problem," the refinisher said.

The refinisher told N.L. that he had had a cancellation and could fit the job in the following week. He calculated that it would take no more than a week to get the floors done. N.L. gave the refinisher a check for half the quoted price.

A week passed and the job was not completed. The floor refinisher told N.L. that his regular crew was sick and he had to make do with one assistant. After another week, the refinisher called N.L. to tell her he was done. She was at work when he finished, so she thanked him and said she'd check out the floors when she got home. When she got home and checked, she saw that six pegs were missing from the troublesome floor.

She called the refinisher to tell him about the missing pegs.

"If I'd known these pegs were going to be such a problem, I never would have taken the job," he responded. But he said he'd come back and install the pegs and do the sanding and finishing that needed doing the following week.

After three weeks, the floors were finally done and N.L. reports that they are beautiful. But she wants to know if she should let the painter who recommended the floor refinisher and the neighbor who asked for the refinisher's contact information so he could have his own floors redone about the one week turning into three and the refinisher's complaint about how difficult the job turned out to be.

The right thing for N.L. to do is to let her neighbor come over and examine the floors for himself. If he likes the quality of work, he can decide whether to use the refinisher. N.L. would be right to let her neighbor know about the challenges of working with the refinisher, but still the choice should be his.

It would also be good to let the painter know both that she liked the end product, but that she found the refinisher more challenging to work with than anticipated. It's up to the painter to decide if he wants to continue to recommend the refinisher for other jobs.

N.L. doesn't have to say anything to her neighbor or to the painter. But if she wants to do right by each of them, the right thing is to give each enough information to decide for himself how to proceed. 

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) 2014 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

If a gift is new to you, does its source matter?

Just how many details do you need to offer to keep someone from assuming something that might not be accurate?

A reader in the Midwest, A.C., belongs to an organization that raises funds for educational causes. For the past two years A.C. and a friend have been in charge of putting 20 to 25 gift baskets together for the organization's annual fundraiser.

"Once we see what donations have come in," writes A.C. "we decide on a theme and make the arrangement."

To enhance the visual appeal of the baskets, A.C. writes that she and her friend "add embellishments."

"For example, if we have a gift card to a really nice restaurant, we add a bottle of wine, a couple of wine glasses, and perhaps a wine stopper. For a few of the baskets we might use a beautiful platter or a large crystal bowl for the base instead of an actual basket."

An issue that concerns A.C., however, is that many of the embellishments they use for the baskets are those they find at thrift stores or garage sales.

"Naturally we wash everything first," she writes. "And we never include our embellishments in the gift basket's value."

But, she acknowledges that it's safe to say that "everyone assumes the items are new."

A.C.'s friend and she have an "unspoken agreement" that they never really inform anyone where the embellishments are found. "Everyone is so busy with their own tasks that no one ever asks about the specifics of the baskets." A.C. and her friend are complimented on their handiwork and thanked for their efforts.

"Is using items that have been previously owned (maybe, maybe not, used) in these baskets unethical?" A.C. asks.

If the baskets were presented as being full of new purchased items when they in fact included second-hand finds that would be a problem. Even if they are donated goods put together by unpaid volunteers, misrepresenting what's in the baskets would cross an ethical line.

It would also be wrong to include any second-hand items in the basket that might present a risk to any recipient. Second-hand food might not sit well on the stomach.

But A.C. and her friend are not telling anyone that the items in the gift baskets are brand new. They aren't telling them that some of the items might be second-hand goods either. That omission does not strike me as crossing an ethical line any more than including items that a retail store gave them to use that it otherwise would have discarded.

A.C. and her friend are contributing their time and efforts to their community by creatively supporting an effort that gives to educational causes. Good on them for doing so.

If someone asks them directly if all of the items are new, the right thing is for them to be honest and reveal that some of the items in the gift basket mix may have had a previous home.

They should be able to rest easy knowing that they are doing good while not lying about what they are doing. If one of the recipients happens upon a garage sale find in his or her gift basket that turns out to be quite valuable, then the question becomes whether they think it's right to donate the proceeds from that find to the educational efforts as well. 

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) 2014 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.