Is it OK to vote for a business we don't know?

When I was in graduate school, I lived in an dormitory residence on campus. In addition to our bedrooms, there were shared bathrooms on each floor, a common room with couches and a television, a historical chapel upstairs and an old kitchen in the basement with several old ovens and refrigerators and a few long tables.

It was a great place to live not only for its proximity to classes and classmates, but also because it provided a relatively affordable alternative to pricey housing in the area. (The dormitory has since been taken over by administrative offices, though the chapel remains.)

Each year, we’d vote on two positions to be held by residents. One was someone to manage the kitchen. The other was the dorm proctor, who was in charge of keeping keys, reporting emergencies, and generally helping keep the place and its residents safe. The proctor received a free room in exchange for holding the position, but it could eat up a lot of time, so not everyone wanted to take it on.

When the vote came one year, a classmate commented on a mutual friend who was running for the kitchen organizer position. The friend was notoriously disorganized and not someone you’d peg as being ideal for such a spot. “You always vote for your friends,” my classmate said when I asked if she had any reservation about casting a vote for her.

I was reminded of that comment after receiving an email from a reader I’m calling Madeline seeking advice on whether she should cast a vote for a friend’s daughter’s cake decorating business through a social media link sent to her.

“I don’t know the daughter,” wrote Madeline. “I’ve never tasted her cakes, although the photos of them online look nice.”

Madeline wonders if it’s wrong to vote for the daughter simply because her friend asked her to. “Shouldn’t my vote be based on actually knowing if her work is any good?”

Ideally, Madeline is right. But such votes rarely reflect an accurate reflection of judgment by those who actually know the goods. Many “best of” votes in communities don’t require voters to have actually shopped or dined at the places they vote for. It’s often just as easy for someone residing on the other side of the country who never stepped foot in the community let alone taste the food as a local joint to cast a vote for what they believe to be “the best.”

Is that right? If the guidelines for voting made clear that only those who engaged in business with the establishments should cast a vote, then no, voting without actual knowledge is not right. But more often than not, these votes devolve into campaigns to get the most votes possible from anyone in hopes that winning will generate more business. As long as it’s clear that the votes don’t represent actual customers’ views, there’s no harm in casting the vote for the friend’s daughter’s cakes.

The right thing would be for Madeline and others to read the guidelines for the competition to make sure they aren’t violating the rules for voting. And the right thing for the readers of such competition’s results is to recognize that whatever businesses top the list may or may note be “the best.” All they can be assured of is that they got the most votes.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of "The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice," is a senior lecturer in public policy, emeritus, 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 to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com. 

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin

(c) 2023 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Should we pretend to be something to win others over?

My first fall in Boston after I’d moved there in 1978, from Bethany, West Virginia, the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees were locked in a playoff to see who would top the American League East standings and move on to play the Kansas City Royals for a shot at that year’s World Series against the National League title holder.

I had been to a few games at Fenway Park, one of the most beautiful professional baseball parks in America. Walking into the park remains a magical experience as soon as you walk up to your seats and the view of the field opens up before you.

Back then, the Red Sox had not won a World Series since 1918. This one-game playoff against the Yankees could be their shot at finally breaking their decades-long dry spell.

Alas, it was not to be. The Yankees led 2-0 in the seventh inning when Bucky Dent hit a three-run home run that proved to be the deciding factor in the Yankees moving on to battle the Royals.

My father had been a lifelong Yankees fan, and I was and am a lifelong Yankees fan after him. (I am in short company in my Boston-bred family.)

What does this have to with a column on ethics?

On that pre-internet, pre-social-media October day in 1978, Boston was abuzz about the game. In the office where I worked, someone brought in a small black-and-white television set for us to watch in between pretending to get any work done.

Now, here’s the ethics question I was facing.

As a lifelong Yankees fan, but also the newest employee at this Boston publishing company full of rabid Red Sox fans, do I make a big deal about being a Yankees fan and root loudly for my team? Do I pretend to be a Red Sox fan to fit in?

If I had been lucky enough to get bleacher tickets for the game, my conundrum might have been magnified, given that a Yankees fan could not expect a warm and fuzzy reception at such a critical game.

Ethically, pretending to be a Red Sox fan would have been wrong, even then, before I wrote about ethics. Lying is lying.

But there seemed no reason to be boisterous or obnoxious in my support for the Yankees. When Bucky Dent hit his home run, the crowd in the office was morose but also hopeful there was enough time for a comeback. There wasn’t.

I didn’t hide that I was a Yankees fan, but I didn’t chide my colleagues about their team snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

The Yankees ultimately beat the Los Angeles Dodgers to win the 1978 World Series. Hiding what we believe or pretending to believe something we don’t to win favor with others doesn’t seem the right thing to do.

I didn’t pretend to be something I wasn’t, but I also didn’t express any joy in my colleague’s misery. I knew there would be the opportunity for a few future visits together to one of the most beautiful baseball parks in America.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of "The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice," is a senior lecturer in public policy, emeritus, 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 to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com. 

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin

(c) 2023 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

When errant emails arrive, should you notify the sender?

How responsible are you for letting someone know you are receiving information you really shouldn’t be receiving?

That’s what a reader we’re calling Norman wrote to ask. For several years, Norman served on the board of a not-for-profit agency. More than four years ago, Norman stepped down from the board. He left on good terms and remains in touch occasionally with the people running the not-for-profit.

“It was a great experience,” Norman wrote, “but I knew I wouldn’t miss the regular meetings along with the slew of emails we received as board members to enable us to complete our work.”

It took a few months for Norman to stop receiving emails sent to current board members. Finally, it seemed like his name was off the routing list, but every few months it seems to creep back on.

“It doesn’t really bother me,” wrote Norman, “since it’s simple enough to ignore, although occasionally a meeting they’ve invited me to ends up on my online calendar.” That too is not a major burden, Norman wrote, as long as he remembers he doesn’t actually have that meeting to attend. (He could delete the entry if he wanted to.)

What concerns Norman, however, is he doesn’t know whether the person sending out the meeting invites or sharing information via email knows he is receiving the emails. He also doesn’t know whether others who shouldn’t be on the email routing list are receiving them as well.

“So far, nothing seems all that confidential or sensitive in the emails I’ve received,” he wrote. “But what if something more sensitive does get sent out or a document gets shared with people like me who shouldn’t be getting them?”

The errant emails arrive sporadically and without any warning, according to Norman. He’s not sure why he gets some and why he doesn’t get others. He also knows he could simply ignore the emails and delete them.

But he wondered how much responsibility he has to let someone at the not-for-profit know he is receiving the information.

Since none of the information Norman has received is neither confidential nor anything he or someone else couldn’t get from looking at the not-for-profit’s website, Norman likely could just ignore the occasional emails and delete them.

But if he is indeed concerned about the not-for-profit inadvertently running into problems down the road if the errant email practice continues, the right thing is for Norman to simply forward an email onto one of his former contacts at the not-for-profit to let them know he’s receiving email he shouldn’t be receiving.

The right thing for the not-for-profit would be to make sure only intended recipients receive the emails they are sending out. It’s not enough to just take Norman’s email off and be done with it. After that’s done, they should set up a policy of removing emails from routing lists as soon as a person’s official role is severed.

Norman should be able to rest easy that his old associates are being more careful with their communications and that anyone receiving emails from them should have.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of "The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice," is a senior lecturer in public policy, emeritus, 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 to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com. 

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin

(c) 2023 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

How much should we disclose about a personal illness?

Two related questions arose this week about how much, if anything, we should disclose about a personal situation we might be going through.

Question 1: Is it wrong to share detailed personal information about a health condition or personal crisis on public social media?

Question 2: Is it wrong to avoid disclosing any information on social media about a health condition or personal crisis if it’s likely others might be having similar experiences?

It’s not uncommon to come across a post on social media from a friend or associate that recounts in details their experiences with a health scare or a personal crisis. Sometimes these take the form of regular posts to a social media feed. Occasionally, they take shape as a full-blown blog dedicated to the topic. Sometimes the poster limits views to only friends. Often, the settings are for public view by anyone who has the link.

Presumably, the first question stems from wondering whether it’s inappropriate for people to share their personal challenges widely and with people they don’t know. The answer to that is simple: No, it’s not inappropriate, so long as the poster doesn't include misleading or potentially dangerous information.

There is a long history of writers sharing personal experiences with the world. In Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness, for example, William Styron shares his experiences of dealing with his depression.

But the result of Styron’s work is not only a beautifully written book, it also provides readers who might also suffer from depression some solace in knowing they are not alone.

And that leads to what is presumably behind the second question. Is it wrong for people to avoid sharing what they might be going through if others might benefit from knowing about their experiences? Might there be something in others’ experiences that help someone navigating their own way through?

Is it wrong not to share among friends or publicly? No.

For some people, simply managing whatever they are going through is as much as they can handle. The thought of a larger public weighing in on their condition might feel like too much added to an already full ration of things with which they are coping.

Neither group deserves criticism, scorn or judgment for their decision. If reading about someone else’s condition is not something you want to do, then don’t read it. But save your criticism for something appropriate, say, the decision of Major League Baseball to put a runner on second base if a game reaches extra innings.

In deciding how much to disclose about a crisis or other situation the person experiencing it should be allowed to decide how comfortable they are in letting the world know without the rest of us judging them for their decision. It’s also up to each of those people to decide how much of their condition they want to disclose and to how much of the world they want to disclose it.

In Darkness Visible, Styron quotes from Dante’s “Inferno” to capture how it feels to overcome depression: “E quindi uscimmo a riveder le stelle” which he translates from Italian to English as: “And so we came forth, and once again beheld the stars.”

Whatever way it takes to help those dealing with a particularly challenging situation to once again behold the stars seems the right thing to do.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of "The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice," is a senior lecturer in public policy, emeritus, 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 to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com. 

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin

(c) 2023 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.