Jeffrey L. Seglin's Blog, page 13

Should you tell a friend if you overhear a personal conversation with his Lyft driver?

I suppose it’s human nature to becurious. But is there a line where one’s respect for someone else’s privacytrumps that natural curiosity?

Areader we’re calling J.K. received a call from an old friend recently. Thefriend had called while he was being driven by a Lyft driver to a destinationin a town to which he had just moved. J.K. happened to be walking outside whenhis friend called. It was a good conversation, J.K. recalled, thoughoccasionally the street traffic on J.K.’s walk made it challenging to hear.

Hisfriend filled him in on his new job in the new town. As the conversationwrapped up, the friend said goodbye. At first J.K. wrote that he couldn’t hearthat his friend was signing off so he kept his phone to his ear. Quickly,however, it became clear his friend was no longer talking to him but hadneglected to disconnect the call and was speaking to his Lyft driver.

Ido not know if Lyft drivers have taken their place alongside barbers orbartenders, who historically have been perceived as receptacles of stories fromrandom people who confide in them. I also don’t know why some people have feltcomfortable sharing personal stories with barbers and bartenders and now Lyft drivers— stories whose details they might never share with those close to them. Butthey do. And it was clear J.K.’s friend was entering into such a conversationwith his Lyft driver.

“Hewas telling his driver about his former job and why he had left,” wrote J.K.“They were details I had never heard.” J.K. listened for a while but grewuncomfortable that his friend didn’t know he could hear them.

“Idisconnected the call,” wrote J.K., “but I heard enough that I’m concerned.”Now, J.K. wants to know if he should say something to his friend or justpretend the event never happened and wait for his friend to bring up his pastjob experience if he wants to talk about it.

Ideally,J.K. would have disconnected the call as soon as he realized his friend didn’tbelieve they were still on the call. He could have shouted into the phone thathe could still hear him, but it’s likely his friend wouldn’t have heard him.The simpler thing perhaps would be to say nothing and pretend he didn’toverhear anything.

Butsince he did hear him, the right thing, I believe, is to let his friend know heheard the beginning of his friend’s conversation with his Lyft driver becausehe didn’t know they were finished talking. He doesn’t need to go into detailabout what he heard — which J.K. wrote wasn’t much — but he can let his friendknow he heard him. He can leave it to his friend to decide if he wants to talkabout what happened at his former job. If the friend doesn’t want to talk aboutit, J.K. should let it go.

J.K.’sfriend may be upset when he’s told about the call, but he also might appreciateJ.K.’s honesty. There’s no guarantee the response will go one way or the other,but the right thing is for J.K. to be honest and do what he would hope hisfriend would have done for him had the situation been reversed.

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 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 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 I trust that my newspaper is crediting me for missed papers?

A reader in Boston we’re calling H.L. is among those who still get a daily newspaper delivered to her house. She wrote that while she knows she could read the newspaper online, she enjoys being able to get up early every morning and read the print edition as she drinks her morning coffee. H.L. writes that she has been a subscriber since she moved to the neighborhood four decades ago.

But lately H.L. has been frustrated by the frequency with which her newspaper doesn’t get delivered. Apparently, it has gotten worse since a new person was assigned to her delivery route.

“Often we don’t get the newspaper at all,” wrote H.L. “When we do it is typically in the road in front of our house or somewhere in the yard to the side of our house.” H.L. wrote that she misses the days not long ago when she could open her front door any time after 6 a.m. and find the newspaper waiting for her. “It also sometimes shows up after 8 a.m., when I have already left for work.”

H.L. wrote that she is grateful to be able to report missed papers on the newspaper’s online site. When she does, she requests a credit.

“I assume that when I get charged each month that the amount charged reflects deductions for any papers I didn’t get,” wrote H.L. “But I really don’t know what my monthly billing amount would be if every newspaper was delivered.”

What H.L. wants to know is whether she should simply trust that her newspaper is only charging her for the goods received. “Or is it up to me to make sure to keep track of all the missed papers and reconcile my records against what I am charged each month?” Having to do that, according to H.L., would add to an already aggravating situation.

If late or missing deliveries are a chronic problem, H.L. might consider contacting the newspaper’s customer service department to see if it can do anything to remedy the problem. Until that happens, she does have to trust that the newspaper is giving her credit for the missing newspapers she reports — but she does not have to do so blindly.

Her newspaper’s website has a link to “delivery credits” where, at the end of each month, she can see the days she reported missing credits. There’s also a link to her monthly invoices. If the credits have not been applied and subtracted from the monthly amount she typically pays, H.L. will be able to tell if the newspaper is not crediting her what she is due.

Should H.L. have to deal with the time it takes to report and follow up on missing newspapers? No; she’s paying for a service, and the newspaper should work to deliver the product H.L. is paying for. If for some reason it can’t deliver with consistency, then H.L. may have to decide to shift to reading newspaper online or canceling her subscription.

The right thing is for the newspaper to credit H.L. when a delivery is missed and to make it clear on the monthly invoices how those credits have been applied. Better yet, it should find a way to get the newspaper delivered on time each morning, since that’s what it promised to do and what H.L. is paying for.

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 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 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 you apply for a job if you don't meet 100% of the qualifications?

Do people apply for jobs even if theydon’t meet all of the qualifications listed on a job advertisement?

There’sbeen sizable reporting over the past decade — some based on a Hewlett-Packardinternal report cited in Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In: Women, Work, and the Willto Lead — that suggests men are likely to apply to a job if they meetjust some of the listed job requirements, while women are only like to apply ifthey meet 100%.

TaraSophia Mohr suggested in an August 2014 Harvard Business Review article that agreater reason women don’t apply for jobs where they don’t meet all thequalifications is not chiefly from a lack of confidence, but more from notwanting to waste their time applying if the hiring company was likely to ruletheir application out.

Thereremains an unevenness in who will apply to a job posting based on theassumptions about the listed qualifications. Too often, someone who might havedone a great job but hesitated to apply learns of someone else getting the jobwho seemed to have far fewer of the listed qualifications than she did.

Perhapsthis is more common that I believe it to be, but when I happened upon a job description for a Deputy Style and Standards Editor at Vox Media recently, itstruck me that the company made a strong effort to make it clear to prospectiveemployees that they should apply even if they didn’t meet every listedqualification. (Full disclosure: I came upon the Vox ad because a formergraduate student who would be this person’s boss posted it on her LinkedInfeed.)

“Ifyou think you have what it takes,” the Vox ad read in the “Who You Are”section, “but don't meet every single point in our job posting, please applywith a cover letter to let us know how you believe you can bring your uniqueskills to the Vox Media team or get in touch!” The ad went on to point out thatVox has hired “chefs who became editors, DJs who became UX designers, andsommeliers who became writers.”

Itmay seem a small thing, and more companies than Vox may be running such “applyanyway” type codicils on their job ads, but it strikes me as a good thing forcompanies to try to be more transparent with prospective applicants who don’tmeet all of the qualifications but who make a compelling hire nonetheless.

Theend result could be to encourage more people to apply who might have ruledthemselves out of a job before they were even considered. It also might resultin companies ending up hiring strong people who might never have applied.

Makingit clear that an employer will consider people and all they have to bring to ajob — even if some of that “all that” is not listed in the job ad —could alsoresult in companies ending up with someone about whom they might never haveknown. If companies truly mean they will consider applicants who don’t meet100% of the listed qualifications, then clarity about that willingness on theirjob ads is 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 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 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.

The admissions essay you write should be your own

My social media feeds have been allatwitter for some time about how the artificial intelligence (AI) bot ChatGPTcould affect college admissions essays. Concern abounds that applicants willbegin to use ChatGPT to generate admission essays that respond to collegeapplication prompts.

Ina column for Inside Higher Education, Jim Jump, a seasoned counselor to highschool seniors applying to college, recounted his experience being asked byForbes magazine to weigh in on an essay generated by ChatGPT and definitivelydetermine whether or not it was written by a person.

“Iprobably couldn’t detect the AI authorship,” Jump wrote, but he pointed outthat he “wouldn’t label the essays as convincing.” They were cliched and didnot respond to the prompt convincingly. “They also didn’t sound like an essay ateenager would write, but rather an essay a teenager might write with majorassistance and editing by an adult.”

Shortlyafter I read Jump’s column, I saw a post on LinkedIn that mentioned embracingAI is crucial for aspiring students and job seekers. The poster pointed out howChatGPT could write your admission essay for you, adding that high-pricedadmissions consultants who are hired to assist students with all aspects oftheir college admission process, including the essay, “are going to face toughdays soon.”

Whyis there so much fuss about prospective students using ChatGPT or similar AItools to write their essays for them when many students with means have hiredadmissions consultants to “assist” them with their college application essaysfor years?

Itis likely no easier to detect whether an admissions consultant wrote an essayfor a student than it would be to determine whether ChatGPT did. In fact, asthe technology evolves, it might become easier to detect ChatGPT’s work thanthe work of a seasoned admissions counselor.

Anethical admissions counselor, of course, should never write an applicationessay for a client. But if an application instructs applicants that they shouldnot have someone else write or edit their essay for them, the line between“edit” and “coach” might be blurry. (Summon the angry letters from seasonedadmissions consultants.)

Ifcoaching involves giving a prospective student general advice, that seems fair.Such advice might be to make sure to actually answer the prompt, to make surethey try to include personal examples that could only come from them, toproofread their work. You know, basic stuff any high school senior should havelearned in school but may not have taken to heart at the time.

Thereal question college admissions committees should be asking is whether theyare explicit in their instructions that an applicant’s work should be theirown. Having them sign a statement that indicates they did not rely on AI bots nor any one person to write, rewrite or heavily edit their work doesn’tguarantee they won’t, but it becomes a first test of a prospective student’sintegrity. If they know that violating their agreement risks losing admission,that might give them pause. But the real reason students should do their ownwork is because it might give the admissions committee a sense of the personbehind the essay … and because it’s 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 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 to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com. 

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin

Should we question someone's motive for working for a cause?

Should those who become advocates for acause be criticized if they only embraced the cause because of a child or lovedone?

Areader wants to know whether a friend’s newfound dedication to working for andgetting others interested in working for the rights of children with aparticular disability should be taken any less seriously because the friendnever expressed any interest in that disability before discovering her childwas among those who had it. “Wouldn’t her passion be more convincing if thereweren't a clear self-interest involved?”

It'snot unusual to read stories of people becoming active for a particular causeafter they discover they have a personal experience with that cause. Sometimesthese stories don’t involve disabilities. And sometimes the discovery resultsin someone doing a complete reversal in their views. There are plenty ofstories of legislators who are adamant in their lack of support for same-sexmarriage, for example, until they discover one of their adult childrenidentifies as LGBTQ+ and in a loving relationship.

Withsupport for those with a particular disability, it’s less often the case thatsomeone is against supporting work for those with that disability. It’s farmore common that the disability never crossed their mind until it affected thempersonally.

Doesthis mean we should discount their activity because they only became involvedafter discovering that a child or loved one could be among those helped bytheir work? No.

Mybrother-in-law lived with muscular dystrophy. Marrying into his family raisedmy awareness, but I was no less compassionate or caring than others who careabout people with muscular dystrophy. I may not have lived with musculardystrophy top of mind until I became a part of his life, but my concern abouthim and others with muscular dystrophy was no less valid even though my awarenesswasn’t raised until I met and ultimately married into his family.

Similarly,if someone has a child with a medical condition that doesn’t get the type ofattention or support that would be useful to improve that and other children’slife, the passion a parent has to work for more research or treatment to helpthose with the condition — including her child — should in no way bediscounted. Working toward helping others who could benefit from the support isa good thing, regardless of how we arrive at the desire to do so.

Thereare plenty of causes to go around, and often, too few people to support them.If we start questioning the motivation of every person who wants to dosomething to help someone else, the best we can hope for is a free-floatingcynicism. At worse, such attitudes can serve to disincentive people fromhelping when they can.

Whensomeone discovers a cause about which they care deeply, regardless of how theyarrived at that decision, the right thing is to let them. If it seems a causewe might want to help with as well, then we should have at it.

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 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 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.

If a bouncy house doesn't bounce, is a refund in order?

Thefirst time we hosted a family reunion for my wife’s side of the family, ouroldest grandson was 13 years old. He was the oldest of our grandchildren andwould be attending the party along with his younger cousins and second cousins.In the preparations leading up to the reunion, he came to me and said, “Papa, Ithink it would be great for the younger kids if we rented a bouncy house.”

We found a place that had a $99 special for a bouncyhouse and booked the rental. On the morning of the event, the house wasdelivered along with an electric pump to inflate it. We ran a heavy-dutyextension cord out of our bedroom window to the pump so we could inflate thehouse. On the day of the event, our oldest grandson spent more time in thebouncy house than anyone, including the many adults who partook.

Bouncy houses can indeed be a hit at an outsideparty. It was no surprise, then, when I received an email from E.F., a readerfrom Santa Rosa, California, telling me she had rented a bouncy house for herdaughter’s birthday. She rented from the same company she’d rented from severaltimes before noting that its workers had “always been professional and prompt.”

But this time, the pump broke 15 minutes after thehouse was set up, and it deflated. “No one was hurt,” E.F. reported. But theoperator had no way to fix it. “So that was it.”

Several people at the party, including the workerfrom the bouncy house company, suggested she ask for a refund. “To me, hefilled his obligation,” wrote E.F. “He was as surprised as the rest of us atthe equipment failure. I don't consider a bouncy house to be of such importancethat I expect him to carry multiple pumps with him.”

E.F. writes that while she knows it would be fine toask for a refund, it seems the wrong thing to do. “Your thoughts?” she asked.

While E.F. is being understanding and gracious aboutthe mishap, I don’t agree that it would be wrong to ask for a refund on therental of a product that didn’t work. While it might not have been the worker’sfault, she did pay to have an operating bouncy house at the party. Given thatE.F. has rented bouncy houses from the company before and might do so again, ifshe doesn’t feel comfortable asking for a refund, she could ask for a creditfor the rental of a future bouncy house.

Things do go wrong with stuff. But when we pay forsomething that turns out not to work, the right thing is for the company tooffer to either refund the money or otherwise make good on that transaction.E.F., of course, can choose not to accept that refund and just live with thedisappointment.

Companies should stand behind their products, evenif they’re something not of great importance … though my experience has beenthat an operating bouncy house can be the thing that makes a great partysublime.

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 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 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.

Parents should support but not do a child's homework for them

“Howmuch help is OK for a parent to give for a child's project?” a reader we’recalling Flo asked.

After I received Flo’s question, I was reminded of apaper I wrote for an earth science class in my freshman year of high school. Myfather worked for many years as an agronomist for the Soil ConservationService, which is part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. As part of hisjob, he spent time in the field mapping soils.

Occasionally, he let me tag along with him as hedrove to remote fields or wooded areas in New Jersey to measure inclines withhis pocket clinometer or to use a large auger to extract soil samples. To havea sense of where he was going and where he was once he got there, he used setsof aerial photographs and a portable stereoscope to view the terrain.

I wrote my report for earth science class on mappingsoils. My father loaned me some of his manuals and tools, recommended otherbooks, and drove me to the county library to research other sources. I did myresearch, wrote my paper, and typed it up using the skills I learned in eighthgrade typing class, a class I almost failed because I couldn’t type withoutlooking at the keys.

When I finished the report, my father offered tomake a Xerox copy of an aerial photograph to use as a cover for the paper. Iaccepted his offer, stapled the paper together, and turned it in.

My teacher returned the paper with a note suggestingit was clearly not my work, but instead was likely written by my father.Meetings with her, the department head, a guidance counselor and others ensued.Ultimately, it was determined there was no way to prove I hadn’t written thepaper. She graded the paper on its merits rather than on her suspicions.

I ran into the teacher about 40 years later. Ididn’t recognize her, but she knew my name and told me the experience had inpart led her to explore opportunities outside of the classroom. We didn’tdiscuss whether she had come around to believing I had written the paper ornot.

Now, back to Flo’s question. I believe it is totallyappropriate for parents to help a child with school work as vigorously andsupportively as they can, but to stop short of doing the work for them. If achild asks for explanations, great. If a child asks a parent to read a draft tosee if it makes sense, terrific. If a parent offers to make a copy of a titlepage for a report, have at it.

If a child has put off writing a paper to the lastminute and asks a parent to write it for him, the parent shouldn’t. Help isfine. Doing all the work for a child is not.

My father’s dad jokes could be excruciating. (Fulldisclosure: Mine are no better.) But he was a quiet, humble, and honest man. Iam confident that my teacher’s accusation hurt him as much as it hurt me, ifnot more. He did the right thing by supporting me while I was writing my paperand supporting me when my honesty was challenged since he knew he hadn’twritten my paper. Had he offered to do the work for me, it would have been bothsurprising and wrong.

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 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 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.

Be curious, not judgmental

I’m late to "Ted Lasso." My lateness mostly results from not wanting to pay to subscribe to yet another streaming service to add to my television viewing options.

Matthew Gilbert, the television critic for The Boston Globe, has advised me and others to avail ourselves of free trials, binge on a series or two, and then cancel before being charged. There’s nothing unethical about Gilbert’s advice, but having to remember to cancel after the allotted time seemed too much trouble.

My mindset changed recently after the woman I’d eat bees for convinced me that $6.99 a month was far less than what we’d pay to go to the movies. We signed up and just finished watching the first season of "Ted Lasso."

I promise not to provide any significant spoilers, but let’s get out of the way that Walt Whitman never wrote the words “be curious, not judgmental,” as the lead character claims. Facts matter, but more important to this column is what the show has to offer.

I know little about British football (our soccer) and the Premier League. I had no idea if the teams on the show are fictionalized versions of real teams, nor how relegation works (or that it was even a thing). But I do know that some of the behavior reflects how I’d like it to be true, on or off of the pitch.

Ted Lasso’s character is the moral center of the show. He is supportive, understanding, patient, inspirational and forgiving to a fault. Sometimes he presents as goofy with just a tad too many dad jokes in his arsenal, which I’ve learned is the name of a real British football team.

But what makes the show more than a simple sitcom built around the mishaps of a bumpkin tossed in a foreign environment is that the writers, and actor Jason Sudeikis, give us a fully formed human being. He has doubts. He experiences personal trauma. He finds himself sidled with guilt on occasion. But he rarely loses his patience with anyone else in his orbit — though his humanity makes him do that on occasion as well.

I bring this up now because it seems too simple for us to cast blame on and be unforgiving of others, even when their transgressions are minor. It’s easier to dismiss someone altogether than to try to understand that whatever they might be going through might be far worse than we could imagine and could cause them to act in ways that have nothing to do with us and everything to do with their inability to manage their own pain.

It’s too easy for us to dismiss the ideas of others solely on the basis of their current station in work or life. What "Ted Lasso" gives us, albeit in a highly fictional setting, is a glimpse into an alternative worldview wherein we believe in the possibilities of others and ourselves, but not so much that we can’t shift our viewpoint when life necessitates.

Even if it’s fiction, even if a real Ted Lasso might be chewed up by those around him beyond any ability to function, it’s worth taking a moment to entertain the notion of a world in which patience and acceptance are embraced even when we strongly disagree with one another. Being curious without being judgmental indeed 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 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 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 customer be held responsible for something he didn't want?

In late January, a reader we’re calling Liam called his television cable provider to cancel his television service because it was far more expensive than the streaming service many friends and family were using. Liam wanted to keep his landline phone and internet service. The provider’s agent understood and told Liam he could shift to a promotional package for those services that included a free cellphone, which Liam declined.

Liam has never needed a cellphone and, he wrote me: “My wife of 50 years already had one.” The agent seemed “incredulous” since Liam had nothing to lose. Nevertheless, Liam continued to decline the offer because he suspected there might be a “catch.”

“His insistence that it would cost me nothing beyond a $10.71 startup fee convinced me it would be good to have in an emergency,” Liam wrote.

Two weeks later Liam and his wife were flabbergasted after reading an emailed statement from the provider that they owed $4 for the phone and would be billed that amount every month for the next two years, as well as a $30 monthly service charge starting the next January.

“We immediately called to say we wanted to return the phone, but were told that the two-week return period had passed,” wrote Liam.

“From an ethical standpoint, I agree with the company that I should pay for what I agreed to, but neither my money-savvy wife nor I remember ever having heard anything other than that the phone was free – over and over again,” Liam wrote.

Liam is right that we should pay for things we agree to pay for, but it’s clear there was a miscommunication here between the agent and Liam – and his wife, who was listening in to the call. If the agent deliberately misled Liam after he first told him he didn’t want the phone and then followed up by trying to ensure it was free, that is shameful and unethical. (I suspect that deliberate deception also crosses legal lines.)

Liam wonders whether people have an ethical obligation to pay for things even though, like him, they were “schmoozed into making a commitment.” While schmoozing isn’t typically illegal, it can lead to misunderstandings, as it did in Liam’s case. While the company might have been able to dig in and hold Liam responsible, I believe the right thing for the company was to cancel the obligation after Liam received his first bill showing the cost he hadn’t anticipated since he believed he was told there would be no cost to the phone. Initially holding him to a two-week return policy when Liam had no reason to suspect he was being charged for something he understood to be free may be legal but it smacks of being unfair.

While Liam’s initial appeal went nowhere, he wrote to someone “higher up” who eventually agreed to render the phone useless and make an adjustment to future bills. But that higher-up felt the need to tell Liam that after listening to recordings of his conversation with the agent, he determined that while the agent told Liam the “service” was free for a year, he never said the phone itself was free. Nevertheless, the company did the right thing by canceling the obligation, and Liam should feel no obligation to pay up for something he never wanted in the first place.

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 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 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 reader be honest in unsolicited mail request?

Is it OK to use a gift offered to you in a direct mail campaign to do something if you have no intention of ever doing that thing?

Organizations regularly will mail potential donors appeal letters with a small gift as an encouragement to donate or take some other action. A nonprofit organization might, for example, send customized address labels or an inexpensive tote bag along with a letter requesting a donation.

In the distant past, some organizations would include a nickel or quarter along with the solicitation, though a query from a reader we’re calling Danica suggests that such incentives may have jumped in value.

Last November, Danica purchased a new car. In late February, she received a letter from a research company asking her to go online and respond to a survey about the new car she had purchased. A $1 bill was enclosed with the solicitation as a show of gratitude for taking the time to complete the online survey. In addition, the letter also indicated that she would be entered into a sweepstakes with others who completed the survey to win $100,000. The letter made clear that the “online survey should be completed by the primary driver” of the new vehicle.

Danica had two questions she didn’t find answered by responses to the frequently asked questions printed on the back of the letter she received. Rather than use the email provided on the letter to ask her questions, she decided to ask me.

Danica’s first question was whether it would be OK if she used the $1 even if she had no intention of taking the online survey. Given there was no mechanism provided to return the $1 bill if she didn’t take the survey and that Danica hadn’t requested the solicitation, I see no reason Danica should feel any guilt about using that $1 regardless of whether she completed the survey. If the company only wanted to pay $1 to those completing the survey, the right thing would have been to send the money after a survey had been completed.

The same is true of other gifts offered as a token of appreciation regardless of whether the recipient did what the sender requested of them. Better, I believe, to use those tote bags than to add them to a landfill.

The second question is whether she as the primary driver is really obligated to be the one to fill out the survey. If she plans to complete the survey, the honest and right thing would be to honor that request. If there are specific questions about the vehicle or the driving experience and Danica wants to consult with others who also drive it, that’s fair game. But if she indicates on the survey that she is the primary driver, then that should be the truth.

Danica didn’t lie to receive the $1 bill. She also shouldn’t lie to be entered into the $100,000 sweepstakes by misrepresenting herself on the survey. Not lying is generally 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 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 to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com. 

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin

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