Jeffrey L. Seglin's Blog, page 19

Seek the choice that gives you that peaceful easy feeling

 A lyric from The Eagles' song “The Best of My Love” has been running through my head this past week: “You see it your way, I see it mine, but we both see it slipping away.”

 

The words and melody were implanted like an earworm not because of a sudden desire to relive my freshman year in college, but because of several conversations I’ve had with readers or friends about ethical challenges they told me they were facing.

 

The conversations each started similarly. “I want to do the right thing here,” or a close variation, followed quickly by a description of a disagreement or challenging situation. Each of them was talking with me because I regularly write about how people grapple with making ethical choices, and I have some insight. Most of us have insight.

 

Whether the person asking for it finds it something they want to hear is a different thing.

 

When someone seeks advice on “doing the right thing” or making an ethical choice, all I can do is to help them think through the choice they are about to make. I can listen and offer them feedback on whether what they have done or plan to do seems fair to all parties involved. I can help them try to see how other stakeholders involved might be affected by their choices. I can do all sorts of things to help them try to make the best right choice they can make.

 

What I can’t do is to ensure that their decision to do what’s right will result in the outcome they desire. A business relationship might suffer if they choose to take a strong stand that runs counter to the desires of others in that business. A friendship might be strained. Ultimately, a choice might be made that strikes them as being morally abhorrent. No matter how ethically right someone is in making the choice they make, it is no guarantee that others will see the world the way they do.

 

This doesn’t mean that whoever they find themselves up against is immoral or unethical – at least not always. More often than not, it simply means that one person’s ethical choice is not the same as another’s. They simply disagree.

 

As I’ve mentioned in the column before, Joan Didion wrote in her 1965 essay, “The Insidious Ethic ofConscience,” that “when we start deceiving ourselves into thinking not that we want something or need something” but that it is a “moral imperative that we have it,” that is when “we join the fashionable madmen,” and that “is when we are in bad trouble.”

 

I will tell you the same things I tell those who seek advice: Choose to do the right thing not because it will result in you always getting your way and not because your righteousness will always win over others, but because ultimately having the integrity to think through a situation and to do what you believe to be right will help keep you from becoming the person you swore you never wanted to become. It just may give you that “peaceful easy feeling” The Eagles first sang about back when I was in high school — and now is another song I can’t get out of my head.

 

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) 2022 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

As mask mandates get lifted, honor others’ choices

 Like many other workers in the United States who returned to a physical workplace after spending more than a year working remotely, I faced a variety of pandemic-related guidelines. The subway system I use to commute to work required that I and other passengers wear masks upon entering the subway stations and while riding the subway. The city where my job is located had mask protocols in place for large gatherings. My employer required me to wear a mask whenever I was not alone in my office on campus and to test weekly to make sure I hadn’t been infected with any of the COVID-19 variants.

 

While the subway maintains its mask mandate, my employer has shifted the policy. We are still required to test weekly, but the wearing of masks while we teach is now optional. In other words, it is now up to me to decide if I want to wear a mask while I am in the classroom. The same is true for my colleagues and for our students.

 

The key word for me in the new policy is “optional.” That does not mean I am obligated not to wear a mask. It also does not mean I should belittle anyone else at work for whatever choice they make about mask-wearing. I have the responsibility to make certain that students in my classroom do not feel pressured to remove their masks nor to feel uncomfortable wearing them if they choose to do so.

 

In early March, when students filed in behind Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis at a political event, he had an opportunity to make the difference between a mandate and a choice clear. But as the students filed in behind him, DeSantis said: “You do not have to wear those masks. Please take them off. Honestly, it’s not doing anything. We’ve got to stop with this COVID theater.” Most of the students began to remove their masks. When a sitting governor chides you to do so and your fellow students comply, there’s certainly a pressure to comply.

 

To be fair to DeSantis, he continued, “So if you want to wear it, fine.” But he quickly added, “But this is ridiculous.”

 

All the words DeSantis needed to make a clear statement about individual choice were among those he used. If he had simply said, “If you want to wear it, fine, but you do not have to wear those masks” and left it at that, it would have sent a far different message than the one he sent (though he still likely would have risked the wrath of the children’s parents who might have liked to have been consulted).

 

People in a position of power and leadership have a responsibility to use that power wisely and for the good of the people they lead. Belittling is neither sound policy nor leadership. Neither is it an effective way to teach.

 

As we begin to return to some sense of normalcy, the right thing is to show respect for others’ choices. I will work hard to make my students feel comfortable in their decisions about wearing a mask in the classroom. How I teach has nothing to do with whether they wear a mask. I may, however, still chide them about showing up late to class.

 

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) 2022 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

How obligated is daughter-in-law after her father-in-law’s death?

 Not long ago, a reader’s father-in-law died. The reader, whom we’re calling Lakshmi, and her late husband lived close to the father-in-law and cared for him for many years before he died. Lakshmi’s husband had a sister we’re calling Paula, who lived far away. While Paula was regularly consulted about Lakshmi’s father-in-law’s care and finances, Paula had deferred to her brother on most decisions.

 

After her father-in-law’s death, Lakshmi remembered her father-in-law had a joint checking account with her husband that still had just over $300 in it when he died. Lakshmi’s name was put on the checking account after her husband had died, so she had access to the funds.

 

“I asked my sister-in-law what I should do with the money and she told me to keep it to use in case there were any unexpected costs like shipping her some of her father’s belongings,” wrote Lakshmi. Lakshmi did use some of the money to send Paula some photo albums and other mementos.

 

Lakshmi also took care of most of the funeral arrangements for her father-in-law and organized the memorial service for him since she was local. Paula was not and would have to fly in for the service.

 

But Lakshmi discovered that several hundred more dollars showed up in her late father-in-law’s account recently, which was technically now her account since she was the only living survivor of the joint account holders. Apparently, a refund of one kind or another was directly deposited.

 

“It’s not a lot of money,” Lakshmi wrote. “But it is more than what the amount was when I first told Paula about the account.”

 

Lakshmi wants to know if she should bother telling Paula about these new funds or if she should just assume she should follow Paula’s directive to keep the money and use it for incidentals related to her father-in-law’s death.

 

Losing a parent as Paula had has to have been tough. Losing both a husband and a father-in-law as Lakshmi had while having to arrange for memorial services and sort out finances must have been tough and consuming. I’m hopeful Paula knowing that Lakshmi was nearby during her father’s final days was a comfort to her.

 

I am not an estate lawyer and do not know the specifics of Lakshmi’s father-in-law’s will or if he even had one. But even if Lakshmi suspects she knows what Paula’s response would be, the right thing is for Lakshmi to let Paula know about the money and ask her what she’d like to do with it.

 

Letting Paula know isn’t the right thing to do simply to avoid a potential confrontation if she were to find out later and wonder why she hadn’t been told. It’s the right thing to do because it was Paula’s father, and Lakshmi and her late husband before her had always involved Paula in such decisions. Honoring that arrangement also honors the memories of the loved ones they lost. May their memories continue to be a blessing.

 

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) 2022 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Should I help Ukrainians when a nonprofit’s values don’t match my own?

A reader we’re calling Grace has written to ask if she’s being too judgmental in response to a friend’s mass email encouraging friends to donate to efforts to help the people of Ukraine as they face the Russian invasion.

 

“Is it wrong for me not to want to contribute to a nonprofit that by all reports does good work, but also has a history of vocally disapproving of same-sex marriage or adoptions?” wrote Grace.

 

Grace writes that she knows her friend does approve of same-sex marriages and adoptions. But she wonders why the friend is promoting an agency that is known to be against such things.

 

“I want to help,” wrote Grace. “But not through this agency.”

 

Grace wanted to know if in addition to not making a contribution whether she should let her friend know why.

 

Stephen Carter, in his book Integrity (Basic Books, 1996), lays out three steps that are essential to integrity. The first is discernment, the second is to act on what you discern, and the third is to state openly what you have done and why you have done it. Grace has achieved Carter’s first two steps. She has discerned why she doesn’t want to support this agency and she has acted on that discernment. The third act would indeed require that she say something to her friend.

 

In following up with Grace, I learned that she did say something to her friend. Grace was relieved that her friend did not seem to take offense or to sense Grace was passing judgment on her. Her friend explained she felt it was urgent to take some action to support the people of Ukraine and that nonprofit had a strong history of getting donated funds to intended recipients.

 

Grace did the right thing, but she was left truly wanting to help the people of Ukraine as well. She chose to donate $108 to the International Rescue Committee, whose reputation was strong for the work it was doing in Poland to help displaced families with supplies they needed.

 

But there are many ways to support Ukrainian families and any number of agencies that do so. Chef José Andrés’ World Central Kitchen, for example, is on the ground in Ukraine working with local restaurants to supply meals to Ukrainian families. And some have found ways to donate directly to Ukrainians by booking rooms through platforms like AirBnbthat they never intend to occupy. “A small and nice way to help Ukraine,” wrotemy friend Yael Bar tur on Twitter who had booked a room in Ukraine, “and I got a nice message from my host this morning.”

 

Grace was smart to do due diligence on a nonprofit to make sure her values aligned with its values. But she went further to do the right thing by not stopping there, but instead finding a way to help when the need for help is urgent.

 

When many are in need and many have a desire to help, the right thing is not to get stuck on the many reasons not to donate, but instead to find a way to help. Grace did that. So did Grace’s friend. And so can the rest of us if we are so inclined.

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) 2022 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Am I my neighbor’s snow remover?

Boston residents can be tenacious when it comes to snow. Try moving someone’s space saver — often a safety cone, but just as often an old lawn chair or kitchen chair — after they’ve cleared a parking space in South Boston and all havoc can break loose. It got so contentious over the past years that the city now warns residents that space savers must be removed within 48 hours after a snow emergency has ended.

The city is even tougher about homeowners clearing the sidewalks around their houses. Snow must be cleared from the sidewalks within three hours after snow has stopped falling. Fines can range from $50 to $150 per day for each day snow is not removed.

A reader we’re calling Khione who is a long-time Boston resident is familiar with the city’s snow fines. She also writes that she’s familiar with the fines the city imposes for allowing weeds from your yard to creep over into the street, but that’s a different season. Khione wrote to ask what the right thing to do was when she knew a neighbor who owns a home a couple of houses down was out of state for a family funeral and wasn’t likely to return in time to clear snow off her walk in the requisite time permitted.

“She knew the snow was coming,” Khione writes. “And she let me know that she had hired someone to clear the walk in front of her house for her.”

After the snow fell, Khione cleared her own walks, but noticed her neighbor’s walk remained uncleared. Figuring the person the neighbor hired might have several houses to clear out, Khione retired to her living room with a book and a nice cup of tea.

“The next morning, I looked out and saw that her walk still wasn’t clear,” wrote Khione. “She had paid someone to do the work, but it clearly wasn’t getting done. Should I feel obligated to clear the walk for her since I know she can’t do it herself?”

Obligated? Absolutely not. Khione is obligated to clear her own walk, which she did. Her neighbor is obligated to make sure her own walk gets cleared if she wants to avoid a possible fine.

But there are times when choosing to do something only because we are obligated to do it doesn’t sit right. It just doesn’t feel like enough. Sure, no one will fine Khione if her neighbor’s walk isn’t cleared. But if Khione cares about her neighbor, knows she is out of town for a family funeral and also believes the neighbor’s claim of having tried to meet her clearing obligations, it would be kind to take the time to clear her walk for her.

Khione doesn’t have to clear her neighbor’s walk. She doesn’t have to be concerned that her neighbor might get a fine. But if she cares about her neighbor and wants to make the walks clear enough for everyone in the neighborhood to pass, then the right thing is to grab her shovel and clear her neighbor’s walk. I’m not suggesting the tea might taste even better for having done a neighbor a favor, but her book and tea will be waiting for her after she is done.

 Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics.

Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com.

©2022 Jeffrey L. Seglin. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC

As mask mandates lift, what's a high school student to do?

As mask mandates begin to ease around the country, some readers are celebrating while others remain wary of being among large crowds if masks are not being worn.

“Our mask mandate just got dropped, so it’s up to personal choice now,” a high school senior wrote me recently. She tells me that if she were to go to any school event she would still choose to wear a mask. “Not a lot of people are talking about it,” she wrote.

They should be talking about it, and school administrators should be facilitating the conversations. High school is a particularly perilous time when it comes to wanting to fit in. Worrying about whether wearing a mask to an event risks appearing uncool should not be a factor in deciding what’s best for your own health and peace of mind.

It is also natural to want to be free of the masks and other restrictions faced over the past couple of years. We may be done with the idea of being cautious, but COVID is still out there. It remains a concern particularly for the most vulnerable among us.

One challenge we face as we move from treating the pandemic as one requiring public health mandates to ensure everyone’s safety is to acknowledge it is not as pervasive but is still affecting us. We may be ready to move on, but COVID may not be ready just yet to move on completely.

The shift will likely be gradual and complicated. In some college classrooms, for example, even if the college would like to drop the mask requirement, professors might be allowed to teach without wearing a mask while students must still wear them to adhere to municipal regulations. Those same regulations might require the maskless professor to remain several feet away from students at all times.

But what’s a high school student, or anyone else for that matter, to do when they are desperate to start attending public events again, but want to go only if everyone will be masked? They can certainly continue to wear a mask. But can they insist that others do?

Of course not. They can try to insist, but it may remain up to individual choice.

My high school reader could canvass her friends to see whether they plan to continue to wear masks to dances, concerts, or sporting events, but that will not guarantee that everyone at these events is masked.

Rather than simply lift the mask mandate for public events, my reader’s high school administrators should take the time to provide some guidance to students to help them decide. Such guidance may not be heeded, but it’s the right thing to do.

Ultimately, it’s the student’s decision. If she is uncomfortable about being at large events where people are unmasked, she should not go. And she should never feel pressure to not wear a mask out of fear of appearing uncool. That she is wrestling with the decision out of concern about her and others’ health is cool enough.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com.

©2022 Jeffrey L. Seglin. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Is it ever too late to apologize?

The first time a portion of an article I wrote for publication was censored was when I was 13-years-old by the faculty adviser of the John Hill junior high school newspaper “The Jaguar,” in Jan. 1970. That issue of the newspaper was 28 pages long. We ran copies of it off on a mimeograph next to containers of civil defense fallout shelter supplies in a closet on the basement floor.

The topic of my article was hardly controversial. I was reporting the results of the school’s annual talent show. I cited the names of the judges, the lighting crew, and the names of the third-, second- and first-place winners. For the third- and second-place winners, the details of their performances were specific. But for the first place-winner, the reporting was inconsistent. There was a two-way tie for first place. One was a performance of “Beethoven’s Piano Sonata, Opus 27, No. 1, movement two.” That tied with a performance by five students and is simply listed as a “song and dance routine.”

I remember that routine vividly and had even talked about it with my classmate Lloyd Wisdom about six years ago after we’d reconnected on social media. James Brown’s “Say It Loud — I’m Black and I’m Proud” began playing over the speakers in the auditorium as Lloyd and four other African American classmates walked in, in unison. As Brown sang out “Say It Loud,” Lloyd and company raised their gloved fists in the air and shouted, “I’m Black and I’m Proud.” The five classmates stepped loudly and made their way up the middle aisle and to the stage and then exited similarly as the song came to an end. I recall there being wild applause, although Lloyd told me he didn’t remember the applause being as wild as I’d remembered.

It wasn’t until I received a package from an old friend a few weeks ago that I remembered that the title of Brown’s song was edited from my article. My friend’s aunt had collected the newspaper and many other artifacts from our childhood. He received the newspaper after she’d died and thought I would like to have it.

I don’t remember how hard I argued to keep the title of the song in the article. I remember the faculty adviser as sometimes being harsh and once accusing me of plagiarism before confirming that I had indeed interviewed the Town of Boonton’s postmaster, but neither is an excuse for not having fought harder. Lloyd’s and his fellow performers’ names were in the article, and all of the students at the school knew what the performance had been. That too was not enough reason for not having fought harder.

It’s 52 years too late to right a wrong, but it’s never too late for an apology. Sadly, Lloyd died unexpectedly last August, shortly after we talked about baseball and the woeful record of his beloved Baltimore Orioles. Another classmate who performed with Lloyd at our junior high talent show was in touch about 10 years ago, and we caught up then. We’re more than overdue to catch up again. It seems as if the right thing would be to apologize for not fighting harder 52 years ago.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com.

©2022 Jeffrey L. Seglin. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Are you responsible for returning something you never asked for in the first place?

As a side hustle a reader we’re calling Frida started to pick up some work through one of the many companies online that hire people on a job-by-job basis to do tasks. Whether it was serving as a mathematics tutor or mental health counselor or delivering a restaurant’s food orders or fulfilling a handyperson’s task is not critical to the story. What’s important is that Frida took on the work and after several months of doing it was enjoying both the work and the steady income from it.

After about six months of working with the company and receiving regular direct deposits into her checking account for the work done, Frida got a message from the company management that a bonus of $1,000 was being deposited into her account because she had referred several new employees to the company. Frida checked and the money had indeed been deposited into her checking account.

Frida was thrilled to receive the cash, but she was puzzled. She hadn’t recommended to any of her friends that they sign up to work with the company. She figured maybe she was being rewarded for some other milestone and continue to do the work as it came her way.

“About two weeks later I got an email telling me it was an error,” wrote Frida. Apparently, the bonus had been wrongly assigned to several workers. “They apologized and asked me to email them $900, but to keep the remaining $100 as a sign of how sorry they were about the error.”

Frida plans to return the $900 because she wants to continue working with the company, she wrote. But she wonders if she really ought to be expected to return something she didn’t ask for in the first place. “Wouldn’t it have been OK for me to keep the full thousand and suggest they be more careful next time?” she asked. “Shouldn’t they let me keep it as a sign of how much they value me as an employee? After all, it wasn’t my error.”

I’ve received similar questions before. A reader receives too much money from an ATM or a bank erroneously deposits too much in his account. A checker at a grocery store returns too much change to a shopper. A large online retailer sends a reader a box of books and garden tools she never ordered. “What’s the right thing to do?” is always the question.

The right thing when you get something to which you are not entitled or you didn’t earn or didn’t purchase is to try to correct the errors. I’m not a legal expert so I don’t know the penalty for keeping money banks may have erroneously given, but regardless of the law, the right thing is to point out the error and return it. Same goes at the grocery store and the online retailer. In some cases, the online retailer may tell the customer to keep the goods since the cost of shipping and returns doesn’t make it worth their while to have them sent back.

Frida made a good choice by returning the money when she was alerted to the error. That she’s $100 richer in the process is a pleasant side benefit of doing the right thing.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com.

©2022 Jeffrey L. Seglin. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

What's your take on Bonds and the Hall of Fame?

“What is your take on Bonds and the Hall of Fame?”

The text arrived shortly before the results were announced of the voting this year by sports writers on who would be elected in Major League Baseball’s (MLB) Hall of Fame. Barry Bonds, a former San Francisco Giants player who certainly racked up Hall of Fame statistics over the course of his career, was in his final year of eligibility to be voted in. Looming questions about his alleged use of performance-enhancing drugs to improve his abilities on the field and at the plate kept him from reaching the 75% threshold of votes he needed to gain entrance.

“Is this a trick question?” I responded.

The text came from my college mentor and friend, Larry Grimes. Larry officiated my marriage to the woman I’d eat bees for. A Hemingway scholar, he is a regular guest at our house in Boston, which is a few blocks from the Kennedy Library, where Ernest Hemingway’s papers are housed. We have been regular guests at his home in Bethany, West Virginia, and now Colorado, where he’s retired. We celebrated the publication of his latest book of poetry, Upon a Slender Stalk. But I can’t recall us ever talking baseball.

Nevertheless, I tried to respond.

“MLB makes this challenging since it has been inconsistent over the years,” I texted. “There are players in the Hall who likely used performance-enhancing drugs before their ban. My take is that sports writers who vote are acting ethically if they clearly ignore use of performance-enhancing drugs for all eligible players or consistently factor use of such drugs in to every choice.”

Larry thought this was “good wisdom,” observing that sports writers are trying to pilot a ship without a rudder since there has been no single rule on which they can all make a decision. “Whatever the conclusion, I think the rudderless ship will smash on the rocks,” he texted.

My take was that even if sports writers or ballplayers made bad decisions and were aware they’ve made bad decisions, that was a form of ethical decision-making. They weighed the right and wrong and made the choice.

Larry was quick to respond that such thinking is akin to what theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer called “cheap grace” in his book “The Cost of Discipleship.” It’s a version, Larry observed of Hemingway’s shoddy definition of morality in “Death in the Afternoon,” where he writes, “…what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after…”

“It’s a code of the gut,” Larry texted. “But a code.”

I’m with Dietrich and Larry on this. Leaving the question of ethics to the sports writer without any guidance from the governing body of the sport results in inconsistencies. The right thing strikes me that if MLB doesn’t weigh in with guidelines, then the Hall of Fame or the sports writers themselves should establish guidelines for judgment rather than leaving it to each voter to make up their own.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net.
©2022 Jeffrey L. Seglin. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Should I order a free at-home Covid test?

Is it OK to order something offered for free if you're not sure you'll use it yourself?

Here's why I ask. On Wednesday, Jan. 19, the U.S. government launched a website (https://www.covidtests.gov/) and toll-free telephone number (1-800-232-0233, TTY 1-888-720-7489) from which U.S. residents could order four free at-home rapid COVID test kits. Each household address was limited to receiving the four free tests, which would ship from the United States Postal Service (USPS) seven to 12 days after they were ordered.

The announcement came as welcome news for many people, particularly after an increase in COVID cases at the end of last year, when at-home test kits at local pharmacies sold out quickly and ran about $20 for two at-home tests. If people wanted to spend time with family or others over the holidays but wanted to take the precaution of doing an at-home test first, it was not always a given they could find a test kit to use.

The website is simple enough to use. "Order your tests now so you have them when you need them" greets visitors to the site's homepage. Then, with a click on the "order free at-home tests" link, users are taken to a USPS site and simply fill out their shipping information.

Not long after news of the free at-home test kits went out, I began to receive questions from readers. Some wanted to know whether it was wrong to order the free test kits if they weren't sure they'd be using them since they rarely left their house. Others who owned a second house wondered whether it would be wrong to order a second set of kits to be sent there. Still others wondered whether there was something untoward about taking advantage of the free offer when they could afford to buy test kits and so far had managed not to have any trouble finding them on the shelves of their local pharmacies.

My short answer to each of these variants of the question is: Order the tests.

Take to heart that message on the https://www.covidtests.gov/ homepage to "order your tests now so you have them when you need them." You might not plan to leave your home, but plans have a way of changing and you don't know now whether you might need to invite someone else into your home to fix something like a leaky cast-iron drain pipe behind your kitchen cabinets. Ordering for both homes you own might seem inappropriate, but what if you are at that other home where your free test kits aren't when you might need to take them? If you can afford to buy a test kit, go ahead and order the free ones to use as back up or to have on hand if a neighbor or family member is in need and doesn't have any kits available.

The right thing is to decide how you want to keep yourself and others safe. If that involves having an at-home test kit on hand, go to the website or call the toll-free number and place an order today with no guilt whatsoever.

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) 2022 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.