Jeffrey L. Seglin's Blog, page 21

Please don't block the bicycle lane

Most every morning on my trip to work, rather than get off at the subway stop about four blocks from my office, I get off at the stop about two miles away and walk from there. I do the same thing in reverse in the evening when I leave work. Walking those couple of miles at the beginning and the end of the day helps me to clear my head. It’s an enjoyable walk through several neighborhoods.

The walk in the morning is generally quieter. There’s the silver food truck set up every morning by 6 a.m. to sell coffee and breakfast sandwiches to the contractors working on some major building projects. Lots of people in medical scrubs are heading off to a morning shift or heading home after a night shift. In the evening, there’s much more activity. After 7 p.m., restaurant diners are sitting at outside tables if the weather permits. The sidewalks are packed with people heading home or heading out for the evening.

One particular site caught me by surprise on a walk home a few days ago. A car was double parked in the bicycle lane of a busy main street, covering half of the bike lane. The driver was nowhere in sight, but there was an older woman in the passenger seat and some kids in car seats in the back. Given the substantial bicycle traffic in the evening, double parking was clearly thoughtless, annoying, and illegal. The unexpected event was when a cyclist, a well-dressed man with a gray goatee in what looked to be his early 50s, saw the double-parked car, turned his head to it and spit at the car’s window as he passed. He then pedaled on up the road.

My first thought was: “Really? Is this how we respond to inconveniences now? By spitting at them?” Granted, the car parker was wrong, but there was still plenty of bicycle lane in which to pass. My second thought was to wonder if this was yet another indication of who we are, a nation of spitters at the things we don’t like.

But on the rest of the walk, I also saw people in a local church hand a bag of food to someone on the front steps. I saw someone else help a distraught stranger navigate his way into parallel parking into a tight spot. There was a guy taking some books out of a canvas bag and placing them onto a shelf in one of those tiny free libraries. And I remembered that earlier in the day, I received an email from security at work letting me know that a cafeteria worker had turned in my wallet which had apparently fallen out of my pocket.

A pessimist might witness the spitter and let that define his view of the world. An optimist might see those other things and more like them that happen daily and have that determine his worldview. I prefer to believe that there is a healthy blend of good and bad behavior surrounding us daily and the right thing is to do our best to act out of kindness with grace even when we feel like spitting. But please don’t block the bicycle lanes.

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) 2021 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Should I battle my fears of speaking up at meetings?

One of my more accomplished colleagues at work told me the other day that after decades on the job she still feels reluctant to speak up at meetings to offer suggestions because she’s afraid others might find her ideas to be stupid. What seems to irk her most is that invariably someone else will pipe up with the same idea she held back offering and be met with praise.

My colleague, whom I’m calling Zuzu, has no trouble speaking truth to anyone around if they do good work or violate company policy. She also has no trouble making a decision when she’s left alone to do so. It’s just when offering new ideas in a larger group of people trying to solve an issue that she finds herself clamming up out of some fear of embarrassment.

Zuzu wonders if she is doing more damage to her own reputation and to the success of the groups she’s in if she continues to hold back. Or, given her insecurity, is holding back the sensible thing to do.

Zuzu’s predicament is not unusual. Many of us are reluctant to offer ideas in group settings, particularly when there are one or two others in the group who seem to dominate the discussion. Often we hold off saying anything because we share Zuzu’s fear of saying something that will embarrass us and cause the rest of the group to think we’re not as bright or insightful as we’d like to think we are. Sometimes we don’t talk because there are just some unproductive meetings that we pray will come to an end and we try to avoid saying anything that will prolong them.

With increasing frequency some students are expressing concerns that they are facing an impostor syndrome where they believe it will become apparent to someone soon that they have no business having been accepted into school and are surrounded by fellow students who know far more than they do.

Managing insecurity can be challenging. It can also be crippling if it’s allowed to shut a person down from engaging in anything.

That’s not the case with Zuzu. She engages. She gets things done. And she loathes large meetings for the insecurity they bring upon her.

The right thing for Zuzu and others who share meeting participation anxiety to do is to remember a few things. First, you’re at the meeting for a reason. Presumably something about your past accomplishments or your current insights got you invited. Second, the flip side of possibly saying something perceived to be stupid is that it could be perceived to be spot on and perfect for the moment. If you don’t say it, then either someone else might or it will go unsaid and a possibly good idea would never see the light of day.

It’s no simple task to overcome anxieties. It’s challenging to speak when you’re afraid to sound stupid. But if you are at the meeting and you have something to contribute, you should fight the urge to hold back and go head and contribute. Just don’t talk too much or the meeting will go on forever.

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) 2021 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Is it wrong for a store to keep the change because of its policy?

Is it OK for a merchant not to return change to a customer by claiming: “We don’t do change?” And chalking it up to a coin shortage.

There’s a growing perception that there is a “coin shortage” in the United States. But the Federal Reserve assures people that there’s no shortage, but instead a problem with the circulation of coins. In other words, the coins are out there, but apparently they are just not getting into the hands of merchants seeking to make change for a customers’ purchases.

Whether it’s a shortage or a problem, is it OK for a merchant to expect customers to use a credit card or use exact change if they pay in cash, or forego their change if they don’t do either?

Recently, a neighborhood social media site in the Northeast lit up after a user posted about his experience at a local package store, which is a euphemism for a liquor stores still used in some parts of the country. The poster was incensed after his purchase of wine was rung up and the cashier bagged it and said, “Thanks, you’re all set.” When pressed, the cashier explained the store doesn’t do change because of the “coin shortage.” The poster was incensed and expressed dissatisfaction to the cashier. She left and told her spouse about what happened. The spouse returned to the store later that week, had words with the owner who ultimately gave him the change along with a snarky comment about being sorry for all the pennies he had been shorted over the years.

What’s the right thing here? Is it right for the customer to expect change on a cash purchase? Or is it OK for a merchant to enact a no-change policy?

As might be expected, the responders to the post had all sorts of suggestions about how to get back at the merchant: Pay entirely in pennies! Pay just short of what’s owed and tell them you’ll give them the rest when the shortage is over! Others scolded the poster for whining about being shorted a few cents. Another suggested the poster do something positive like suggesting the merchant start an extra change plate so customers can take what they need and leave what they want for others to use.

Lawyers will likely have an opinion on the legality of not providing change, but as I’ve written many times, I am neither a lawyer nor a psychotherapist nor a neighborhood website administrator.

The right thing if the merchant truly is having an issue getting hold of enough available change is to post clearly that the store has an exact change policy. The cashier should be instructed to repeat that policy before an order is rung up if for some reason the customers don’t see the postings. Customers can then decide if they want to make the purchase or not. But all of this should happen before the purchase is made, not after.

Customers don’t have to like the policy. But then they don’t have to continue shopping at any store where exact change is required if they don’t want to.

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) 2021 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Is it ok to report a neighbor anonymously?

Should we report our neighbors who violate city-mandated bans on watering our yards?

I’ve received variations on that question over the years as various parts of the country face water shortages and try to limit water usage. About a year ago a reader wondered if the town was responsible for following up on such mandates by citing residents who violated the ban. My answer was “yes.” If a municipality wants a ban to have real effect, it should enforce the ban. Otherwise, it should simply issue an advisory and leave it up to residents to decide whether to be compliant.

More recently, an email arrived from a reader we’re calling Barry. Barry lives in northern California where he writes that they are under a strict rule imposed by the city to conserve water. These rules include “no waste in irrigating our yards,” Barry writes. “Well, one of our neighbors is just ignoring this dictate and there is water covering the sidewalk and going down the storm drains almost every morning.”

Barry wants to report his neighbor to the city but doesn’t want to attach his name to the complaint.

“Should I ask the city to allow anonymous tips?” Barry asks. “I don’t want to cause trouble, I just want all of us who do conserve water to get a fair shake from those who waste it.”

Barry’s desire that all of his neighbors adhere to the watering ban seems valid. The goal of conserving water during a drought might be a bit of a better reason than making sure that if Barry has to do it everyone should, but a desire for fairness doesn’t seem a bad motivation either.

In many cases, I’m not a huge fan of anonymity, but there are times when it seems perfectly acceptable. If Barry’s neighbor is indeed violating the terms of the lawn-watering ban, it seems fine for him to want to have the town address the issue without attaching his name to the complaint. Ideally, the town would monitor neighborhoods to ensure residents are complying, but that doesn’t seem to be happening, likely because the town doesn’t have the resources to do so.

In Boston, we have access to a 311 app that allows residents to report everything from missed trash pickup and potholes to cars blocking driveways and sloppy snow removal. The 311 app allows a user to check off “anonymous” as an option.

If Barry’s hometown doesn’t have a similar app, it seems reasonable for him to call either town hall or the water department to inquire whether it is possible to make an anonymous report about someone appearing to violate the lawn-watering ban. If town officials are serious about the efforts to conserve water, they should follow-up on all such reports, even if they are anonymous.

The right thing, of course, is for Barry’s neighbor to adhere to the town ordinance unless it turns out that he has a private well he’s using that isn’t covered by the town’s regulation. If the neighbor isn’t doing the right thing, then Barry has every right to alert the authorities.

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) 2021 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Are there some books we shouldn't sell?

What “ethical requirements” do retailers and resellers have when it comes to what they sell?

That’s the question a reader I’m calling Nell asked me recently for a particularly personal reason.

Nell is a longtime bookseller. At her bookstore job, she tells me she has no trouble stocking and selling books like Mein Kampf by Adolph Hitler. Or, she writes, “carrying books that sincerely claim the Earth is flat.” She figures that there are any number of reasons a person might want to read this kind of book.

But as a side hustle, with the full knowledge of her bookstore’s owner, she sells used books online. Recently, at a thrift store, she found a used copy of an autobiography by a racist military man who, among other things, “bragged about his military death count.” She paid $1 for the book. Nell discovered that the author died decades ago, his book is now out of print, and it often commands about $100 when it appears.

“I wouldn’t have a huge problem selling his autobiography for the $100 it sells for used,” she write, “because…there could be any number of reasons someone would buy it.”

But Nell notes that the copy she found was signed by the author. She figures that signature would more than double the price it might sell for.

“Is it ethical for me to profit from the resale of this book?” she asks. She points out that she didn’t publish it and just “found a copy in the wild.” The website she uses allows her to send a portion of the sale price to a charity. If she were to sell this book she indicates she would give a percentage of the sales price to a local food bank.

“But I find myself uneasy about this distasteful book and wonder if it would be more ethical to destroy it, since any buyer who would pay double would likely be buying the book largely for the prestige of the author’s signature.”

Whenever questions like this arrive, I am reminded of Isaac Bashevis Singer’s Enemies, a Love Story where a Polish peasant who survived the Holocaust is shocked to discover there are books being written about Hitler and asks: “They write books about such swine?”

They do and still do and Nell has already worked through the pros and cons of selling such items both at the bookstore where she works and in her online store. She is correct that there could be many reasons someone would want to buy such a book. Nell doesn’t screen her customers to find out what reason they have for buying books from her. That the book she found at the thrift store happens to be signed and might garner more money than an unsigned book doesn’t change her calculation that she has no idea why someone would want to buy any particular book.

The right thing is to decide if she is indeed as fine as she says she is about selling any book to any person who might want to buy it. If she determines that she isn’t, then that would require her to rethink what she’s willing to sell. If she holds to her belief that she has no problem selling such books, she should go ahead and sell 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) 2021 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

When it's important to call others out on comments

Is it always OK not to say when you are thinking when someone is talking to you?

In a conversation with a reader we’re calling Tim, the topic of how to keep from prolonging conversations you don’t particularly want to be having came up. Tim was asking if it had been wrong when speaking with an old friend on the telephone that he found himself really wanting the conversation to end. Instead of reacting fully to anything the friend was saying, Tim would simply utter, “Oh” or “Yup” or “OK.” Fearing that if he said anything more substantial it would prolong the phone call, Tim chose not to and, as he had hoped, he was able to extract himself from the call in relative short order.

I told Tim that there was nothing wrong with the impulse he had. While it might have been more direct for Tim to simply tell his friend he needed to get off the phone, I can understand that Tim didn’t want to appear rude.

As chance would have it, I told Tim that I had found myself in a similar situation recently. An old acquaintance I hadn’t heard from in years and really don’t know well, called my office phone that doesn’t ring all that often. After it became clear that the caller wanted to gripe about a shared acquaintance and seemed mostly to want me to agree with his take, I found myself simply wanting to get off the call. (The thought crossed my mind that I could be home having a nice piece of fish.) I neither agreed or disagreed with him, hoping the conversation would end. Eventually, I politely told him I had to go which happened to be the truth.

But in the course of the conversation, the caller made a comment that struck me as racist followed with the sentence: “And you know I’m the least racist person you know.”

His response reinforced for me that there are times that it’s not always OK to ignore what someone is saying simply because you would rather be doing something else.

Generally, if you find yourself having to follow-up a statement you make with a comment that you are not saying something racist or that you are not a racist, it’s a good signal that what you just said is indeed likely racist and that by virtue of the fact that you called attention to it in that manner you know perfectly well that what you just said was racist.

I did respond by telling the old acquaintance precisely that. He did not try to defend his comment and we moved on, but he knew where I stood. The conversation ended shortly after.

There are times when such incidents arise and I regret afterward when I don’t find an opportunity or the courage to call people out. But the right thing is to confront people when they say something to you that is so objectionable that to let it stand might be perceived as condoning the sentiment. And because calling racists out on racist comments or behavior 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) 2021 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Stop spreading the fake news

In Greek mythology, Sisyphus, the king of Ephyra, twice was able to cheat death. But as his punishment he was sentenced for eternity to roll a large boulder up a hill only to have it roll back down the hill as he reached the top. Fighting off those who continue to insist on spreading fake news among friends and family on social media and via email seems downright Sisyphean.

I’m not talking about the spread of fake news on broadcast media, though that continues to abound at a damaging pace. I’m talking about the memes and emails and assorted bric-a-brac littering our feeds and inboxes with regularity. The Sisyphean aspect is that often when it seems like the fakeness of an item has been beaten down, it thrusts its way back.

I won’t repeat the details of the email I just received from an old friend who was forwarding it on from someone who likely had already sent it on to dozens of others. Suffice it to say, it included references to a former presidential candidate, a billionaire philanthropist, and a handful of other regular victims of malicious fakery. What’s more, it’s almost word for word the same text that made the rounds about a year ago that was decidedly debunked by a Reuters Fact Check team.

The email sender regularly forwards emails he receives that he finds funny or interesting or provocative. He never includes a note. Just forwarded stuff that occasionally is distasteful or just an annoying spread of fake facts. If he posted it to social media, the site might flag it. When it’s spread as email, it’s up to the recipients to decide first whether to read it, second whether to believe it, third whether to check it out, and finally whether to call him on the bunk he is spreading with abandon. It’s the last of these steps I’m concerned with here. What’s the best response, if any, after receiving emails such as these?

It would take the least amount of work to simply ignore the message. Granted even if I respond by calling out the fakery, it’s unclear if that would stop him from continuing to spread it around. But doing nothing in response seems wrong. Taking the stance that my one email can’t fix the larger problem is like deciding to throw your hands up at making any small effort to do the right thing when you know your actions are unlikely to provide an immediate fix.

Does it really take that much time to call people on their spreading of fake news? After receiving the email, it took less than a minute to copy and paste it into an internet search and find the Reuters article debunking it. It took even less time than to respond with a link to the article and the sentence: “What you sent is factually incorrect.”

In spite of it feeling like that fabricated boulder is going to come rolling right back at me at some point, the right thing is to embrace the concept of doing the right thing even when it feels Sisyphean to do so.

And to my emailing friend: Knock it off. That goes for my readers’ fake-news-spreading friends too. Just tell them to knock it off.

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) 2021 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Should a candidate's funding affect my vote?

“Should you vote for a candidate who has big money backing her and might be able to get things done even though you don’t agree with everything on her platform?” asks a reader from Boston we’re calling Polly.

Polly emailed me shortly after Boston’s mayoral primary election in which voters were charged with narrowing the field of five candidates to two. After the votes were counted, Michelle Wu and Anissa Essaibi George were the top vote-getters who will face off in November to become Boston’s first elected woman mayor. Kim Janey was Boston’s first woman mayor, but she wasn’t elected to the position. She assumed the seat vacated by Marty Walsh when he was picked as Labor Secretary by President Joe Biden.

It’s neither my place nor my job to tell someone how to vote. I do have strong feelings, however, that everyone who is eligible to vote should vote. Too often elections are decided by embarrassingly low turnouts. In the mayoral primary election in Boston, one in which an incumbent wasn’t running, only 24.58% of eligible voters, 107,592 people, showed up. The city had set up early voting polling stations and permitted mail-in voting to enable those who couldn’t get to the polls on a Tuesday to vote at their convenience. Still, few showed up to help decide who would run their city and affect their day-to-day lives for the next several years. Voters show up a bit better during presidential elections. In 2020, almost two-thirds of eligible voters voted. Still, one-third of eligible voters decided not to.

But Polly asks an interesting question. Increasingly if the thinking is that a politician needs substantial financial backing to get anything done, does it make sense to go with the better funded candidate over the one you truly would like to see hold office? Some, of course, depends on what things Polly doesn’t agree with on the better-funded candidate’s platform. If Polly is adamantly opposed to some views or policy proposals, whether that candidate has more money backing her shouldn’t sway her vote.

Some of Polly’s question, however, points to a distinction between running for an office and governing once in office. Granted, the shift from campaigning to governing might often seem not to happen when some politicians increasingly are in full campaign mode even while holding office. But the money behind a candidate’s campaign does not necessarily translate into that candidate being more likely to get things done once she is elected.

A lack of funding might lessen a candidate’s ability to get word out about her campaign or to build a strong campaign staff. Whether one candidate is better funded than another doesn’t change how strongly that candidate’s views align with Polly or other voters.

The right thing is for Polly to decide which candidate she believes can do the best job in office, fight for the same issues Polly holds dear, and seems best to represent the values Polly finds important. Then, even more importantly, Polly should show up to vote in November, and so should the rest of the eligible voters in her city.

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) 2021 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Can I ask if my medical professional has been vaccinated?

Is it OK to ask if a medical service provider’s staff has been vaccinated before making an appointment for an office visit?

Five months ago, a reader we’re calling Keith visited his dentist for the first time in a year. He had skipped his regular six-month teeth cleaning because of the pandemic, but after he received his second dose of the COVID vaccine, he felt more comfortable going to his dentist’s office. The receptionist made clear that face masks had to be worn at all times except when the patient was in the dentist’s chair. Keith was all set to go.

Keith had been working remotely and, aside from his immediate family and customers and clerks who happened to be at the grocery store when he was, he hadn’t been in close physical contact with other people. He was a bit nervous about going to the dentist. Nevertheless, he persisted.

When he arrived, he was somewhat reassured that the dentist’s staff had taken precautions to try to make the office as safe as possible for everyone. Partitions had been installed in front of the receptionist. Hand sanitizer was available on the front desk. Chairs in the waiting area were widely set apart. Everyone was wearing a mask.

The dentist greeted Keith and they caught up a bit on both his dental health and their respective families. The dental hygienist was setting up to begin the exam and teeth cleaning.

Keith knew the hygienist from previous visits. As is their custom, they chatted while she worked. She did most of the chatting because Keith’s mouth was occupied with a dental pick or a motorized toothbrush.

The topic of vaccinations came up. Keith had become eligible to receive his fairly late in his state’s rollout based on age. He knew the hygienist was younger than he is so he assumed she’d been eligible well before him, which she confirmed she had.

But, she said, she still hadn’t gone to receive the vaccination.

“Why not?” Keith said he asked.

“I’m too nervous,” she replied.

Keith was surprised and a bit disappointed to learn that his hygienist had not been vaccinated and no one had told him as much when he made his appointment. Granted, he didn’t ask if everyone had been vaccinated. “But it’s a medical office,” he wrote. “Wouldn’t it have been a fair assumption that the staff had gotten vaccinated if they could?”

Keith is coming up on his next six-month teeth cleaning appointment. He wrote to ask if there is anything wrong with him calling to ask the dentist if the hygienist who will be working on his teeth has been vaccinated.

Unless we work someplace where everyone is required to show proof of vaccination, it is not safe to assume we know who has and who hasn’t been vaccinated. If Keith would feel safe knowing that his hygienist has been vaccinated, the right thing is indeed for him to call and ask. If he is told that she has not been vaccinated, he can ask if another hygienist who has been vaccinated can work on his teeth instead. If they refuse to give him the information, Keith might be wise to start shopping around for a new dentist.

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) 2021 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Is realtor responsible for error in her marketing materials?

A reader with a sharp eye wants to know whether a local realtor who sends postcards to prospective customers is responsible for typographical errors on the cards even if the passage in question was lifted from another source.

The reader we’re calling Annie receives cards from local realtors all the time either featuring houses for sale or houses just sold along with a solicitation for the reader’s business should she be buying or selling a home sometime soon. The most recent card, however, featured something that was a bit of a departure, a review of a local restaurant presumably written by one of the restaurant’s satisfied customers.

“Beautiful photos of houses and very detailed descriptions of houses and then a restaurant review that referred to the place as great for ‘causal’ dining when they clearly meant ‘casual,’ or at least I think they did,” Annie wrote. She joked that if it wasn’t a typo she was a bit concerned about what the dining at this place “caused.”

The text on the rest of the card contained no typos. Only the restaurant review written by someone else.

“If the error was in something the realtor wrote, I would think twice about doing business with someone who didn’t take the time to proofread her own work,” wrote Annie.

Given the volume of marketing materials many of us receive, I suppose ruling out consideration of those featuring typos is a way of winnowing the herd. In pre-internet days my son ruled out at least one prospective college when the brochure it sent him contained several typos. It didn’t hurt that he had never heard of the school so it remains unclear to me what he would have done had the brochure been from one of his top choices, but you get the point.

In the case of the realtor’s card, however, she did not write the passage that contains the typos so Annie wants to know if it’s wrong to hold her responsible for the mistake. “Her name is on the card,” Annie wrote. “Shouldn’t she have taken the time to make sure everything on the card was correct even if she didn’t write it?”

The realtor’s motivation for including the restaurant review might have been to send a message to prospective customers that local eateries were attempting to get back to some sense of normal after a long period of limited business during the pandemic. She might be applauded for wanting to do something to drive business to some of those establishments trying to get back on their feet.

Annie is correct, however. The realtor is responsible for the accuracy of everything on her marketing materials. The right thing would have been for her to ask the writer of the review if it was OK to correct the “causal” spelling when she sought permission to use the quote.

Is the mistake enough to refuse to do business with the realtor? That’s up to Annie. Were it me, I’d look at her track record of selling and buying houses, give her some points for her kindness, and then decide whether sometimes it’s OK to recognize people’s fallibility and overlook a rare error.

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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