Jeffrey L. Seglin's Blog, page 23

Learning to ask the right questions is always the right thing

One of the side benefits of writing an ethics column for the past 23 years is that there is no shortage of people who feel compelled to tell me what to write about. Those who send questions or suggestions about topics are a gift. There are, however, a whole other group of people who simply want me to agree with them about something.

Early on, I used to believe I couldn’t do much with those types of messages. If, for example, a reader wants me to take on a school system for hiring a superintendent who was mean when they were both children, that kind of falls beyond what I try to do. I can try to help a reader sort out the ethics of holding a grudge, but I won’t jump in and take something on simply because someone else doesn’t like it.

If these 15 months of working remotely and conducting a large part of my life online have reminded me of anything, however, it’s the importance of listening closely and trying to ask questions in a way that helps someone express concerns, hopes, dreams in a way that makes things clear to me.

Throughout the pandemic, my wife, Nancy, and I have each worked online. I have taught from my computer upstairs in our home and she has seen clients from her laptop downstairs. We’ve tried to break up the days by getting out for long walks or masked trips to the local market. But mostly, we have been online using various platforms to stay connected to our work. We are each pretty facile with technology, but I have become her de facto IT department.

When Nancy’s screen would freeze or she was having trouble logging on to the logon screen that enabled her to logon to another logon screen, she would ask if I had a minute to help. When I would see she had something open on her screen she couldn’t seem to navigate out of, initially I would ask: “What did you do?”

I learned quickly how wrong a question that was to ask. For me, it was a question to get at how she ended up at the screen she was on. What she heard in my question was a suggestion she had somehow done something wrong which was never the case. I no longer begin our IT sessions with that question but instead try to get at what she is trying to do to help figure a way to do it. She often figures a solution before I do.

The experience reminded me that listening to people and asking them questions in a way that gets at what matters without sounding accusatory or judgmental is the right thing to do. That reminder caused me to be far more patient with those who write in to tell me I should believe as they do as opposed to asking me how I might believe. By asking them what it is that troubles them about an issue I’ve found that our conversation often leads to something fruitful even if we end up disagreeing.

If we can find a way to talk with and listen to one another, then disagreeing is OK. Not listening is not.

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 you let your kids win at games?

My youngest grandson Lucas is a gifted athlete. I am not.

Throughout grade school and high school, Lucas was a competitive gymnast and played on his school’s soccer team. While he wasn’t a huge fan of football, basketball or baseball, whenever he engaged in a pickup game his skills were clear from the start.

Table tennis, however, was a different story.

We had purchased a used ping pong table for our unfinished basement when Lucas was about seven years old. Lucas had never played before but he was game to learn even if he barely could reach over the table. I am not a great player but I’d played occasionally as a kid and could patiently return most volleys.

After I taught Lucas the rules, we’d play often when he visited. He got better, but each time he lost. The consistent losses went on for several years, but Lucas never stopped wanting to play.

I have always been clear with my children and grandchildren that I won’t let them win at games. Sometimes I might play harder than others, but that has more to do with my level of energy. I’m not a cutthroat player at most things and I try not to be a jerk about winning. I also make sure to encourage the kids by observing how much better they are getting and to remind them of the importance of playing fairly.

But after four or more years of never losing a ping-pong game to Lucas, I began to wonder if it was wrong not to let him win just to boost his confidence. Sure, we’d start over after I was up 13 points to nothing. Or I’d give him an occasional do-over when he’d mistakenly hit the ball with his hand rather than the paddle, but I never let him win.

Like most kids, Lucas doesn’t like to lose. But he never gave up and never lost interest in playing in spite of years of losing.

Sometime after Lucas turned 13, he won his first game of ping pong against me. The next time, he won two games. Each time we played after that he’d win more and more games. He’s still never shut me out in a game, but it’s become a struggle for me to win at least one game over the course of a weekend.

I am not a child psychologist. I don’t know if experts in child development will tell you that letting a child occasionally win at a game even when they lose is somehow good for the child. But I can tell you that even today, being honest with Lucas about how I wasn’t going to let him win still feels like the right thing to have done. It was and remains a chance to model honesty.

Lucas was thrilled when he won his first game of ping pong against me partly because he knew he had worked hard and really won. He learned the importance of patience and persistence.

Lucas just turned 20. Last weekend, I took the first game of ping pong and he won the next two.

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.

If you want to avoid public gatherings, just stay home

As more people become vaccinated against COVID-19 and restrictions on group gatherings are lifted, more invitations have been arriving in my inbox for in-person meet-ups or events. Some of these are for small gatherings. Others are for larger gatherings. Almost all assure me that others in attendance will be fully vaccinated.

After 15 months of working, occasionally socializing, and, more often than I'd have liked, mourning virtually, you might think I'd jump at the chance to be among others in person. But I find myself leaning into my inner Bartleby whose famous refrain in Herman Melville's "Bartleby the Scrivener" was "I'd prefer not to."

I also find myself regularly asked by readers and others if it's wrong to simply tell someone you'd rather not join them even if you've enjoyed their company in the past because, well, you really don't want to.

Some of my reticence to return to the active in-person social or professional life I'd had in the past is simply a matter of time. While working remotely may have saved me hours of commuting time, shifting to a virtual world has consumed far more hours of preparation, scheduling, and accommodating the varying time zones of those with whom I work. If I were to travel to attend and spend time at in-person events that would take away from the time still needed to complete many tasks already in front of me. I joke with others that this is a space-time continuum challenge. OK, it's not really a joke.

But my real reluctance for grasping at every kind invitation is that, after a year of going full tilt on Zoom, Skype or cell phones or other electronic means of connecting, I simply want to cherish as many moments of silence as possible whether these involve long-put-off repair jobs around the house or finishing reading the pile of books stacked on my bedside table.

In 1992, when I was an editor at a magazine in Boston, I was charged with lining up new regular columnists. One of the writers I tried to entice was the poet, novelist and essayist Wendell Berry. I'd been a fan of his work and while it was a longshot he'd ever respond let alone agree to become a columnist. Still, I wrote to him with the invitation to consider.

Much to my surprise, he responded with a handwritten note on a pre-printed card. The note indicated that he already had as much work on hand as he could hope to do but he expressed gratitude for my kind request. The pre-printed part of his card contained a poem he had written to send to the many people who request he do any number of things including reviewing manuscripts, appearing on TV, giving professional advice, giving a public speech and interpreting Scripture.

"I'm almost not doing anything that can't be done at home," Berry wrote toward the end of his poem. "To your health, Friend! Try staying home yourself."

When faced with an invitation to a personal gathering after 15 months of adapting to a life of virtual connectivity, the right thing is to respond honestly and simply decline if you'd prefer not to go. I cherish the moments now that I get to stay home especially now that I don't have 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.

Neighbors should give neighbors a heads up on upcoming work that affects their property

In May, housing prices in the United States were up 13.2% over the previous 12 months. That’s the highest gain in housing prices since 2005. While housing prices had started to increase before the pandemic partly because of low interest rates, they rose further as workers started working remotely and started looking for different types of houses in perhaps different types of neighborhoods.

Phoenix may have experienced the largest gains in housing prices with a 20% increase, but many other cities witnessed or are witnessing a surge in demand that continues to drive up prices. In Boston, where a reader we’re calling Betty lives, housing prices are up about 14% over the past year.

“There’s a lot of renovating and new construction in my neighborhood where I’ve lived for the past 40 years,” writes Betty. “Neighbors are fixing up their houses or selling. And there are constant pile-drivers going during the week where every spot of buildable land seems to be getting developed.”

Betty writes that a few days ago painters began setting up outside the house next door to her. There was no sign of the owner, but she’d noticed that a lot of trash had been put out by the neighbor recently including old furniture and bric-a-brac. Betty suspected that the owner was preparing her house to put it on the market and the arrival of the house painters seemed to confirm her suspicion.

“We live in the city and there is less than 20 feet between her house and mine,” writes Betty. “I know the painters are trying to be thoughtful by covering my garden with a drop cloth, but I don’t know how long the garden won’t be getting sun or water when the plants might need it most to grow and bloom. I didn’t have a chance to make sure everything was watered thoroughly before it got covered up.” Betty’s neighbor never alerted her to the painters covering over her garden and that strikes her as wrong.

“Shouldn’t the neighbor next door have checked to make sure I’m OK with having the painters cover my garden with a drop cloth?” she asks. Betty believes her neighbor has crossed a line and she wants to know what the right thing to do is now that the line has crossed into her garden bed.

The painters did indeed seem to be thoughtful by covering over anything that might get covered with old paint scrapings or new paint splatters. But it was thoughtless of the owner to not give the neighbors on either side of her house a heads up that painters would be arriving or clear with them anything that would infringe on their property, whether that meant covering over a plant bed or moving an automobile.

If Betty truly doesn’t want her garden covered with a drop cloth she should ask the painters to remove it. Or she might want to ask them how long during the day they plan to keep the drop cloth on.

The right thing would have been for Betty’s neighbor to talk with her and other neighbors before the work began. Given that she didn’t, the right thing now is to comply with whatever Betty asks them to do if it involves their work materials on her property. 

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.

How hard to push back when a car dealer comes up short

A young couple we’re calling Jim and Jane was in the market for a new used car. They already owned two cars since they lived beyond the reach of public transportation and each needed transportation to get to work.

One of their cars was in great shape and had many miles left on it, but their second car was 11 years old, had more than 160,000 miles on it, and was beginning to show its age. The amount of money they would need to spend to service their second car to get the air conditioning fixed and to keep it roadworthy led to their decision to look for a new car. They also wanted to trade the old car in for a newer pre-owned model car that was slightly bigger so they could haul stuff or fit their camping gear when they set off on an occasional adventure.

They spent some time looking online, but ultimately visited a lot where they had purchased a car many years earlier. There they found a smaller, four-year-old SUV with low mileage that they liked. The car had been owned by a dog owner and the inside had a significant amount of fur and crumbs littering it. The salesperson promised them that the car would be extensively detailed and look almost new inside and out by the time they picked it up if they went ahead with the purchase.

The dealer also told the couple that they could trade in their 11-year-old car for $700 providing it was checked out by the service department and didn’t have issues other than the air conditioning. But since it was early evening and the service department had closed for the day they would need to bring the car back at another time to have it checked out.

The couple agreed to buy the car on a Monday and the salesperson told them it would be detailed and ready for pick up by Thursday of that week. They agreed to meet the salesperson on Thursday to have the old car checked out and to pick up the new car.

When they arrived on Thursday, they were told that the salesperson had taken the day off and still needed to complete the paperwork for their car.

“We never received a call from the salesperson telling us not to show up on Thursday to get the car,” said Jim. He finally connected with her by cellphone on Friday morning and told her he would pick up the car on Saturday morning.

The salesperson told Jim that before they could get the $700 for their trade-in they would still need to have their car checked out.

“That didn’t seem right,” said Jim. “We lived up to our end of the deal and she didn’t show up. Shouldn’t the dealer just honor the $700 offer and not make us show up again to wait to have the car checked out since they screwed up the date?”

While the dealer has no obligation to offer the $700 without examining the car, it seems both the right and the smart thing to do. Honoring the $700 trade-in rather than risking a roughly $20,000 sale seems wise particularly since the customer was inconvenienced by the salesperson’s no-show. Jim and Jane are right to ask and the dealer would be wise to agree. 

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.

Does Ohio's million-dollar COVID-19 vaccine lottery cross ethical lines?

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine announced that the state is creating a lottery in which Ohio residents who have received the COVID-19 vaccine will be eligible to win $1 million in a series of five weekly drawings. Five scholarships to the Ohio State University that will cover tuition, room and board will also be auctioned off to students aged 12 to 17 who become vaccinated.

As I am writing this column, approximately 37% of Ohioans have been fully vaccinated, while 42% have received at least one shot. As of now, nearly 60% of all adults in the United States have received at least one shot. DeWine's goal is to incentivize as many Ohioans as possible to become vaccinated.

Almost immediately after DeWine's announcement I began to receive emails from readers questioning the gambit. "Seems like this could be an ethics topic," wrote a longtime reader from Pittsburgh. "I'm not anti-vax and have received the Pfizer vaccine myself, but I wonder about governments using tax dollars to entice people to take something that has been approved under emergency status."

It's a great question. I found myself torn between thinking that this was an incredibly odd move by DeWine and believing that it might be yet another, although far more extreme, example of offering incentives to people to become vaccinated. White Castle, the hamburger chain, is offering butter cakes on a stick to the newly vaccinated. Cleveland's Major League Baseball team is offering discounted tickets. But DeWine's $1 million lottery elevates the enticements to a whole new level.

As DeWine pointed out in his press conference, he has wide latitude in how he uses federal COVID-19 relief funds. "I did not go into this and make this decision thinking everybody was going to say this is a wonderful idea," DeWine said. But so far, no one has proved that the move breaks any laws or regulations.

Even if it breaks no laws, is it ethical?

If DeWine truly believes it will work to make his constituents safer, then a case could be made that his ethical motivation is solid. Of course, we might hope that becoming vaccinated to increase personal and public safety should be enough motivation, but clearly that has not seemed to be the case.

But do such lottery enticements work? Todd Rogers, a colleague of mine at Harvard Kennedy School who is a behavioral scientist, points to studies that suggest that "lotteries are effectively overvalued financial incentives." But he points out that "lotteries can be fun, can garner attention, can generate earned media."

Rogers observes that a lottery could "crowd out" intrinsic motivation to get a vaccination. But since getting an emergency vaccine during a pandemic is rare, "maybe we can be less worried about crowding out intrinsic motivation for future behavior by offering extrinsic rewards now."

In other words, DeWine's unusual ploy might work. Who knows?

If the right thing is to encourage as many people to become vaccinated as possible, then DeWine's million-dollar lottery might raise a few eyebrows, but it doesn't strike me as crossing ethical lines. In an ideal world, people who are capable of doing so would become vaccinated in the interest of their own and their neighbor's well-being. But in an imperfect world, perhaps it takes cakes on a stick and a chance at a million bucks or a free education to get them to do so. 

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 we too polarized to show kindness one sip (or slice) at a time?

Are we too polarized to consider doing something nice for someone in need if we don't know the person in need?

A couple of months ago I wrote about the head of police in Naples, Italy, who was accompanying the actor Stanley Tucci on his eating tour through the country in his show Searching for Italy on CNN. The police officer caught my attention when he ordered "due caffe e un caffe sospeso" which translates to "two coffees and a suspended coffee."

As I explained, the tradition of the suspended coffee, where a customer pays for one more coffee than is to be consumed reportedly began in Naples ages ago. It was a charitable act from those who could afford to pay now to be claimed later by someone who couldn't afford a cup. If you're thirsty, you just ask the coffee seller if there is any sospeso available. If it is, it's poured with no additional charge.

I wondered why caffe sospeso or anything else "sospeso" couldn't become a local tradition in our own neighborhoods whether we live in a big city or a small village. Readers from around the country responded.

"I'm afraid too many people would be horrified to realize that an undeserving wretch of the opposing political party might be the lucky recipient," wrote longtime reader Phil Clutts from North Carolina, only "partially in jest."

But Pat Maloney, a reader from California, thanked me for bringing the sospeso concept to folks and immediately took to the Apple App Store to look for a sospeso app that would enable him to start paying it anonymously forward. Unfortunately, neither of the two apps listed in the store were active. "Hopefully, someone reading your article will produce an app that actually works!" he wrote.

And finally, there's Kate and Alec Goodman, twin brother and sister who are 16-year-old 10th grade students in Port Washington, New York. The siblings wrote to tell me that in January they had launched their community service program "Port Pays It Forward" to promote a similar "ripple effect of kindness" as the caffe sospeso.

Kate and Alec arranged with Carlo's Pizza in Port Washington to allow people to pay an extra $3 for someone who might not be able to afford a slice. Their mother keeps track of Venmo donations made through their Facebook account and Carlo's co-owner, Daniel Cenatiempo, keeps track of the donations made directly at the restaurant which are posted as Post-it notes on Carlo's wall. Since launching, they tell me that more than 1,600 slices have been purchased through $5,000 in donations.

They have also worked with local agencies serving area residents in need to get donations of pizza pies delivered for lunch and dinner. They say they were touched after receiving personalized thank you cards and drawings from some of the recipients.

"The community has really come together," they wrote. "We plan on making Port Pays It Forward part of the community forever."

Even if Phil Clutts was only partially joking about the fear of committing an act of kindness to someone of an opposing political party, I'd like to prove him wrong. I'm pretty certain that pizza has no political affiliation nor does coffee. Nor, for that matter, does hunger. If you want to join Kate and Alec and many others who enjoy doing something for someone in need, then the right thing is to commit to kindness wherever you can.

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.

How sensitive to my audience should I be?

I regularly get questions about whether I’ve felt the need to stop using the examples I use in writing or in teaching based on an increased awareness about a particular issue or about the alleged behavior of someone featured in an example. I have always believed that if I’m about to read or teach something that the reader or student might find offensive or challenging that I have an obligation to prepare them for what is to follow.

Whenever I’ve used a video clip called “Tea and Consent” put out in 2015 by the Thames Valley Police in the United Kingdom, I preface it by warning viewers that the video uses a lighthearted metaphor for sexual consent, a clearly serious topic. I also alert people when a reading will include particularly violent or vulgar language.

Giving someone a heads up about something they might find challenging seems a gesture worth making to prepare them for what’s to follow.

But there have been times I’ve stopped using examples to make a point if the example includes someone whose behavior has been called into question. Often there are alternative examples that can be used and the alleged behavior not only risks offending people but also risks distracting their attention from the point I was trying to make.

There was a short clip from a movie, for example, that I previously used to make a point about the importance of fact-checking by going to the source whenever possible when writing something. In the clip, the main character gets into an argument about an author’s opinions with the guy in line behind him at a movie theater. Rather than prolonging the argument, the main character reaches behind a movie placard and pulls the real author out to tell the guy behind him that he knows nothing about his work. I’d been using the example for years when reports of the actor who portrays the main character allegedly committing sexual abuse surfaced. I made the call to stop using the film as an example to minimize the potential harm caused by seeing an accused sexual abuser on screen. That example was not essential to making my point. It was easily replaced by reinforcing the idea with the old journalist’s admonition that “if your mother tells you she loves you, check it out.”

When Bob Steele headed up ethics training at the Poynter Institute, he wrote some guiding principles for journalists. One of them was to recognize that reporting information could cause discomfort and to choose alternatives that still maximized the goal of truth-telling. In other words, if there are multiple ways to get to the truth of something and one of those ways is less distressing than others, the ethical choice is to choose that less harmful way.

When asked if I ever change the examples I use when writing or teaching out of concern of causing trauma for readers or students, my answer is that I do so if I truly believe there is an equally strong or stronger way to get my point across that doesn’t risk causing as much harm. I don’t change everything. Sometimes a heads up about what’s to follow is the best I can offer, but when an equally strong example is available to make a point I seize it 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. 

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

Putting off college doesn't have to define you

Last fall, more students than ever put off going to college. The decline in newly enrolled undergraduate students across institutions was 3.6% from the fall of 2019, which translates to roughly 560,000 fewer.

For students graduating from high school in 2020, the decline was even steeper, falling by 21.7% compared to the prior year according to a December 2020 report from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. Overall enrollment in college had already been declining over the past decade but not nearly at as steep a rate. Between 2011 and 2019, 11% fewer students were enrolled in college, NPR notes.

The precipitous drop likely can partly be attributed to the onset of the pandemic and the move of many colleges to conducting their classes virtually. It’s too soon to tell whether students who put off going to college for the 2020-2021 academic year will choose to enroll come fall 2021.

Putting off college is not always a bad thing. While it may cause parents to leap into bouts of free-floating anxiety about their children’s futures, there are times when necessity or opportunity makes delaying college a sensible or necessary choice.

Granted, according to the Brookings Institution, college graduates still earn far more than those who don’t graduate. The median annual earnings over their career for a college graduate are $68,000, compared to $49,000 for an associate degree, $42,000 for some college, and $35,000 for a high school or GED diploma. There are certainly notable exceptions. Neither Bill Gates nor Mark Zuckerberg nor Lady Gaga reportedly finished college. (Oprah dropped out just shy of finishing her degree but apparently finished up more than a decade later after being invited back as a speaker at her alma mater.) But a college education still results in an income boost and, perhaps more importantly, a chance to engage in a life of critical thinking.

It’s wrong to think of anyone who chooses to put off or ignore college altogether as a failure. After my cousin received her college degree at 60 years old, my daughter commented that when someone doesn’t earn a degree in her 20s she’s often viewed as a failure, but when she earns one in her 60s she’s viewed as an inspiration. What the former fails to account for is that all of those decades between someone’s 20s and their 60s are often filled with highly productive years and experiences.

Over the past few weeks, prospective students will likely have received acceptance or rejection letters from colleges. Many take to YouTube to share their experiences of opening the email letting them know their decisions. Others bask in the news in silence. Still others have decided to work or to take a gap year to engage in public service or to go to school part-time while taking care of responsibilities tossed their way.

This is not a column to reassure students who didn’t get into their college of choice that life is just as likely to turn out OK as if they had been accepted. There are plenty of colleges or graduation speeches or parental reassurances that already do that.

Instead, this is a column to reassure those who have decided to put off college for however long that they are no less likely to do something inspirational if the circumstances allow and the support exists. It seems like it’s the right thing to acknowledge this whether someone is 20 or 60. 

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 worker report 'Zoomed-out' colleagues?

I’ve lost count of the number of hours I’ve spent talking or listening to others over Zoom since last spring. I suspect the tally is substantial. I’ve learned how effective a mechanism the chat function can be for side conversations or how useful it is to be able to record an event so those who couldn’t attend in real time can choose to view it later.

I’ve also learned that being on Zoom for the better part of a day with few breaks between meetings can be exhausting. Many of us may have saved time not having to commute to work over the past 13 or 14 months, but any extra minutes or hours seem to have been eaten up with requests for far more meetings because we can easily “hop on a Zoom call.”

It’s no surprise then that many readers have begun to find their time on Zoom or other online meeting sites a bit frustrating. A reader we’re calling Adeline emailed that while she has been working remotely, her company has regular staff meetings, but also quite a few required trainings on everything from the company’s sexual harassment policy to tutorials on how to participate in the company’s various Slack chat rooms.

“We never used to have as many meetings,” wrote Adeline. “Part of me thinks they’re holding so many to make sure we are actually at our computers when the company wants us to be.”

Adeline also wrote that while the company requires employees to log on to Zoom meetings, it allows them to turn off their video once they’ve logged on.

“Unless we’re put into smaller breakout rooms, there’s no way for whoever’s running the meeting to know whether anyone actually stays in the meeting,” she writes. “Some of my colleagues have told me they regularly go off and do something else once they’ve logged on. Sometimes they’ve logged on using their cellphones and, once they turn off their video, they run errands or handle other tasks that don’t really have to do with company business.” Adeline indicated that she knows this because some colleagues have told her as much.

“This is wrong isn’t it?” asked Adeline, who also wants to know if she has any obligation to report the colleagues she believes may be faking Zoom attendance.

While there are conceivable occasions when turning your attention from an online engagement to an urgent matter is appropriate, lying about being in attendance at a meeting or training when you aren’t actually there is wrong. If there’s truly a reason you can’t do a part of your job, the right thing is to acknowledge when a more pressing concern makes it impossible to engage, just as you would if you were in-person. Just remote work makes it easier to pretend to be in attendance when you’re not does not make it right.

I’m not convinced, however, that Adeline should report any colleagues she suspects of such behavior. Even if they claim that they are often off doing something else, she has no way of knowing for certain. The right thing for Adeline to do is to continue to show up and be as engaged as she can. It might also be good for the company to set the policy that turning off the video should be the exception rather than the rule. 

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.