Jeffrey L. Seglin's Blog, page 24
April 18, 2021
Can I take food home from the pantry where I volunteer?
More Americans relied on food banks during the pandemic than ever, according to Feeding America, a nationwide network of more than 200 food banks and 60,000 food pantries and meal programs. From March through October of 2020, through its various affiliates, Feeding America distributed an estimated 4.2 billion meals, representing about 60% more than the same time period the previous year. About 40% of those were first-time users.
Whether it’s through national efforts like Feeding America or local efforts like a community fridge, efforts continue to feed those in need. The success of many of these efforts depends on financial and food donations as well as volunteer support.
One volunteer at a small church food pantry that distributes fresh food and canned goods once a week has seen a steady supply of donations that so far has matched the demand from the steady supply of individuals and families visiting to acquire food. The volunteer, whom we’re calling Graham, spends two hours every Thursday helping to organize donations and another two hours on Friday distributing food to those who queue up.
Often, there is an abundance of a particular type of food at Graham’s pantry which he or his family has used at home. “Is it wrong,” Graham asks, “for me or other volunteers to take a loaf of bread, some fruit, or some canned goods at the end of our shift for our own use?”
Graham is retired and single. He receives a pension from a city job he held for a few decades. He is old enough to also collect Social Security benefits and receive healthcare through Medicare. He rents a one-bedroom apartment that is within walking distance of the food pantry where he volunteers. While his income is modest, so are his expenses and he’s never found himself short of money to pay his bills or to feed and clothe himself. He is not among the target clientele of the food pantry, although the organizers of the pantry make a point of not turning anyone away and not asking for any sort of proof of need.
But Graham’s is a question that gets asked often: Is it OK for volunteers at a food pantry to take home food for their own use?
On the surface, it might seem that “no, that’s inappropriate,” would always be the right response. But if there is food remaining that is perishable or might not be usable by the time the pantry opens its doors the following week, it seems wise for volunteers to use it rather than to see it go to waste.
Taking canned goods or other items that might remain usable by the food pantry clientele for a longer term seems inappropriate. The goal of volunteering shouldn’t be to get a little something for yourself, but instead to make sure to get stuff to those truly in need.
Food pantry organizers should make clear to volunteers what the pantry’s policy is on removing donated items for personal use. Sometimes volunteers might also be among the clientele, but when they are not, then making clear that taking stuff home is forbidden so they can spread the resources as widely as possible to others who need them 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.
April 11, 2021
Thank your mentors while they are still around
Occasionally over the past 40 years, I tried to hunt down George Dendrinos, the man who taught my sixth grade class at School Street School in Boonton, New Jersey. After being promoted from his class in 1968, I stopped in to visit him once or twice when I was in high school, but my family had moved from Boonton in 1974, and while my fondness for the town remains, my connections dissipated.
I searched online for Mr. Dendrinos (I would never think of calling him “George”) occasionally once the internet arrived and web browsers became a thing. For some reason I thought he had lived in Garfield, New Jersey, so I tried searching there. By the time I reached out to my old middle school, he had retired and I was not able to locate him.
My goal was to email or call Mr. Dendrinos to let him know the outsized influence he had on me as a pupil in his class. I wanted to thank him for the patience, wisdom and energy he brought to his teaching. Sixth grade was a very long time ago, but his influence on my life and the lives of many of my classmates was profound and fondly remembered.
We too often take for granted that the people who have made a positive impact on our lives know how influential they have been. For many of us, these include teachers who were gifted enough in the classroom to convert restless 11-year-olds into patient learners.
I remember every teacher I have ever had. Mr. Dendrinos was the first to ignite in me a curiosity about stuff. Not just with the assigned classwork, but in the field trips into Manhattan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and other museums. After one trip to the Met he brought in a copy of Charles Demuth’s painting “I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold” which Mr. Dendrinos had painted as a way of talking with some of us about geometric shapes, art, and taking on a good challenge. After school, he taught some of us to play chess and occasionally he would play four or five of us simultaneously. When I beat him for the first time, he studied the board, looked up sternly, and then broke into a wide grin. He prodded each of us and cheered us all on through our failures and our accomplishments.
“His patience and wit inspired so many of us,” my classmate and best friend Jim Lewis who now writes for “The Muppets” told me.
Mr. Dendrinos died in Pennsylvania, on February 16, at 91, in what his online obituary says was “a brief illness and a very well-lived life.”
I should have tried harder to find him. It strikes me that the right thing would have been to let him know that his inspiration as a teacher reached quite far and continues to resonate. I’m reminded that I should make the effort to thank those in my past and present for their gifts of guidance.
I never had the chance to tell Mr. Dendrinos just how much influence he had on the person I have become before he died. So now I am telling you to give your mentors and influences their flowers as soon as 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.
April 4, 2021
If you need help ask for it
In his poem, “How to Be Perfect,” Ron Padgett writes, “If you need help, ask for it.” Padgett’s poem is full of sage advice, but that line about asking for help when needing it rings quite true now.
In an earlier column, I was clear about my intention to patiently wait my turn to schedule a COVID-19 vaccine based on my state’s vaccine distribution plan. I did sign up for the state’s preregistration system which is designed to alert eligible residents when their time has come and to walk them through the appointment process. But I was reluctant to ask for help trying to find a vaccine appointment out of concern that I might end up taking a spot from someone more in need who was ahead of me in line.
My time came on a recent Monday. I started searching online for available appointments at mass vaccination sites, pharmacies, or other outlets. Given that several hundred thousand more people became eligible the same day as I did, it was no surprise that I failed.
I tried again on Tuesday right as I woke up to start the day at 4:30 a.m. Failure. Throughout the rest of the day, failure. My family and friends sent helpful suggestions. None worked. No word ever came from the preregistration system.
Late on Tuesday afternoon, in between Zoom meetings and other work, it crossed my mind to call my city’s helpline to see if I might be able to book something over the phone. It’s the same line I call when my trash is missed on pickup day. The answerer patiently told me the line didn’t do this, but then asked me how old I was.
“64,” I told her.
“You should try Age Strong, which provides services to senior citizens in the city,” she said. She gave me the number.
It had never crossed my mind to look to services for older citizens for help. But I am one and I called the next morning to give Age Strong my information. About four hours later, a woman from Age Strong called back and helped me book an appointment for the next day. She kept me on the phone long enough to make sure I received a confirmation text. “Be kind to old people, even when they are obnoxious,” Padgett writes in his poem. “When you become old, be kind to young people.”
I received my first vaccination the next day from a young woman just out of nursing school. She was kind, although I don’t believe I was obnoxious. By the time I went to sit in the area set aside for the 15-minute observation post vaccination, I received a text confirming the appointment for my second vaccination three weeks later.
It took far less time than many people face trying to book a vaccine, but I had found myself growing frustrated. I am guilty of not always asking for help when I need it. But as soon as I embraced the idea that it’s the right thing to ask for help when needed, my fortunes turned.
“Calm down,” Padgett writes in his poem. I am calmer now and I am hopeful that others find success in navigating the vaccine process and embracing the idea that they should ask for help when they need 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.
March 28, 2021
How honest do we have to be when asked for feedback?
A reader we’re calling Kait recently found herself in the position of being asked to review a piece of writing from a friend of a friend. Kait’s friend knew that she had expertise in the field on which the piece of writing focused so he thought she might be a good resource for feedback.
Typically, Kait’s friend would check with her before giving out her email and suggesting someone contact her. This time he didn’t and Kait was surprised when the email from someone she didn’t know arrived seeking feedback.
“I don’t know what to do,” Kait writes. “I really don’t like it.” Kait continues that she doesn’t know the writer, but that she’s confident he’s a terrific person. “If we had some kind of relationship I would be honest.”
Kait writes that she’s tempted to make a handful of small suggestions and to tell the writer, “it’s just fine.”
“What is the right thing to do?” Kait asks.
The way Kait presents the issue, there are at least two choices facing her. The first is whether to help her friend’s friend and move on, or make it clear that she’s glad to lend a hand but would like him to check with her first or to at least give her a heads up that he’d given her name and contact information to someone.
In this situation, Kait should talk to her friend and tell him to ask her before giving her name out. That would have been the thoughtful and right thing for the friend to do on his own, but if Kait doesn’t say something it’s likely to happen again.
The second choice is how severe to be in her criticism of the piece of writing. Kait doesn’t need to engage in what Sisela Bok refers to as “truth dumping” and point out every little flaw in the writing. It would be perfectly fine for her to offer a few suggestions without going into excruciating detail of just how much she doesn’t like the piece. But the right thing is to stop short of telling the writer something that she does not believe to be true. Disingenuously saying “it’s just fine,” is not, in fact, fine.
Kait is not obligated to offer any form of criticism in response to the writer’s email if she does not feel comfortable doing so. We are all capable of saying no in response to requests of our time and expertise, even if saying no is something many of us find challenging. If Kait is comfortable and offers as much constructive criticism as she feels comfortable offering, she will be showing kindness to the writer and to her friend who sent them along.
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.
March 21, 2021
Soon there will be time for everything
It has been a long year.
Schools closing, businesses shuttered, jobs lost, workplaces mostly shuttered as workers set up shop at home. Grandparents have gone months without hugging a grandchild. Lost loved ones buried from a distance with the absence of physical presence intensifying our grief.
But there have also been signs of hope. As more Americans masked and kept a physical distance from one another, the virus spread less quickly than it might have. In record-breaking time, vaccines were developed to wipe out COVID-19 and make it safe to be among one another again.
Now, we are told that all adults who want to be vaccinated will likely be vaccinated by the end of May, that those who have already been fully vaccinated can safely gather with one another. And that by July 4, it’s likely to be safer to gather together in small groups. The symbolism of the choice of Independence Day as the target for when we can again be free to gather has not been lost.
As we enter into a more hopeful stretch, how do we make sense of all the loss, all the disconnectedness and all the tragic fallout from a virulent disease? It might help to tap into some of the wisdom from those who have lived through similar circumstances.
In 1939, Katherine Anne Porter published her novella, Pale Horse, Pale Rider, one of the few pieces of fiction that has the Spanish Flu of 1918 pandemic at its heart. Katherine Anne Porter herself had survived the Spanish Flu, contracting it in 1918 and spending months in the hospital in Denver, where she had been writing for the “Rocky Mountain News.” Her experience is said to have influenced the writing of “Pale Horse, Pale Rider.” It’s an 82-page novella and widely available online, so I won’t spoil all the details for you here but a few of the key quotes of the novella can be paralleled to our feelings today.
“‘It seems to be a plague,’ said Miranda, one of the primary characters in Porter’s book, ‘something out of the Middle Ages. Did you ever see so many funerals, ever?’”
In a comment eerily reminiscent of the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Miranda’s love Adam says, “They can’t get an ambulance … and there aren’t any beds. And we can’t find a doctor or a nurse. They’re all busy. That’s all there is to it.”
As they are talking about the flu, Miranda and Adam try to recall the words of a spiritual that seems to capture the moment. “Pale horse, pale rider, done taken my lover away,” they recall and then, “Death always leaves one singer to mourn.” The latter line is an eerie foreshadowing of what’s to come in the novella.
So much mourning has beset us over these past 12 months. But with an end or at least a containment in sight, it’s the final words of Porter’s novella that ring hard: “No more war, no more plague, only the dazed silence that follows the ceasing of the heavy guns; noiseless houses with the shades drawn, empty streets, the dead cold light of tomorrow. Now there would be time for everything.”
As we mourn what we’ve lost in whatever form that might have taken, it only seems the right thing to remember to appreciate a renewed opportunity to be with one another again and embrace the possibility of, and time for, everything.
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.
March 14, 2021
I will embrace ubuntu and wait my vaccine turn
A former colleague spent weeks trying to book an appointment to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. He had become eligible under Massachusetts guidelines to receive a vaccine, but searching online for an actual appointment proved quite challenging. Ultimately, he found an appointment for both him and for his spouse, but their appointments were on the same date at different sites in different cities which presented a logistics challenge. They met the challenge and received their first vaccine.
Dr. Tamara Rodenberg, the president of Bethany College, a small liberal arts college in West Virginia, told me that because her faculty is teaching students in person, the state arranged to have vaccines for college faculty and staff shipped to her campus where they were each vaccinated at the college’s health center. The few remaining vaccines were offered to eligible residents of the small village where the college is located.
News reports are full of stories of those who are frustrated by not yet being eligible for a vaccine especially when they’d be eligible if they’d lived in a nearby state. If the overarching goal is to get as many people vaccinated as soon as possible and there is still a limited supply of vaccine available, it seems wise to prioritize getting shots in the arms of the most vulnerable portions of the population first, whether vulnerability is determined by age, health, professions or other criteria.
My wife who sees mental health clients through a neighborhood health clinic in Boston is vaccinated. My son who teaches high school English in Virginia is vaccinated. My brother-in-law in Minnesota is vaccinated. My oldest grandson who is contracted through University of Maine’s ROTC program to be commissioned as an officer the day before he graduates in May is also vaccinated.
I am not vaccinated because my age and health do not yet meet Massachusetts guidelines to receive a vaccine. I am fine with having to wait my turn. When the moment comes for me to be eligible, I will seize the opportunity.
Our current president tells us that any of us who want to be vaccinated will be able to get a shot by the end of May. I hope he is right. That would provide plenty of time for it to feel safer for me to visit with others who have been vaccinated or to return to campus to teach in person this fall.
As long as others are being vaccinated and increasing the chances that the numbers of deaths from COVID-19 dramatically fall, I will patiently wait. The more people get vaccinated, the less likely it is that going out in public will lead to me or someone else getting sick. Many people think of this as herd immunity but it speaks to another concept — widely embraced in south Saharan Africa — “Ubuntu.”
The word “Ubuntu” has been roughly translated in English to “I am because you are,” which basically holds that we are all in this together. I am able to be who I am because you are who you are. It cherishes a sense of community. Now seems a time for each of us to avoid cynicism and embrace the idea of Ubuntu.
If you get a vaccine that increases the likelihood that I can continue to be who I am.
In the spirit of Ubuntu, I will wait my turn without grousing, without trying to jump in line, without moving to at least 12 different states where I’d be able to sign up now. It seems the right thing to do.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice , is a senior lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com.
Follow him on Twitter @jseglin.
(c) 2021 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.
March 7, 2021
Thanks for the coffee, Stanley Tucci. The next one's on me.
In the first episode of Stanley Tucci's new show Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy on CNN, the actor traveled to Naples. He and his crew somehow managed to find a time to film during the pandemic when a lockdown wasn't in place throughout the country.
During the show, Tucci visited restaurants and the farms that supply them, explored how food sustained people in an impoverished area of the city, sampled food, and talked - most frequently in Italian - to people. One of the people Tucci spoke with was the local head of police. As they were talking, they approached a coffee stand where the policeman ordered "due caffe e un caffe sospeso" which translates to "two coffees and a suspended coffee."
The tradition of the suspended coffee, where a customer pays for one more coffee than he or she plans to consume reportedly began in Naples ages ago. It was seen as a charitable act by those who could afford to pay for a coffee now that could be claimed later by someone who couldn't afford a cup. The person simply approaches the coffee seller and asks if he or she has any sospeso available. If it is, it's poured without charge.
Why can't caffe sospeso or anything else "sospeso" become a local tradition in our own neighborhoods whether we live in a big city, a small town or a village?
Occasionally, local news stories in the United States pick up random acts of similar kindness after someone in a drive-through coffee line pays ahead for the next person in line. But that's a bit different, of course. Those people presumably could have afforded to pay for their own coffee or they wouldn't have queued up in the first place. It's an act of kindness, to be sure. But the Neapolitan tradition, which has spread to other countries, has as its core mission the effort to provide a bit of support for those who might be in need.
I've written before about efforts like the Boston Community Fridge where neighbors donate food to various refrigerators and pantries open round the clock in various parts of the city. Anyone who needs food can pick from whatever's available whenever they arrive. There are also restaurants that have begun to provide meals at deep discounts to customers if food is left over at closing time. Customers call ahead or use an app to see what's available and the restaurant avoids wasting any food while providing good food well below the typical price. Other similar efforts exist.
But the caffe sospeso tradition seems something different. It seems like more of a mindset. It's the idea that if I'm doing OK, wouldn't it be nice to do something for someone who might not be quite as OK?
Granted, we would need to trust the merchants to keep track of the sospeso availability, but that hardly seems too much to ask. If my local hardware store can track the loyalty points it gives me for every purchase, I'm hopeful it could track me buying one hammer and one "hammer sospeso" for someone who might need it. Perhaps there's an app waiting to be built for that.
Whether it's coffee, groceries, fuel, clothing, hardware or whatever you choose, if every once in a while we embraced our good fortune by spreading it around, that would seem a good and 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.
February 28, 2021
How far can a seller go when staging a house for sale?
If the myriad home shows on HGTV have taught us anything, it's that staging a home can do wonders for attracting a buyer. Carefully arranged furniture, pictures, other furnishings and tchotchkes can whet the imaginations of prospective buyers and increases the likelihood that a house will get sold.
A 2019 survey of sellers' real estate agents conducted by the National Association of Realtors confirms the value of staging. Twenty-two percent of sellers' agents surveyed believed that staging increased the dollar value of a home on the market by 1 to 5%. Another 17% believed it increased the value by 6 to 10%. Five percent believed it ballooned the value by 11 to 15%. And 2% of respondents believed it increased a home's value by a whopping 16 to 20%. Only 19% of those agents responded that staging had no effect on a home's value. Thirty-three percent of sellers' agents were unsure whether staging had any effect at all.
A recent question from a reader wonders how far staging can and should go to shine a favorable light on a house. There are regulations from state to state that make it clear that sellers must not conceal problems in a house that might affect a prospective buyer's health including disclosure about lead paint. And it would be wrong to try to cover up or mislead prospective buyers about mold, termites, wood rot, or other major issues. But this question had more to do with a cosmetic fix than a major house issue and the reader wanted to know if a seller crossed a line.
"I saw a posting on a social media site where a seller asked if she could borrow a piece of artwork about two feet by three feet to hang over her circuit breaker cabinet," the reader writes. "She mentioned that it was the first thing you see when you walk into her house and she didn't want to draw any potential buyers' attention to it."
The reader found the request troubling and wanted to know if it was ethical to engage in what she thought might be a deceptive maneuver to hide one of the less-attractive features of the house she was trying to sell.
There is absolutely nothing unethical about trying to make a property for sale appear as attractive as possible when trying to sell it. Any responsible buyer and certainly any home inspector is going to ask to take a look at the electrical box in a home, even if a prospective buyer has no real idea of what he or she is looking at. Having to move a piece of art to get to the box might be a hassle, but if hanging it there is more appealing than leaving it bare, then the seller seems wise to consider doing so. The right thing when staging a house is to try to make it as appealing as possible but to stop short of lying to prospective buyers about the condition of the house.
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.
February 21, 2021
How fair should a reader be to a son's roommate who left her in the lurch?
Learning to live with roommates in college can be challenging. Toss those roommates' parents into the mix and things can get far more complicated.
A reader we're calling Elizabeth emailed seeking advice about the right thing to do after her son's roommate situation went awry. When Elizabeth's son, who was attending college away from home, and his roommate found an apartment to rent, they needed a cosigner on their lease. Elizabeth agreed to serve as the cosigner, making her responsible if the rent went unpaid.
"The other student's parents agreed to send me his half of the rent monthly," wrote Elizabeth. The contract was a verbal one among the folks.
All apparently went well. The roommate's parents sent Elizabeth a check and she paid the full rent. But with a month left on the lease, the roommate decided to move.
Elizabeth writes that she was "on the hook" for the full remaining month's rent. The roommate's parents indicated that they had no intention of paying for an apartment where their son no longer lived. Eventually, Elizabeth's daughter decided to sublet the roommate's apartment for the remaining month. Elizabeth may have been paying the full rent for the apartment, but at least her daughter got to live there for the remaining month so the room didn't go unoccupied.
The lease ended and both of her children moved out, and Elizabeth is now expecting a rebate check from the apartment's owner for the deposit they had left for their two key fobs when they rented the apartment.
As part of the original verbal agreement, both her son and his roommate (well, their parents actually) paid that initial deposit. But Elizabeth believes that the roommate's parents may have forfeited any right to a share of that key fob deposit when he left before the lease was up.
"Would it be wrong to keep their deposit?" Elizabeth asked.
I regularly remind readers that I am not a real estate attorney, a contracts specialist or a lawyer of any type. But if Elizabeth is looking for some thoughts on the right thing to do, I can try to help.
First, let Elizabeth's experience be another reminder that in financial relationships, it's best to be clear upfront about the specifics of the relationship. Elizabeth cosigning the lease places the onus on her to come up with the money once the roommate broke his part of the lease. It also means that the deposit money is likely to be returned to her when the lease is up.
If the roommate's parents had agreed to pay for his portion of the rent for the duration of the lease even if he left a month early, the right thing would have been for them to pay it. If Elizabeth was fine not pressing that issue because she was able to rent that room for her daughter, that seems a fair decision.
With the key fobs deposit, if the original verbal agreement was that each roommate (or his parents) would get half of the deposit back when the lease was up, it seems fair to honor that even if Elizabeth remains a bit miffed about the roommate's early departure. I'm not convinced she has to do this, but it seems the right thing to do.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice , is a senior lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com.
Follow him on Twitter @jseglin.
(c) 2021 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.
February 14, 2021
Can I use my company Zoom for personal matters?
Since last March, many people, including me, have started working remotely in an effort to avoid catching or spreading the novel coronavirus. I have not set foot in my office on campus since March 13 of last year, just before we were about to have a week off for spring break.
Instead of a break, however, many of us used spring break week to offer voluntary classes to students over Zoom, the platform we were shifting to to teach remotely for the rest of the semester. Partly this move helped to keep students connected even when they couldn't return to campus. But a real benefit for those of us teaching who had limited experience using Zoom was to enable us to get used to the platform and see how we could use it most effectively to reconfigure the in-person courses we had been teaching. That increased familiarity certainly helped as online learning continued through fall and into the following spring.
We were not alone in our Zoom usage during this time period. On a blog postto users last April, Zoom's CEO Eric S. Yuan reported that usage of his company's product had shot up dramatically. We may have gone virtual, but we are certainly in good company.
During this time of learning to to teach virtually, several readers have emailed me to some version of this question: "Is it wrong to use the Zoom account I have via my employer for personal use?"
Most recently, I got this inquiry from a college professor who explained that last year she used her employer's Zoom account mostly for work with the exception of the few times she used it for personal use including giving presentations and attending a memorial service. She prefers her college's Zoom account because her free personal account limits meetings to 40 minutes.
I believe that companies who want their employees to get comfortable using Zoom for business purposes would be wise to encourage their employees to use the company's Zoom account for personal meetings as long as they don't use it for illegal or abusive activity. But ultimately it's up to a company to make its usage policy clear, just as it is a company's call whether to permit employees to use company email or a company computer to browse non-work-related websites.
If a company is going to require employees to work remotely, the right thing is for them to lay out the ground rules for employees about Zoom usage up front.
Employees should remember, however, that if they use a company's Zoom account, it's more than likely that a company IT person can review usage and meeting activity, just like IT ca review company email usage. If employees use their company Zoom accounts responsibly, I still believe that the right thing for companies to do is to let them but to make clear that it's OK and what restrictions, if any, they should follow.
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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