Jeffrey L. Seglin's Blog, page 28

Tell the truth

On June 23rd, Robert Levey died. Many, perhaps most of you didn't know Bob. For 30 years starting in 1962, he wrote for The Boston Globe. For a couple of decades he was a reporter who covered issues of race and education, often covering challenging stories at a time when few others dared to cover them in a city that was facing equity issues in its schools and neighborhoods.

He later became an editor for the Globe's Sunday magazine and finished up his career as the restaurant critic for the newspaper. It was in this last role where I met Bob. I was a tagalong on a visit to a restaurant he was reviewing in Chinatown. Bob was careful not to let his identity be discovered by any restaurant's staff. He also wanted to sample as many meals as possible, so it was not unusual for him to invite others to join him for a meal so he could sample from what they ordered. A mutual good friend arranged for me to join them.

Our meal had to have occurred more than 30 years ago and I have no memory of what we ate. I do remember meeting a person who loved his work, loved the company of other people even if he had just met them, and loved to tell a good story. We did not become close friends, but years later, after he had already retired, Bob introduced me to the Globe's then editor for a potential project.

In Bob's obituary, writer Bryan Marquard ends with a story about Bob's daughter asking him to tell his granddaughter, also a writer, who was heading to college "what's the most important thing about being a good writer."

Bob's health was failing at the time, but he responded "clear as a bell" that the most important thing about being a good writer is: "Tell the truth."

Students who take writing courses with me regularly tease me about cajoling them to "always be writing." I continue to tell them that the best way I know to become a good and better writer is to be insatiably curious and to write constantly. And I do regularly end any conversation with them with the question, "Are you writing?" I also stress the importance of getting their facts right and making sure they are fair in whatever they write even as they are tackling challenging topics.

My students are attending graduate school to study public policy. Few will go on to become journalists or full-time writers, although many continue to write and publish op-eds or articles after graduation that relate to the policy issues on which they are working. But in their work as in their writing, they are committed to telling the truth.

While I stand by my advice to them to always be writing, to be tenaciously curious, and to double-check their facts, those three words from Bob to his granddaughter stick with me as the best advice any good writer should follow: Tell the truth.

Telling the truth is the right thing for any writer. It's also sound and wise advice for everyone else as well.

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.

Follow him on Twitter: @jseglin

Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net.

(c) 2020 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Internet service providers should up their customer support game

I am among the number of fortunate adults who did not lose his job during the pandemic because of my ability to work from home. I am also fortunate to have access to broadband services that enable me to connect to the internet and any number of videoconferencing services designed for virtual meetings. I can connect to online services to order books or food or a video monitor and have them delivered to my door.

Being able to stay connected without interruption has been a blessing over these past three months. It's when that connection got interrupted that I realized how dependent upon it I've truly become.

Given how many of us are working online, is it wrong to expect our internet service providers (ISPs) to be prepared to respond to customers who are having difficulty with their connections?

I've grown accustomed to avoiding calling customer support for any technology issues. The amount of time it takes to route through an automated telephone response only to end up on hold for "longer-than-average wait times" conditioned me to try to solve the problem myself. Typically, this works in less time than it takes to get a live person for a quick technical support question.

Earlier this month when I found it impossible to connect to the Internet and I couldn't find a solution, I spent more than two hours on the phone. Some of it was spent navigating the automated message to get to the right department. Some of it was spent waiting for a promised call back only to have that call back route me through the same automated response options. When I did eventually reach a live person in technical support, I was told that the ISP had upgraded the router/modem which apparently had caused a conflict with a signal booster I'd been using for years to enable more coverage in the house. After unplugging the booster, everything worked fine. The fix took five minutes.

Should I have guessed to unplug the booster? Sure. Should it have taken two hours to get to a person who could take five minutes to give me the information I needed to figure out what was wrong? No.

The tech support person (the live one, not the automated one) was great - direct and helpful. When I mentioned I'd had to cancel a couple of online business meetings as a result of being offline, she credited my monthly bill for a "courtesy" $25. Very thoughtful.

My ISP is the only option where I was working, so its incentive to provide better, quicker service isn't all that great. But I suspect the motivation wasn't to stiff customers as much as it was to streamline support by automating as much as possible.

Customers should be able to decide whether they want to choose automated support or live support. This is true whether we are in the midst of a pandemic where more people are working at home or not. Providing good service when so many customers have become dependent on connectivity for their livelihood is not only a good business practice it is the right thing to do. And so is repeating how knowledgeable and patient that Georgina, my tech support person, was to get me back online.

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.

Follow him on Twitter: @jseglin

Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net.

(c) 2020 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Who is responsible if a cashier deliberately undercharges?

After the breakout of COVID-19, a reader we're calling Olive worked from home for three months and limited any trips to stores to an every-other-week visit to her local supermarket. She would wear a mask into the store, make her purchases, return home, put the groceries away and then wash her hands copiously. Washing her hands copiously throughout the day became routine.

After three months, Olive decided to expand her outside-the-home activities to an occasional pickup of takeout food from a local restaurant or a trip to her favorite garden center. It was planting season, she writes, and if she was going to be cooped up at home she wanted to be able to get outside and work on her modest garden.

"I went to the garden center last week to buy some clay pots," writes Olive. "There was one in particular I liked, but it was one of the few pots on the shelves that didn't have a price tag." Olive writes that she looked at a smaller size version of the pot and noted it had a $5 price tag on it.

She picked up a few other items at the center and made her way to the checkout line, making sure to pay heed to the marks on the floor that indicated six-foot distances checking-out customers should keep from one another as they went to pay the cashier.

"When I got to the cashier, I told her that the pot was the only one like it on the shelf and that it didn't have a price tag." The cashier took out a three-ring binder and began to look up the price for the pot, but was having trouble finding it. Olive then told the cashier that a smaller version of the pot was labeled as costing $5.

"Since you told me that other pot cost $5, I'll charge you $4 for this one," the cashier said.

Olive was a bit taken aback given that in her experience larger pots generally cost more than smaller ones, but there was a long line behind her and she felt foolish about arguing that it should cost more. She paid up, grabbed her purchases, and left the store.

After she unloaded her items and as she was washing her hands, Olive wondered if she did the right thing by not questioning the cashier's decision to charge her less than the pot likely cost.

"Should I have said something when she told me the price?" asks Olive.

Years ago, I wrote about a reader who knew she was undercharged for an item but the cashier had no idea that the item rang up as some other item that cost less. In that case, bringing the discrepancy to the attention of the cashier would have been the right thing to do.

But Olive was concealing nothing here. She did the right thing by pointing out what the smaller version of the item cost. The cashier may have had discretion about how to charge for non-tagged items, but it's more likely that she simply didn't want to take the time to find the right price for it. If the cashier couldn't find the right price for the clay pot, she could have asked an associate or a manager to help her find it. The cashier fell short on doing the right thing. Olive did 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.

Follow him on Twitter: @jseglin

Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net.

(c) 2020 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Should we take free stuff intended for those who need it?

In early May, dairy farmers in Boston were prepared to give away about 8,600 gallons of milk to families who were in need. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, dairy farmers had found that demand for their product had been far lower than typical. Rather than throwing away the excess milk, as part of a project called "Farmer's Feeding Families" the dairies set up areas where people could pick up up to two gallons of milk. Anything that remained would be donated to area food banks.

I live less than a mile from one of the spots where the milk was being distributed. After more than a month of seeing next to no traffic on roads since many people were working remotely from home, dozens of cars lined up to claim a gallon or two. Others walked up on foot. The only requirement was that each recipient must be wearing a face mask when they approached the distribution site. The milk was to be given away by the end of the day on a first come, first serve basis.

In addition to dairy farmers finding themselves with more milk than they could typically sell, as restaurants and other food providers have been working to provide meals to healthcare works, school children, and others affected by the virus, it has become a semi-regular occurrence to see posts from providers indicating that they needed to give away excess food before it spoiled.

In cases such as the milk giveaway it was made clear that the offer was for families in need. It is clear that the primary motive was to provide sustenance for those who need it and might not be able to afford to pay for it.

"My neighbor told me about the milk giveaway," one reader emailed me. "She can afford to buy her own milk, but she waited on line and grabbed two gallons anyway."

The reader tells me that the neighbor told her she would put the milk to good use with all of the baking she's been doing while working from home. Besides, she told her neighbor that she figured it was better to take advantage of the milk than to let it go to waste.

"No one asked her if she needed the milk," the reader writes. "She just drove up and they gave it to her. That doesn't seem right."

The dairy offer made clear that any excess milk wouldn't go to waste, but instead would be donated to local food banks. The volunteers distributing the milk didn't check to make sure everyone claiming a gallon was "in need," but worked hard to distribute as much as they could.

There might be nothing illegal about claiming goods meant for those who truly need it, but the right thing would have been to honor the intention of the giveaway. Getting free stuff can be great. But doing so because of a sense of entitlement or satisfaction in getting something for nothing at a time when others don't have the luxury of being able to afford to purchase milk or food as an alternative is both selfish and wrong.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice," is a senior lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School.

Follow him on Twitter: @jseglin

Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net.

(c) 2020 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

When peaceful protests and a pandemic collide

On Sunday, September 15, 1963, the 16th Street Church is Birmingham, Alabama, was bombed. The church, whose congregation was predominantly Black, was also where civil rights leaders regularly met. Four young girls were killed. Their names are Addie Mae Collins (14), Cynthia Wesley (14), Carole Robertson (14), and Denise McNair (11). Several others were injured.

Dudley Randall's poem "Ballad of Birmingham" references the church bombing. In it, a young girl pleads with her mother to allow her to "march the streets of Birmingham/ In a Freedom March today?"

Concerned for her daughter's safety, the mother refuses her request: "'No, baby, no, you may not go/ For I fear those guns will fire. But you may go to the church instead/ And sing in the children's choir.'"

The mother hears the explosion, rushes to the church, "claws through the bits of glass and brick,/ Then lifted out a shoe." The mother's closing lament is heart wrenching: "'O, here's the shoe my baby wore,/ But baby where are you now?'"

Today, we find ourselves in the midst of a pandemic where early data suggests Black communities are suffering from COVID-19 at a disproportionate rate. "Social conditions, structural racism, and other factors elevate risk for COVID-19 diagnoses and deaths in Black communities," concluded the writers of "Assessing Differential Impacts of COVID-19 on Black Communities," in an article in Annals of Epidemiology.

As coronavirus lingers, peaceful protestors have taken to the streets to protest the racist murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and other Black Americans. Many protestors face the decision of peacefully protesting injustice while recognizing that by being in such close proximity to other protestors they could be putting themselves and others at risk of catching or spreading the virus.

They also face the risk of a peaceful protest turning violent. And once again parents find themselves being asked by their children for permission to march the streets in spite of the risks.

"'But,mother, I won't be alone'," said the girl in Randall's poem. "'Other children will go with me,/ And march the streets of Birmingham/ To make our country free.'"

It wasn't until 2000 that charges were brought against two of the white men long suspected of being responsible for bombing the 16th Street Church. Each eventually was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

Certainly, parents should worry about the safety of their children. That's the right thing to do.

But parents should also recognize that there are some injustices that are impossible to isolate to one particular setting. A church, a parked car, or an apartment may be no safer than a protest march for some Black Americans. For some parents, it can seem impossible to keep their children, regardless of their age, safe.

It is reasonable to decide not to engage in peaceful protests out of concern of contracting or spreading coronavirus. For those who choose not to protest peacefully, however, there remains substantial work to do to combat racism, to be anti-racist. Doing nothing or hoping to find a safe haven where racist behavior doesn't exist is not a viable option. Calling out racist behavior among family, friends, classmates, or colleagues when it occurs is a start. But it will take actions rather than merely words "to make our country free."

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.

Follow him on Twitter: @jseglin

Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net.

(c) 2020 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

What is the right kind of help?

Throughout the weeks of working remotely and wearing facemasks when venturing out to grocery shop or perform other essential tasks safely, there's been a particular concern about the well-being of people older than 65 who seem most vulnerable to the worst effects of coronavirus. Some family members or neighbors have gone out of their way to check in on elderly neighbors to ensure they are safe and to offer a distant helping hand if they were in need.

But like others, many older people in relatively good health have sought to get outside for daily exercise such as a walk, a bike ride, or some other form of exercise. In some cases, it might be something as simple as mowing the lawn. Older people may be more vulnerable to the virus, but many led active lives prior to being primarily housebound and they continue to try to find ways to remain active.

A reader wrote to tell me about a friend who takes short daily walks with an elderly neighbor who doesn't feel comfortable walking alone. They each mask up and walk at least 6 feet apart from one another. The reader's friend commented on how slow a walker her elderly neighbor is, but that she likes to walk with her anyway since it makes her feel good to help. Her friend's comment took the reader aback.

It's great that her friend helps a neighbor get outside to stay active while ensuring she practices social distancing while wearing a facemask, indicating that she's glad her friend gets outside to get some regular exercise as well. But "shouldn't she help for the sake of helping whether or not it makes her feel good?" the reader asks.

Reading her question brought back memories of discussions among friends about whether any action can be truly altruistic if you were somehow rewarded for the action. If you're rewarded in any way, does that diminish the selflessness of the action?

Make a charitable donation to a worthy not-for-profit organization that is helping to repair the world? Great, but is it truly altruistic if you get to deduct the donation from your taxes or to have your name publicized as a generous donor for the world to see?

That miles-long walk to raise awareness and funds? Does receiving a t-shirt and other merchandise in exchange for participation make it a bit less selfless?

Are all those public service hours committed during high school any less valuable if they end up listed on a college application?

Yes, it would be great if the reader's friend helped her neighbor regardless of how good it makes her feel. But the point is that she helps her. If it makes her feel good in the process, so what? The right thing is that she helps someone in need.

Regardless of the challenges facing each of us and the many acts of egregious, hateful, often violent, and sometimes deadly acts we witness, in small and larger more courageous acts of kindness, there is a glimmer of hope. If it makes you feel good to help someone, to support a cause, or to stand up for justice, have at it with all your might.

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.

Follow him on Twitter: @jseglin

Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net.

(c) 2020 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

When 'This is not who we are' is a disingenuous cheer

After a three-month investigation into allegations about hazing, Jon Hale reported in the Louisville Courier-Journal that the University of Kentucky had fired the coaching staff of its cheerleading team. The team had won 24 national championships from the Universal Cheerleaders Association.
The investigation focused on a team retreat where alumni allegedly supplied alcohol to the student cheerleaders and nudity was coaxed as part of regular hazing rituals.
"The investigation found no evidence of sexual assault or sexual misconduct during these trips," according to a release written by Jay Blanton, a University of Kentucky spokesperson. Blanton's release also mentioned that two of the fired coaches had potential conflicts of interest because they employed cheerleaders to work at their gymnastics business and an adviser "hired students and coaches to work at his home."
Eli Capilouto, the president of University of Kentucky, seems to have taken decisive action in firing the coaches and issuing a statement condemning the fact that such behavior was condoned and that they did not act to protect the best interests of the cheerleaders.
Capilouto's relatively swift move to address the actions revealed by the three-month investigation, to acknowledge wrongdoing, and to commit to an effort to prevent such actions from being taken again seems the right thing to do. But his words at a news conference sound a bit disingenuous: "This is not who we are at the University of Kentucky. This is not what we do."
"This is not who we are" is a phrase commonly used these days when reflecting on how the behavior of a group with which one is aligned went astray. It's become de rigueur for politicians on both sides of the aisle to invoke it as a means of simultaneously encouraging a group to be better and to distance themselves from the bad behavior.
But the words in many cases - and certainly in the case of this University of Kentucky incident - don't ring true. In the report, some acknowledged not reporting inappropriate behavior that happened years before because they wanted "to believe it did not happen." One of the "sexually explicit" incidents in the report allegedly dated back to the late 1970s.
In other words, these ongoing incidents represented exactly who they were. They might not reflect who they want to be, but the allegations in the report suggest that this is who they are.
Those words - "this is not who we are" - too often and too easily draw a response of: "Clearly, it is who you are."
The honest response when faced with such egregious behavior among your group would be to say: "This is not who we want to be." And the right thing would be to follow that up with: "So this is what we are going to do to ensure that such behavior is never condoned among us again."
After such behavior is acknowledged and addressed, it will take some time to determine who the people within the organization truly are. If all goes well, that's when "this is not who we are" can honestly be cheered proudly. 
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. 
Follow him on Twitter: @jseglin 
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net. 
(c) 2020 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

House rules still apply to college students housebound because of coronavirus

It happened a bit earlier this year than planned. Typically, after the spring semester of college ends, thousands of students return home to spend the summer living in their parents' homes. For many, it's the home they grew up in. Often when they walk through their bedroom doors, while the space may have been converted for slightly different uses in their absence,  it's as if time stood still.
This year, however, the mass migration home took an unexpected turn. Rather than the end of May, carloads of college students and their belongings headed home in mid-March. Concerned over the spread of coronavirus, college campuses shuttered and a majority of students were sent home to complete their courses online.
When there's a re-entry into a parents' home after a college student has been away, there's often a clash between how the student was able to behave on campus and the house rules still in place. A child may have gained some independence while off at school, but the phrase, "our house, our rules" seems on constant rotation.
Typically, re-acclimating involves such banal tasks as picking up dirty clothes, not staying out past a particular hour, or not leaving dirty dishes or half-eaten sandwiches around the house. It can take a few days to sort things out and reach a clear understanding. A parent needs to assert that while they appreciate their child's independence and that their child is an adult, they still expect them to respect the house rules.
But this year adds a twist. Many communities have instituted advisories or directives about wearing face masks in public or while shopping as well as making sure to be at least six feet away from other individuals.
In the communities where the advisories are not binding and it's left up to the individual to comply, there can be a rift between people choosing not to wear face masks when running on a somewhat crowded path and those strictly adhering to the advisory. When such a difference of opinion occurs between a parent and a college student home while school is shut down, the student might remind the parent that he still follows the rules at home even if he chooses not to wear a mask in public.
"I'm not in the house when I do this," the student might say.
It's fair for the college student to choose how to behave in public as long as he is not breaking the law or putting someone else's life in danger. (The latter of these seems to depend on how close he gets to others if not wearing a mask.) But if the student risks exposing himself to the virus because of his behavior outside of the house, then he risks exposing his parents and other family members as well. If his parents are uncomfortable with this, their rules apply and the right thing is for their college student to comply with house rules and wear a mask in public even though technically he isn't inside their house when following the rule.
Life is short. There are plenty of things to argue over with parents. If this one is important to them, let it go. 
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.  
Follow him on Twitter: @jseglin 
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net. 
(c) 2020 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Our stories keep loved one's memories alive

sSantiago, Chile. December 1962.

Death of a loved one can be quite a personal thing for those who survive. To make meaning of someone else's life, we tend to remember that person through our own lens. We default to telling that person's story by focusing on his life only as it touched our own.
In so doing, we are telling our own story as much as the story of the one we loved.
I chose the pronoun "his" deliberately. Two days ago, as I write this column, my father, 91, died peacefully in his sleep in his assisted living apartment in Minnesota. As we scurry to plan a virtual memorial service, we also search for ways to grieve his loss. I joke with my daughter that partly I grieve by taking a half day to repair the rot on a piece of outside trim at my house.
"My dad would want me to take care of this," I say, but the truth is that the work gives me a few precious moments to focus on my father's life and my memories of life with him.
"Death steals everything except our stories," Jim Harrison wrote in his poem "Larson's Holstein Bull."
So, to grieve and to celebrate a person's life, we tell stories upon their death. Our challenge is to ensure that in our effort to remember, we don't lose sight that that person's life extended far beyond his connection to us.
We will never know the full details of all anyone experienced during his or her life.
In my father's case, we have his stories of being a foster child in Brooklyn, New York, separated from his mother and three siblings shortly after the Depression. Or of the track meets he won in high school in spite of having to practice early in the mornings before school because he had to work each day after school during traditional practice. We remember the stories of working on a farm upstate each summer and the family who took him in, a family he introduced us to years later after he'd married and started a family of his own.
We have his diplomas, his books, his track meet clippings, his photos from the field when he mapped soils as an agronomist. Through these, we think we get a sense of what he found important enough to save, a sight he found important enough to capture.
We notice his copy of "Don Quixote" and of the small bronze statue of Miguel de Cervantes he kept on his bookcase for as long as we can remember and we recall what Cervantes wrote about the love a father has for a child - that it "puts a blindfold over his eyes" so he can forgive his child's defects and celebrate his charm, intelligence, wit.
My father might have examined my wood rot repair carefully. Like anyone else, he would have noticed my imperfect work, but he would have nodded thoughtfully, uttered "not bad" and I might have felt a moment of triumph.
No matter how we try, it's our own stories that keep a loved one's memories alive. When loss hits with such a palpable crush and creates a void that in the moment feels impossible to fill, that seems the right thing 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. 
Follow him on Twitter: @jseglin 
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net. 
(c) 2020 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Quibbling over expired coupons not right way to help local business

Last December, a reader we're calling Louisa bought about a half-dozen books from her local independent bookstore as part of the store's efforts to get holiday gifts to children in the community.
"I thought it was a great idea to help encourage kids who wanted books to read," writes Louisa. So in the spirit of the holidays, Louisa chose the names of six children from the list of several hundred who had placed a request.
As a thank-you for purchasing the books, the bookstore offered coupons worth 25% off future purchases through the end of March. Louisa writes that she wasn't expecting anything in return, but she appreciated receiving the six coupons and planned to use them later.
The holidays came and went. Louisa's personal and work life got busy and it wasn't until early March that she remembered she had the coupons. "They were under a magnet on my refrigerator," she writes. "I must have stared at them every day, but I just didn't get around to using them."
Louisa liked the idea of supporting the local bookstore, so she planned to get to the store to make her purchase in mid-March.
"Then things got a little crazy," she writes. Because of the coronavirus outbreak, her office shut down and she started working from home. By the time she was set up, the bookstore was shuttered and only taking online orders. Plus, the end of March had come and gone and her coupons had expired.
Louisa wonders, however, if given the unforeseen circumstances, the bookstore might still be willing to honor her coupons for online purchases. "Would it be wrong of me to ask them to extend the discount?" she writes.
I suppose it never hurts to ask for what you want, but Louisa might want to think about a few things before doing so.
First, because she didn't expect to receive a reward for her gracious gift of books to children, it's not exactly like she is being stripped of something she expected. Granted, the coupons were hers to use and she had every right to use them.
Second, if her true motive is to support the bookstore, which presumably is already facing diminished income as a result of having to close its bricks-and-mortar store, does asking it to honor a coupon beyond its expiration date exude signs of support? Again, she has every right to ask.
Third, Louisa had plenty of time to use the coupons. The store was only shuttered for two weeks at the end of March. Even during that time, it was accepting orders online and Louisa could have used her coupons for online purchases.
The bottom line is that it was always possible for Louisa to use the coupons during the time they were good. That time expired.
Louisa did a good thing by buying books for children. The right thing is for her to acknowledge she missed the deadline for using her coupons. She can save money on her book purchases by buying elsewhere, but if she truly wants to support her local bookstore when it needs it most, she might reconsider the ask. 
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. 
Follow him on Twitter: @jseglin 
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net. 
(c) 2020 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.