Jeffrey L. Seglin's Blog, page 38

Should reader inform prospective contractors they're competing for the job?

For several years, a reader we're calling Lil Magill, has known that the porches on a two-family rental property she owns and rents out were beginning to rot and were in need of repair. Finally, this summer, Lil decided it was time to take action.
Much to her chagrin, Lil found it challenging to find contractors who would respond to her emails or phone calls asking for a meeting so they could assess the porches and bid on the project. The neighborhood where Lil owned her property for several decades had become quite desirable among young renters over the past year because of its proximity to public transportation.
The contractors Lil wanted to use apparently were booked up with other projects. Nevertheless, she persisted, and managed to set up meetings with three contractors who had done similar work in the area.
At the first meeting, the contractor indicated he would put together a proposal for Lil and email it to her. Lil was thrilled that things were finally moving along and readied herself for meeting with the other two contractors.
Before the second contractor meeting occurred, however, Lil wondered if she risked angering the prospective contractors by not letting them know she was speaking other contractors before deciding who to use for the job.
"Am I obligated to tell each contractor that I have several people giving me bids on the job?" she asks.
Lil is no novice to working with plumbers, electricians, or other tradespeople. But in the past, she says, she tended to use the same person over and over again. The porches, however, were a bigger project than she typically had and beyond the scope of most of the tradespeople she'd worked with over the years.
"I don't plan to select the contractor based solely on the price," Lil writes. "I want to get a sense of how they say they'd approach the project. I also want to talk to people whose houses they've worked on before to get some references."
But now, Lil wonders if she broke some sort of ethical protocol by not letting the contractors know they were competing for the job.
Any seasoned contractor should know that he or she is competing for work when they put together a proposal for a project, particularly if there's no pre-existing relationship with the customer. Contractors also know that projects they bid on sometimes don't materialize for any number of reasons, whether they prove more expensive than the homeowner wanted to take on or simply the timing didn't work out.
If Lil wants to tell the contractors that several people are putting together proposals for the job, that's fine. She might find that doing so lights a fire under some of them to get their proposals to her more swiftly. But given the heated real estate improvement market, she shouldn't hold her breath that informing them of the competition will speed things up.
Lil has no obligation to tell each of the contractors that he or she is not the only contractor looking at the project. The right thing is for Lil to meet with the contractors, review the proposals, do any due diligence of their work she deems necessary, and then decide with whom she'd like to work. 
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 answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net. 
F ollow him on Twitter: @jseglin  
(c) 2018 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Remembering a lost friend with a troubling story

A recent obituary troubled a reader. The kind remembrances of a colorful local resident were testament to the large imprint the person had left on her community.
But it was a detail in one remembrance, however, that troubled a reader. Apparently, when the deceased chaired the board of a local nonprofit, she and her executive director found themselves up against a ridiculously tight deadline to finish an application for a grant.
They began work at the beginning of the week, hoping to get the materials completed and to the post office so they could get it postmarked by that Friday, as the grant-making organization required. But as the week progressed and Friday arrived, it became clear they weren't going to finish on time and would miss the postmark deadline.
After the executive director told his board chair they wouldn't finish on time, she left the office. Shortly later, she returned and showed him that she had gotten a Pitney Bowes sticker from the post office, which was postmarked Friday.
He told the obituary writer that the board chair was his "type of girl" and that a town where you could get the post office to issue an "illegal" postmark was his "type of town."
A funny story about a beloved friend and community member; undoubtedly, she went out of her way to help her friends and colleagues.
But the reader wondered if such behavior is really the kind of thing that should be condoned, let alone heralded. Granted, it did enable them to get their grant proposal out with the illusion of being on time (even though it was sent out the following Monday) so they could get the grant.
"I'm sure the woman was well-known in town and used her connections to pull some strings," the reader writes. Others likely could not do the same, she observes, but that's not what really bothers her.
"Making light of breaking the law to get what you want doesn't seem right," she writes.
There is nothing wrong with the executive director telling the story as a way to remember an old friend. If it's something that happened between them and he thought it a good anecdote to use to show how they worked together to advance their cause, then his choice was fine, and likely amusing to hear for those who knew her.
What's unclear to my reader -- and to me -- is whether the writer of the obituary checked the facts of the executive director's story to make sure it really happened as he told the obituary writer. Occasionally, old stories take on details that might not have happened exactly as they remembered decades later when reminiscing over a dear, old friend.
Was it right to try to fabricate the postmark to make it look like the package went out before it did -- if that is indeed what happened? No. The right thing would have been to work as hard as they could and try to meet the deadline set by the granting institution. If they missed it, then they could commiserate with others who missed it as well and didn't have a malleable post office worker to enlist for help. 
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 answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net. 
F ollow him on Twitter: @jseglin  
(c) 2018 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Should I lie to keep a surprise?

"I don't like to lie," C.E., a reader from Southeastern United States, tells me. It would be refreshing to believe that she is in good company.
Typically, C.E. doesn't find herself in a position of even being tempted to lie, she says. But that recently changed.
Some members of her family decided to throw a surprise birthday party for one of her close relatives. Knowing that C.E. and the recipient of the surprise party were close, C.E. was enlisted to help with the planning and with the effort to keep the soiree a tightly guarded secret.
"She and I talk regularly," C.E. says about her relative. While they live in different parts of the country, they also visit one another during the summer, just around the time the party was planned to take place.
"I don't want to ruin the surprise," C.E. says, but she also doesn't want to lie to keep the surprise element in place.
But, she wants to know, if it would be wrong to lie if she had to in this particular instance, or if it would be better to spill the beans on the surprise rather than lie about it.
C.E.'s is likely a situation many of us find ourselves in from time to time. Lying might seem like the only route to take to do something perceived to be nice for someone else. Justifying that a small lie might do no harm seems easy enough.
I'm not convinced C.E.'s only choices are to lie or to spoil the secret.
Years ago, Rushworth M. Kidder, the late co-founder of the Institute for Global Ethics, told me about some advice he offered in a different situation where trying to decide how to keep a secret without lying proved challenging.
"You have to come to terms with how to approach issues like this where you can't divulge all of the information, but to do it without lying," Kidder told me. He went on to tell me about a woman he knew who once told him how she handled such situations: "I really find that I don't ever have to lie; I have too big a vocabulary."
When keeping a confidence of any sort -- whether it's about an upcoming surprise party or upcoming layoffs about which only you and a few other managers might know -- lying should not be the go-to tactic. Instead, choosing responses to questions carefully and honestly without revealing more than you want to seems the right thing to do.
Of course, if C.E.'s relative comes right out and asks, "Are you having a surprise party for me?" that puts her in a quandary. If she says, "No," she'll know she's lying. If she says, "Yes," she'll spoil the secret. If she simultaneously wants to maintain her honesty and the element of surprise, the right thing is to change the subject as deftly as possible and move on.
Keeping a surprise party a secret from the honoree is always a challenge. But once C.E. decided she doesn't want to lie, her choice was made and she needs to find a way to stay true to her conviction. Or she could just avoid as many of her relative's calls as possible until the day of the party. 
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 answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net. 
F ollow him on Twitter: @jseglin  
(c) 2018 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Using others' stories without permission is wrong

After a reader -- let's call her Pam -- was told by her boss that she was being removed from her job, Pam did her best to move on with her life and her career. The boss had listed several reasons for the removal, several of which Pam took issue. But she decided to take advantage of a generous severance package she'd negotiated, and move on.
Several months later, Pam had begun to build a new career for herself, unburdened by the demands and stress of her previous position. According to friends and colleagues, Pam also did her best not to bad mouth her former boss or to toss brick bats at her employer.
Few friends knew exactly what the reasons were for Pam's dismissal. Many knew she'd been dismissed, but not why, and most did not feel it their business to press for more information than Pam wanted to share. Most simply were pleased to see her embrace her new opportunities so well.
An old friend of Pam's had set up a Google alert for Pam's name several years earlier, after some work Pam had done gained some attention and the friend -- whom we're calling Gertie -- wanting to keep up. Those alerts had dwindled, but occasionally, Gertie would get an email letting her know Pam's name had appeared in an article online somewhere.
The most recent alert Gertie received took her aback. It included a link to a blog post from a disgruntled employee who reported to the boss who had dismissed Pam. While the blog was essentially a list of personal grievances, it named several other individuals whom the blog writer suggested had also been dealt with unfairly.
"It was pretty specific," Gertie writes. "And I'm not sure Pam would have wanted this stuff out there available for public view." The blog post listed several reasons the old boss allegedly had been telling people Pam was let go.
Gertie didn't know how accurate the information was or if Pam knew about the blog post. She wonders if she should respect Pam's privacy by not saying anything, or if, as a friend, the right thing is to let Pam know it's out there.
Even though the blog poster doesn't accuse Pam of anything and, in fact, uses her case as a way to point to their former boss's wrongdoing, she was wrong to disclose that information publicly if she did not seek Pam's permission first. It should be Pam's decision what she wants to publicly disclose about herself, not a blogger who wants to use Pam's situation for her own purposes.
The right thing is for Gertie to let Pam know the information is out on the internet as well as how she came across it. She should also make clear that she is only alerting Pam so Pam knows it's out there, not to pass judgment on her or to squeeze details about her dismissal from her.
In an effort to strengthen her own cause, a blog poster appears to have disclosed private information on someone else. Since the blog poster's issue is with her former boss. If she wants to avoid behaving as badly as she claims her former boss behave, she should keep Pam's and other employees' names out of her posts. 
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 answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net. 
F ollow him on Twitter: @jseglin  
(c) 2018 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

"Everyone is doing it" is no basis for doing it yourself

Years ago, after I had left my job as a magazine editor and took a significant cut in pay to become an assistant professor at a liberal arts college in the Northeast, a senior colleague advised me that from time to time I should apply for other teaching jobs even if I didn't want them.
He let me know that this was common practice among college professors since getting an offer with a high salary was pretty much the only way we could hope to get a significant raise as a counteroffer from our school. Over the decade or so I taught there, I considered applying for new jobs elsewhere and ultimately accepted my current position. I never tried to use an offer from somewhere else as leverage to get more money.
This might have been foolish, but I enjoyed working with the students at my school and, even though I knew I was not the most highly paid person in my position, I felt like I was fairly paid for the work.
Is it wrong to apply for jobs and use an offer as leverage with your current employer even if you don't really want the new job? Of course not. It might be a bit disingenuous to claim you're willing to accept a better salary offer from somewhere else if you have no intention of leaving. But who knows if when faced with a better offer you might decide to move on. If you're willing to accept the outcome of your attempt at negotiating -- more money or not more money -- regardless if you stay or go, then have at it.
A problem, however, with institutions failing to regularly evaluate whether their employees are fairly compensated rather than rely on the fear of losing someone to someplace else when presented with that reality is that it creates an odd incentive for some employees to be on a constant job search in hopes of extricating more money from their current employer.
The worst outcome is when employees simply lie about counteroffers, as a former professor at Colorado State University appears to have done. According to reports from CBS4 in Denver and The Chronicle ofHigher Education , the former professor went to the trouble to fabricate an offer letter from the University of Minnesota. The fabrication worked and resulted in a raise.
Now, he faces a felony charge for his handiwork.
In a letter reprinted on the Chronicle's website, the former professor essentially used the "everyone does it" excuse claiming that he knew of others who had used the same technique, a charge that does not appear to have been backed up by evidence. "I'm not excusing it, and I'm not excusing my own actions, but these factors are real," the former professor wrote.
The right thing, as you all know or should know, is not to lie or fabricate or falsify information to get what you believe you have coming to you -- even if you believe everyone else is doing so. Once you do so, the likelihood is that you'll get what's coming to you, even if it's not what you had hoped for. 
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 answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net. 
F ollow him on Twitter: @jseglin  
(c) 2018 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Can I skim some books from my friend's donation?

A reader we're calling Josh, owns a pickup truck. Josh seems a good enough fellow, indicating that in addition to using his truck as an occasional means of personal transportation, he also regularly comes to the aid of family members and friends who need a vehicle such as his to lug stuff to or away from them.
For readers concerned about carbon emissions, Josh believes his carbon footprint is fairly low. The truck is more than 10 years old and he rarely puts more than 3,000 miles a years on it. More importantly, Josh has no intention of either getting rid of the truck or buying a new one.
So Josh remains the go-to friend for friends who are in need of a haul.
A few months ago, Josh agreed to pick up about a dozen boxes of books from a friend who planned to donate them to a local nonprofit's annual book sale. Since Josh lived in the town where the donations were being accepted, he agreed not only to pick up the books, but also to drop them off for his friend.
As it turned out, the timing was a bit off for getting the books to their desired location. No donations were accepted for the two weeks leading up to or following the annual weekly book sale. When Josh's friend realized that this year's sale was only a week and a half away, he worried that he would have to find another destination for the boxes of books. But Josh agreed to store the boxes in his garage until donations were again being accepted.
"I lugged the boxes back and unloaded them," Josh writes. But as he did, he decided to take a quick look through each of the boxes to see what his friend was donating.
Most of the books didn't pique Josh's interest, but he found at least six or seven titles that drew his eye. A few were classics Josh had meant to read but never did. A couple seemed liked first editions of well-known writers' books which might be worth looking up online to assess their value.
"Is it wrong for me just to take a couple of books from the pile as sort of a carrying fee?" asks Josh.
If Josh agreed to haul the books away from his friend and to the annual book sale for free, then he shouldn't expect a "carrying fee." Initially, Josh thought he'd be driving the boxes right to the charity for drop-off. Any value the books might have were intended to help out the charity running the annual book sale.
While no one but Josh would know if he skimmed a few titles from the boxes, if he's interested in keeping a few, the right thing is to give his friend a call and ask him if he minds if Josh keeps a few titles that might interest him. The friend is not obligated to, but it would be gracious of him to agree. It would have been better to agree upon this once Josh learned he'd be storing the books in his garage for a few weeks, a lesson learned for his next friendly haul.
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 answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net. 
F ollow him on Twitter: @jseglin  
(c) 2018 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Should recipient keep an unexpected inheritance?

Long before she died, a professor who had taught at a small college in the Midwest started making a list of what she wanted done with her belongings once she had died. She had no living relatives, but she had taught at the same college -- the one she had herself attended as an undergraduate -- for more than four decades.
Upon her death, the professor left a sizeable amount of money to the college. But her belongings were dispersed among dozens of former students according to her wishes. Pieces of antique furniture went to some students; settings of bone china tea cups and saucers, framed prints and paintings to others. By the time the executor of her estate was through, the professor's belongs were shipped off to their new owners, more often than not arriving as a surprise to the recipient.
The professor left several hundred books and unpublished papers and assorted documents to one of her students who had gone on to become a professor himself. Over the years, he sorted through the books and documents. While he didn't believe there was anything of great monetary value, the sentimental value of the material was incalculable.
Among the materials was an inexpensive plastic sheath in which the professor had left assorted museum and travel brochures as well as programs to various events she had attended over the years. Her student had set the sheath aside and it sat for years on a bookcase in his home office.
Recently, when he was cleaning and organizing his office after a semester of teaching and papers piling up everywhere, he came across the sheath and decided to take a closer look at its contents. All the brochures and programs were still there, but when he had emptied the sheath, he noticed a plastic Ziploc bag at the bottom that he'd never noticed before.
When he took a closer look, he found that the bag contained two Wedgwood portrait medallions (one apparently a limited edition) and one sterling silver commemorative medallion. A quick search on the internet revealed that the value of the items was not insubstantial.
Since his professor had been so intentional about how she had dispersed her belongings, he was fairly certain that the medallions hadn't been sent to him in error. But because they were so personal in nature, related to the work his professor had spent decades doing at her college, and were also of some value, he wondered whether it was wrong not to ask someone at the college if they would like to have them.
It might be a kind gesture, but the professor's student has no obligation to offer to return the medallions found among the papers and books he was left to the college. As he points out, his professor was meticulously deliberate in directing who should receive her various belongings upon her death. If she had wanted the medallions to go to the college, she would have left such instructions.
The former student should decide if he wants to keep his inheritance or to donate them to the college. The decision is his and his alone and he should make it with a clear conscience and the knowledge that his former professor trusted him to do the right thing. 
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 answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net. 
F ollow him on Twitter: @jseglin  
(c) 2018 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Stop linking to stories without reading them first

On a good day, it takes me about 39 minutes to commute via public transportation from my house to my office. Most of that time is spent as a passenger on the subway. It's time I often use to read my Twitterfeed to see if any of the people I am following have posted anything interesting.
Often, there's a tweet with a link to an article. If it looks interesting, I click on the link and read the article. If that article does indeed prove interesting and seems like something my Twitter followers might like to read, I tweet a link to it.
But apparently, as someone who reads the articles he links to, I'm in the minority.
A 2016 study -- "Social Clicks: What and Who GetsRead on Twitter?" -- conducted by researchers from Columbia University and the French Institute for Research in Computer Science and Automation examined 2.8 million Twitter shares and found that only 59 percent of people who retweeted links to stories on social media had actually read the pieces they linked to.
Regularly, I find myself reading a post on social media that seems a bit suspect. Sometimes there is a photo that doesn't seem quite right with a note from the poster indicating how the story supports his or her strong views on a particular topic. I come across such posts from people on all sides of political and social arguments. When I take the time to check out a story linked to, I sometimes find that the story is from a questionable source or relates to a long debunked fabricated piece of information.
There are tools and websites available to check out whether some are fake.
Snopes.com does a reasonable job of debunking false stories being spread. (No, a photo of the 1936 New York Yankees, which shows players in uniform kneeling is not a photo of Major League Baseball players of a different era kneeling in protest of "Black Lynchings," so please stop posting and spreading the story.)
Sites like Politifact.com, FactCheck.org, Newsbusters.org, and MediaMatters.org help readers grasp whether a politician's claim is true or false.
There's also a free one-hour verification course made available online from First Draft designed to teach people "how to verify eyewitness media, fabricated websites, visual memes, and manipulated videos." (Full disclosure: First Draft is housed at Harvard Kennedy School's Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, where I am a faculty affiliate.)
Spreading false information -- even if it's to support a noble point -- is wrong. While the intent may be to strengthen a great moral cause, when a story you spread proves to be inaccurate, it's likely to do harm to your efforts to spread the word.
But before you can verify the information you spread, you need to read it. Sharing links without reading the story linked to does little to increase knowledge on a subject. It may be easy to retweet a tantalizing tweet without reading the article linked to, but it can be irresponsible to do so.
The right thing is to share links to stories on topics about which you are passionate, but first, read the story. 
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 answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net. 
F ollow him on Twitter: @jseglin  
(c) 2018 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

What to do with the realtor who keeps on emailing

About 10 years ago, a couple of readers we're calling Al and Tina were in the market for a house. They worked with several brokers to find a place and were ultimately successful in finding a home they loved.
Now that they've been settled in their new home, they continue to get postcards from assorted local realtors informing them of properties for sale. One realtor continued to send them unsolicited emails long after they'd purchased their home. For a while, that realtor's emails stopped.
But a few weeks or so ago, Al noticed that he again started receiving emails about available properties from that realtor. At first, Al thought nothing of the email. But something struck him as different about the most recent email.
After consulting with his wife, Tina, she pointed out that the realtor was now at a different firm from the one he was at when they'd met with him.
"Anyone can buy our name to mail to," writes Al, "but this guy clearly got my email address from when he worked at his old firm and he's now using it at the new firm."
Using his former company's leads didn't strike Al as kosher. "Don't those email addresses belong to the old company?" he asks. He wonders if he should alert the realtor's old boss and tell them that the guy might have left with company property in tow. Or, he asks if he should just let things lie since he never pays much attention to the emails or cards he receives from realtors anyway.
If the realtor stole company information, then he's wrong to do so. But Al doesn't know what the realtor's relationship to the old company was. He might have had an agreement with his former employer that it was OK to take his leads with him. Or he might have paid the former boss for use of the names.
If Al wants to get clear on the propriety of the realtor using his email address, then rather than accuse him of theft to his former boss, he should get clear on the facts first. He can do this by responding the realtor and asking him if he has permission to use his old leads, or, if he wants to escalate matters, he can contact the realtor's former company and alert it to the realtor's behavior.
But the right thing is for Al to figure out what goal he is trying to achieve. If he doesn't care one way or another about receiving occasional emails from the realtor, he can let things lie. Or, if he does care and finds the emails to be a nuisance, he should contact the realtor and ask him to stop. If the realtor persists, he should report him to his new company, and he might also want to take the extra step of letting the former employer know that one of its former realtors is refusing to cease his practice of emailing Al, even after Al specifically asked him to stop.
It's not Al's responsibility to put in the time it would take to discover whether the realtor's behavior is on the up and up. But once Al asks him to stop, the realtor should. 
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 answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net. 
F ollow him on Twitter: @jseglin  
(c) 2018 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Should parade marchers ask permission to toss candy at kids?

On the first Sunday of June each year, there's a parade down a three-mile stretch of an avenue that cuts through several neighborhoods, including mine, in a section of Boston. Originally held in 1904, to commemorate the 274th anniversary of the settlement of Dorchester (which was annexed to become part of Boston in 1870) there's always a good turnout for the Dorchester Day Parade. By our neighborhood, there are many pub and restaurant patrons that pour out onto the street to watch and cheer.
If we are in town on that first Sunday, my wife and I walk up to the parade route to watch local bands, dancers, politicians, trade union representatives, community center workers, and others march by. Other family and neighbors often join us. While its original intent might be unknown to many onlookers, the parade serves as an unofficial welcome to summer, and an opportunity for neighbors to get out and be among one another. It doesn't quite have the more personal flavor of the annual neighborhood yard sale at the end of the summer when neighbors sell off their old stuff to one another, or Halloween where upwards of 500 costumed trick or treaters make the rounds. But the parade provides a couple of hours of the community coming together to celebrate whoever happens to be marching that year. It also provides newcomers to the neighborhood a chance to get a feel for the neighborhood.
The street is lined on both sides with adults and children. The politicians often distribute stickers or placards promoting themselves. The community center workers often toss embossed items (hand sanitizer and inflatable beach balls seemed big items this year) to watchers. But the mainstay in terms of handouts has always been candy of one sort or another -- sometimes tossed by the handful from parade participants on floats passing by, and other times handed out more directly from buckets carried by marchers.
This year was no different. Lots of candy strewn about and lots of toddlers and young kids scurrying the side of the streets to pick up the candy pieces.
On our walk back to the house, a young parent with two toddlers in tow engaged us in conversation.
"My kids can't eat candy," she said, telling us she had to make sure that anything they'd received at the parade they handed over to her. "Shouldn't the marchers ask parents if it's OK to give their kids candy before they offer it?"
In a perfect world, maybe. But no, aside from trying to make sure they don't hurl candy too forcefully at the crowd so it ends up hitting a kid in the noggin, they have not crossed any ethical lines with their distribution.
It would be wrong, however, for a toddler or young child to attend a parade on a large city street unattended by an adult. It's that adult's responsibility to make sure that the child doesn't consume or play with anything that might be harmful.
The right thing on a parade route is for a parent, such as the young woman who engaged us, to keep an eye on her kids and monitor what they might be eating during a parade. That the mother did this is good, and what any good parent or supervising adult should have been expected 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 answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net. 
F ollow him on Twitter: @jseglin  
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