Jeffrey L. Seglin's Blog, page 53

A delivery mishaps blooms into good customer service

"They were beautiful," N.L. writes. She was referring to a bouquet of flowers that she received from her partner in the late afternoon on a day off from work. The flowers weren't for any special occasion, just an effort to make the day a bit brighter.
When N.L. read the note that accompanied the flowers, she saw that not only was there a note from her partner, but a note from the florist apologizing for the original delivery not arriving at the time it was promised. N.L. texted her partner to let him know how much she loved the flowers and sent him a photo so he could get a sense of how beautiful they were.
He told her that when they had spoken earlier, he knew she hadn't received the flowers since she didn't say anything, so he called the florist. The florist apologized and promised to get another bouquet out right away -- which it did.
Then N.L.'s doorbell rang. It was her next door neighbor to whose house the original bouquet had been delivered.
So now, N.L. had two beautiful bouquets. She texted her partner to tell him and to ask if she should call the florist. He texted back that when he asked the florist what he should do if the original bouquet eventually showed up, the florist had told him to keep both and enjoy the flowers.
Now, N.L. wanted to let her friends know not just how beautiful the flowers were, but also how responsive the florist had been to get the order right. "But I'll be telling friends that the florist screwed up the first order," she says. In her effort to praise the florist, she worried she'd be making her look bad over the mistake delivery.
Nevertheless, N.L. thought it important to sing the praises of the florist for making good on its promise. You hear so many stories of poor customer service, she said. Now, she wanted to make sure to spread a story about good customer service on her Facebook page and other social media.
"What's the right thing to do?" she asks.
It wouldn't be wrong to spread the word if she really wanted to. After all, the florist did make good on an error.
But N.L. might want to figure out what her ultimate goal would be in spreading the misdelivery made good story. If the intention is to drive other people to use the florist because of the service and the quality of the flowers, then perhaps there's a way to do that without having to worry about a potential delivery mishap.
N.L. could simply tell her friends how beautiful the flowers were, and then post a photo of them with the name of the florist (and perhaps the partner who ordered them) on her Facebook page and other social media accounts. Doing so would let friends know how pleased she was with the service.
The right thing is to figure out what she really wants to accomplish by spreading the word about the florist. If she can do that in a way that doesn't result in potentially having the opposite result of giving prospective customers pause, then that's the choice she should make. 
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of  The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business and The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart, is a 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) 2014 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

References should honor privacy, but be forthright if they screw up

Questions revolving around writing references seem toarise frequently. More than once I've received questions about whether it's OK for recommenders to ask you to write your own recommendation to which they will simply affix their name (it's not).
Now, the question arises of what the right thing to do is when someone writing a reference for a former colleague is not as careful with keeping that colleague's decision to apply for a job elsewhere confidential.
Here's what happened.
A reader, let's call him Reed, received an email from a former colleague, Colleen, telling him that she was planning to apply for a new job and wondering if he would be willing to write her a letter of recommendation. He emailed back indicating he'd be glad to write the letter. Colleen sent Reed some details and he subsequently set aside some time to write the letter.
A few days later, after Reed had written the letter, a copy of it was sitting on his office desk, waiting for him to sign it, stick it in an envelope, and send it off. (Reed is very efficient at getting recommendation letters out in a timely fashion.)
That day, however, Bart, another former colleague who had worked with Reed and still worked with Colleen arrived at Reed's office door. Reed had forgotten that he and Bart had agreed to meet for coffee and to catch up. But there Bart was at Reed's door ready to go -- and there sat the letter for Colleen in open view on Reed's desk.
Bart plopped down on the seat next to Reed's desk and they began chatting before taking off for coffee. Well into the conversation, Reed realized that Colleen's letter was sitting in open view. He reached for it, turned it over, and made a comment to Bart to the effect of, "Sorry, I shouldn't have left that out."
"That's OK," Bart joked. "I learned to read upside down a long time ago." At least, Reed hoped that Bart was joking.
Now, Reed was concerned. He promised to keep Colleen's job application confidential. He didn't think Bart had seen anything or that he would say anything even if he did, but he wasn't sure whether he owed it to Colleen to give her a heads up.
Reed should have been more careful with Colleen's letter once he printed it out. Granted, she didn't work at Reed's new place and no one there knew Colleen, but given that it was a confidential letter, he should have taken a bit more care.
But Reed slipped up, and he wanted to do right by Colleen since he had written her a strong letter.
If Bart did see anything, he should have told Reed that he did. And even if he didn't tell Reed, he should not disclose to anyone what he saw. Friends should not betray friends.
Reed isn't obligated to do anything. He is, after all, doing Colleen a favor by writing her a letter. But Reed chose to do the right thing by emailing Colleen and letting her know what happened. As far as either of them know, Bart either never saw a thing or, if he did, kept it to himself. 
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of  The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business and The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart, is a 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) 2014 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Time for colleges to stop charging students to do internships

K.P., a reader from New England, has a daughter attending college. As part of her major, K.P.'s daughter must complete at least one internship during the course of a semester. Neither K.P. nor her daughter minds this requirement. In fact, each believes working for a business might give the daughter valuable insight into the work world that she plans to enter after graduation.
While it concerns K.P. that many of the internship opportunities that are available to her daughter are non-paying positions -- and rightly so, since it's only right for businesses to pay workers for the work they do -- that's not K.P.'s major concern.
K.P. is troubled with the fact that her daughter must take her internship "for credit," effectively paying the university tuition for the privilege of working for free at an approved business. While her daughter will register for the internship and the supervisor at the business will fill out an evaluation on her daughter that it files with the school, there is little in the way of academic requirements.
"Should my daughter really have to pay the university to work for free at a business?" K.P. asks.
The issue of unpaid internships has been a sticky one for years. Lawsuits have been filed over the issue. Arguments fought. It seems only right for companies to pay student workers just as they would regular employees, even if the students are gaining experience on the job.
An argument might be made that fewer internships would be available if pay was required. Perhaps.
But if colleges see value in internships, even unpaid ones, perhaps a way to compensate students would be to not charge them for the credits they're required to sign up for to take the internships.
A handful of colleges do not offer credit for internships. As a result, students are not left paying for the right to work for free.
Other colleges regularly offer students a fixed number of tuition-free credits when they sign up for college activities, such as working on the staff of a college publication. If a free credit toward tuition can be offered for such non-required activities, surely colleges can offer a limited number of free credits toward internship requirements.
Is there anything unethical about businesses asking students to work for free? If the businesses are using interns to sidestep the need to hire paid employees to do work that is essential to running their business, something rotten is happening. In such case, employees lose opportunities to work. And students are being asked to do that work for free. Presumably, these positions are not at charitable organizations to which students are volunteering their time. These are businesses whose goals are to turn a profit. Should they be able to do so on the back of free student labor?
What's worse is expecting students to pay college credits to institutions that may claim to provide oversight for these positions, but that, in reality, do very little that translates directly into the equivalent of the college having to hire a full-time instructor to teach a course.
The right thing is for academic institutions that require students to pay for credits to do internships to re-examine such policies to see if they are truly fair and in the best interest of the students they are charged with providing the best education possible. 
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of  The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business and The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart, is a 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) 2014 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Whose words are these anyway?

"I am having a tough time with this one," a reader recently emailed. "Is this ethical?"
The reader is the head of a nonprofit that serves families in her area. Her email was accompanied by a request from a local public relations firm asking her to identify the name of a member of one of the families her nonprofit serves who would be willing to add his or her byline to an opinion column that could run in the local newspaper. The opinion column would advocate an initiative supported by the nonprofit.
The public relations firm had been hired by others working for the same initiative. Its representative assured my reader that the "writer" would get to approve the column, but must be willing to put his or her name on something the public relations firm would write.
The editor of the local paper had expressed interest in running the column, but the public relations rep indicated he needed a quick turnaround, so this would have to be "a rush job."
It's become fairly common practice among politicians and corporate executives to have someone on their staff write a draft of a speech or a column on behalf of their boss. How much the boss gets involved in the actual writing depends on the boss. Some edit the pieces heavily or work with the staffer to make the piece as strong as it can be. Others come to rely on their staffers to mirror the boss's voice and end up putting their name on something someone else wrote on their behalf.
At the very least, the boss should sign off on what ultimately goes out of the office. (There's an old story of an executive appearing on a radio interview to promote his recent book, only to have it become clear that he didn't know what was actually in the book. "I don't care if you didn't write your own book," the interviewer reportedly said. "But I do expect you to have read it.")
While I'm not crazy about the lack of transparency for the reader in knowing who actually wrote whatever words they are reading, because a long-term relationship between the staffer and the boss has been established, it can be reasonable to expect that the words might actually reflect the boss's views and his or her manner of expression. Good staffers become quite adept at matching their bosses' voices.
But my reader's case is different. The family member is not a public figure and presumably has no relationship with the public relations firm. While it might be common practice to have ghostwriters create pieces to which members of the community attach their names to give a sense of "authenticity" to the column, the more honest approach would be to identify someone from the community to write a draft of the desired column first. If my reader and the nonprofit firm wanted to offer guidance on how to write an effective column and then offer editorial suggestions to make the piece as strong as it might be, that makes sense.
But the right thing is to give the identified column writer the chance to write his or her own words, rather than offer to write it and then slap his or name on the column. 
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of  The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business and The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart, is a 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) 2014 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Getting rid of embezzlers shouldn't require pulling teeth

After an experienced dental hygienist, D.H., moved to a new state, she accepted a position to work at a medium-sized dental practice. After being on the job for a few months, D.H. noticed several red flags that suggested the dental practice's business manager was embezzling money.
D.H. had seen similar behavior in the office where she used to work.
The business manager was considered "honest and trustworthy," treated almost like a family member by the dentist. The relationship between her and the dentist was close - like mother and son.
D.H. noticed that the business manager was "overly protective" of her workstation, keeping others out and locking the business office door whenever she was away. She also regularly complained or bad-mouthed co-workers, drawing attention away from her own behavior, figures D.H.
D.H.'s experience at her prior job was that the embezzler got caught after being gone for a while on vacation and someone else went through the office mail. But the office manager at D.H.'s new job arranged for a niece to fill in for her while she vacationed overseas.
Bringing in her own replacement struck D.H. as suspicious. And there were those other tell-tale signs of embezzlement -- carefully guarding the office computer from other employees, diverting attention from herself by criticizing other employees and office conditions, living in a way that "seemed well beyond her means."
In spite of the tell-tale signs, D.H. believes it often seems safer to just look the other way and keep quiet. "An old rule says keep your eyes on your own plate."
But D.H. also figures that while the suspected embezzler may think she's just stealing from the dentist, she's also taking money that won't be available for raises or bonuses to the staff. Innocent workers also get robbed in the process.
"What are the options?" asks D.H. "What's the right thing to do?"
While some readers might think D.H. should mind her own business if she doesn't have definitive proof that the business manager is doing something wrong, I don't agree.
D.H. could approach the business manager and let her know that at her previous place of work they had instituted practices to ward off the chances of foul play. The risk, of course, is that if the business manager is stealing that she will suspect that D.H. is on to her and make her the new target of her complaints.
If D.H. truly suspects that the business manager is up to no good and that no good could come from directly confronting the business manager, she should let the dentist know. The risk, of course, is that the dentist would become defensive, arguing that the business manager would never do something like that to him, after all, he and the business manager are like family.
But letting the dentist know that his practice may be the victim of theft is the right thing to do. If the dentist refuses to listen, or if he refuses to take some action to protect himself against embezzlement, then D.H. must decide if this is the practice where she really wants to work. 
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of  The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business and The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart, is a 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) 2014 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

What to do when someone sees you on a job interview

A couple of decades ago, I was interviewing for a job at Microsoft. I was relatively happy at my job in Boston, but when a recruiter called, described the job, and asked if I'd be interested in flying out to Redmond, Wash., to talk to the team starting up a new project, I thought it would be interesting to learn more.
As I was leaving the initial interview with human resources, I heard someone in the parking lot shout out "Jeff." Given that I didn't know anyone who worked at Microsoft at the time, the shout caught me off guard. I turned and saw it was an old professional friend from New York, who happened to be in Redmond to interview for a different job.
The old friend knew many of my co-workers at the time and I his. It was early in the interview process for me, so I hadn't let my employer know I was being recruited. What if the old friend tipped my boss or colleagues off about seeing me before I told anyone?
I was reminded of the encounter when a reader told me that while he was being interviewed for a job over lunch recently, he was surprised to see a couple his firm's clients eating at a few tables over. He continued to talk with his interviewers. By the time they were ready to leave, the clients were long gone.
He was concerned that the clients might say something to his current employer, so he wrestled with what he should do to stave off a potentially awkward situation. Should he, he wondered, tell his employer that he had been to lunch with a competitor who had been wooing him for a new job? Or perhaps he should call the clients, mention that he had seen them and that he was sorry he didn't have a chance to acknowledge them, but then ask them to be discrete about having seen him?
What if he said nothing and his boss confronted him? Should he concoct some story about why he was lunching with competitors?
It is perfectly reasonable and not an act of betrayal for employees to explore other job possibilities. As long as they do so on their own time and don't lie to their current bosses, going on job interviews is nothing to be embarrassed by.
Concocting a story -- a lie -- would be wrong could end up backfiring.
But broadcasting that you're off on a job interview is simply dumb.
Calling the clients you saw who may have had no idea who you were with and asking them to essentially cover for you hardly seems above board.
The right thing for the reader is to go about his business and do his job. If he's offered the new position and decides to take it, then he should give his current boss a reasonable amount of notice. If he doesn't get offered the job, no harm, no foul. Employees are allowed to seek out other opportunities from time to time.
My old friend and I were each offered jobs at Microsoft. He took it. I didn't, but somewhere in my files, I still have my visitor's name badge from that day to remind me not to overreact when unexpected encounters occur. 
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of  The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business and The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart, is a 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) 2014 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Homeowner floored by refinisher's manner

Just how responsible are you for letting others know about your experiences with businesses they recommended or may use themselves?
N.L., a reader from the New England area, recently decided to have the wooden floors in her house refinished. Because she wanted to have some sense that the floor refinisher might do a good job, she asked the owner of the company that painted her house several years earlier for a reference.
After receiving the reference from the painter, N.L. met with the floor refinisher. He measured the rooms and gave her a price for the job. She alerted him to the fact that the floors in one of the rooms had been particularly troublesome since they had wooden pegs covering screws. Over the years, many of the pegs had come loose and she had had to replace them.
"No problem," the refinisher said.
The refinisher told N.L. that he had had a cancellation and could fit the job in the following week. He calculated that it would take no more than a week to get the floors done. N.L. gave the refinisher a check for half the quoted price.
A week passed and the job was not completed. The floor refinisher told N.L. that his regular crew was sick and he had to make do with one assistant. After another week, the refinisher called N.L. to tell her he was done. She was at work when he finished, so she thanked him and said she'd check out the floors when she got home. When she got home and checked, she saw that six pegs were missing from the troublesome floor.
She called the refinisher to tell him about the missing pegs.
"If I'd known these pegs were going to be such a problem, I never would have taken the job," he responded. But he said he'd come back and install the pegs and do the sanding and finishing that needed doing the following week.
After three weeks, the floors were finally done and N.L. reports that they are beautiful. But she wants to know if she should let the painter who recommended the floor refinisher and the neighbor who asked for the refinisher's contact information so he could have his own floors redone about the one week turning into three and the refinisher's complaint about how difficult the job turned out to be.
The right thing for N.L. to do is to let her neighbor come over and examine the floors for himself. If he likes the quality of work, he can decide whether to use the refinisher. N.L. would be right to let her neighbor know about the challenges of working with the refinisher, but still the choice should be his.
It would also be good to let the painter know both that she liked the end product, but that she found the refinisher more challenging to work with than anticipated. It's up to the painter to decide if he wants to continue to recommend the refinisher for other jobs.
N.L. doesn't have to say anything to her neighbor or to the painter. But if she wants to do right by each of them, the right thing is to give each enough information to decide for himself how to proceed. 
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of  The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business and The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart, is a 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) 2014 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

If a gift is new to you, does its source matter?

Just how many details do you need to offer to keep someone from assuming something that might not be accurate?
A reader in the Midwest, A.C., belongs to an organization that raises funds for educational causes. For the past two years A.C. and a friend have been in charge of putting 20 to 25 gift baskets together for the organization's annual fundraiser.
"Once we see what donations have come in," writes A.C. "we decide on a theme and make the arrangement."
To enhance the visual appeal of the baskets, A.C. writes that she and her friend "add embellishments."
"For example, if we have a gift card to a really nice restaurant, we add a bottle of wine, a couple of wine glasses, and perhaps a wine stopper. For a few of the baskets we might use a beautiful platter or a large crystal bowl for the base instead of an actual basket."
An issue that concerns A.C., however, is that many of the embellishments they use for the baskets are those they find at thrift stores or garage sales.
"Naturally we wash everything first," she writes. "And we never include our embellishments in the gift basket's value."
But, she acknowledges that it's safe to say that "everyone assumes the items are new."
A.C.'s friend and she have an "unspoken agreement" that they never really inform anyone where the embellishments are found. "Everyone is so busy with their own tasks that no one ever asks about the specifics of the baskets." A.C. and her friend are complimented on their handiwork and thanked for their efforts.
"Is using items that have been previously owned (maybe, maybe not, used) in these baskets unethical?" A.C. asks.
If the baskets were presented as being full of new purchased items when they in fact included second-hand finds that would be a problem. Even if they are donated goods put together by unpaid volunteers, misrepresenting what's in the baskets would cross an ethical line.
It would also be wrong to include any second-hand items in the basket that might present a risk to any recipient. Second-hand food might not sit well on the stomach.
But A.C. and her friend are not telling anyone that the items in the gift baskets are brand new. They aren't telling them that some of the items might be second-hand goods either. That omission does not strike me as crossing an ethical line any more than including items that a retail store gave them to use that it otherwise would have discarded.
A.C. and her friend are contributing their time and efforts to their community by creatively supporting an effort that gives to educational causes. Good on them for doing so.
If someone asks them directly if all of the items are new, the right thing is for them to be honest and reveal that some of the items in the gift basket mix may have had a previous home.
They should be able to rest easy knowing that they are doing good while not lying about what they are doing. If one of the recipients happens upon a garage sale find in his or her gift basket that turns out to be quite valuable, then the question becomes whether they think it's right to donate the proceeds from that find to the educational efforts as well. 
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of  The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business and The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart, is a 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) 2014 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Leave your route cleaner than it was when you began your journey

Several months ago, I wrote about a reader who wondered what her responsibility was when she and her partner were out for a walk when they came upon a woman walking her dog. The dog owner asked the couple if they happened to have any plastic bags on them, presumably to help her clean up after her dog. The reader told the woman they didn't have any bags, but that there were some city-provided waste bags about 100 yards away.
When the couple made a loop around their neighborhood and came upon the same spot where they encountered the dog owner, they noted she was gone but the waste was not. I had argued that it was not the couple's responsibility to clean up after the dog and the right thing was for the dog owner to have carried her own plastic bags or made the effort to get one the couple pointed out to her.
R.N. of Chillicothe, Ohio, believes the couple should have done more. When they "circled back and saw the owner's dog deposit," he writes, "they should have gotten a plastic bag and picked up the mess."
The incident reminded R.N. of a bicycle ride he made with a cycling group in a nearby state park. At the top of a hill, at a dead end in the road, R.N. writes that there were remnants of a fire with associated trash, empty beer cans, cigarette pack, cigarette butts, and an empty deodorant stick.
"Several people lamented the trash," he writes "but no one picked it up or mentioned picking it up even though several riders had large saddle bags."
R.N. did not think he had room in his jersey pocket and he said nothing to the other riders. "I should have picked up something and said something," he writes, citing a saying from his backpacking days that you should always come out of the woods with more than you brought in. "It is the right thing to do."
R.N.'s point is well taken. I'm sure I'm not the only person to spend time picking up litter (empty bottles, paper bags, assorted items tossed from car windows) from the street in my neighborhood and tossing it into a waste can on my walk to work. Indeed, on other bicycle rides, R.N. has taken the time to slow down his ride and remove trash from the road.
It is the right thing to want to take pride in your environment, but on a more practical note, when you live in the city like I do, to remove anything that might attract unwanted vermin.
When it comes to a pet dog's waste, however, the responsibility for tidying up is still the dog's owner responsibility. There should be no expectation that neighbors will be or should be willing to pick it up.
The right thing is for dog owners to be responsible and clean up after their own pets. If they forget to bring a plastic bag with them on their walks, then they should take the time to return to the scene to clean up. 
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of  The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business and The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart, is a 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) 2014 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Do concerns about a child's online profile require action?

Seventy-one percent of U.S. teenagers 13- to 17-years-old use Facebook according to a 2015 study on "Teens, Social Media &Technology," conducted by the Pew Research Center. Twenty-four percent of teenagers say they are online "almost constantly."
But the fastest growing segment of Facebook users, according to Pew, is older adults. It's not unusual then for older adults to come across something on Facebook that might look a bit hinky as it relates to a young person they know.
A reader in the Midwest, E.K., writes that she used to work in a cubicle across from a guy with whom she would "occasionally banter a bit." While they were working together, the fellow's wife had a baby girl. Eventually, he became a stay-at-home dad and his wife became the "breadwinner" for the family.
That was 15 or so years ago. E.K. and her former colleague keep in touch as friends on Facebook.
Several months ago, the former colleague posted a photo of his daughter and wrote that she now wanted to be known by a new name. The new name was a shortened version of the name given her at birth, but wasn't gender specific.
"My friend has posted many photos of his daughter and family photos since," E.K. writes.
Recently, when E.K. was looking at her Facebook timeline, the "people you may know" section caught her attention. In the group was one of the photos of E.K.'s friend's daughter with the correct last name but with a different first name from her given name or the shortened name.
Because she recognized the photo, E.K. looked at the profile. Other than that the person is "male," there was nothing. No "friends" or any interests or location information.
E.K. is concerned that this may be a fake profile and that her friend's daughter may be being set up by other people to be "catfished" or otherwise embarrassed. (Catfishing someone is enticing them into a relationship after creating a fake online identity).
"She goes to an all-girls school and I know how kids can be at that age," writes E.K.
Now, she wonders whether she should contact her friend through a private message and tell him what she's seen and her concerns or just stay out of it.
What is the right thing to do?" she asks.
The daughter could very well have a Facebook page and set her settings to private so no one else could see her interests or list of friends. It could be that nothing terrible is going on here.
But if E.K. is concerned, then the right thing to do is to private message her friend and tell him exactly how she came across the profile. She can express her concern or simply tell him she was surprised to come across it and leave it at that.
Because the friend's child is a minor, E.K.'s concerns about her safety outweigh any hesitation she might have in alerting the friend. She wouldn't be outing the daughter since the father already seems aware of his daughter's preferences.
It may be that there is nothing nefarious about the page. But if E.K.'s alert can thwart off embarrassment or worse for the friend's daughter, then letting him know about it is the right thing to do. 
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of  The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business and The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart, is a 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) 2014 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.