Jeffrey L. Seglin's Blog, page 57

Don't go on a guilt trip over free-trial offer

D.H., a reader in Sacramento, Calif.,writes that he prefers a good portion of his leisure reading in printed form. To accommodate his preference, he subscribes to several magazines, his local newspaper and the Sunday edition of a well-known national newspaper.
While D.H. enjoys reading these publications and would like to see all of them continue to thrive in printed form, a decision he made recently leaves him wondering if he did the right thing.
A few times a year, the national newspaper he reads offers to send him the daily newspaper as well at no cost for a specific period of time. His only obligation to keep from being charged for both daily and Sunday subscriptions is to contact the newspaper at the end of the trial to cancel any additional days.
D.H. has taken advantage of these offers several times, keeping careful track of when he needs to cancel the daily newspaper to avoid being charged for it.
"The extra days are a nice treat," he writes, "but I have no intention of keeping that daily part of the subscription going."
Even though the offer is presented without strings, D.H. writes that "knowing that the newspaper industry is in dire straits makes me wonder whether it's ethical to continue taking the (free) offer."
D.H. does have a point that newspaper revenues have declined precipitously over the past decade. In its annual "The State of the News Media" report, The Pew Research Center's findings suggest that while newspaper circulation has remained stable over the past several years, the revenue from advertising has dropped dramatically. As classified and display ads have migrated to other venues -- especially the digital media platforms D.H. doesn't care to read -- newspapers are challenged to match the profits they once achieved.
However, it's not readers like D.H. choosing to convert their free daily trials into paid subscriptions that will dramatically turn the newspaper industry around, although newspaper companies always love having a new paid subscriber in the fold. (Selfishly, as someone who writes for newspapers, I would like to see readers pay for both print and online subscriptions as often as possible.)
In any case, is it right for D.H. to sign on for a free trial of the daily edition of his newspaper when there's no chance he'll pay for it after the trial? He should feel no guilt.
The newspaper made the offer with no strings attached. If D.H. wants to avail himself of the free papers, that's up to him. He might view it as a reward for being a loyal Sunday customer, even if that's not the newspaper's intention.
The right thing for the newspaper to do is make the terms of the free trial clear, and for D.H. to act in good faith if he signs on. Each of them has done so, so D.H. can read on with a clear conscience. 
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.

Hotels should make clear if pocketing food, tissues is OK

A well-traveled reader claims that his spouse is one of the world's great hoarders when they're on the road.
"If we're eating breakfast at a hotel and they serve us three rolls," he explains, his spouse will eat one roll and slip the other two into the backpack for later. If there's an all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet, his spouse will take a few extra packaged cheeses for lunch.
"It's saved us many a meal," the reader writes.
But the spouse doesn't stop at the dining table. In hotel rooms, the spouse will walk out with the Kleenex box or toiletries.
"We don't take towels or such, but food or toiletries?" His spouse, he writes, is a master.
"So here's my ethical question: Where should a traveler draw the line? If you paid for the room, can you take the Kleenex? If you've paid for breakfast, but don't eat that much, can you save food for lunch? What are the limits?"
In the past, readers have asked similar questions. One admitted deliberately going to a local all-you-can-eat buffet restaurant while they were still serving breakfast -- but just as they began setting out lunch -- so he could partake of each. He wanted to know if this was a kosher practice (straddling meals, not the meal itself). As long as the restaurant hadn't posted any notice that patrons were only paying for breakfast or lunch, I said he'd done nothing wrong.
Several other readers have asked about taking home the toiletries set out for their use in hotel/motel rooms. As long as these items were intended for their personal consumption, there's no harm in keeping them. In fact, I pointed out, some hotels have formed relationships with not-for-profit organizations such as Clean the World and the Global Soap Project to send unused shampoos and soaps to developing nations. Travelers can contribute themselves if they wish.
But what of the world-class hoarding spouse? If the couple is served three rolls and eats only one, there's nothing wrong with saving the other two for later. It seems akin to asking for a doggie bag. Taking a handful of Kleenex to use while out traveling and away from the hotel seems a fair practice, as well.
But taking packaged food from a buffet table with no intention of eating it during that meal, and removing a full-size box of Kleenex from a hotel room goes beyond the intention of the provider. Granted, my reader's spouse is certainly not the only person to do such things; the hotel where the couple stayed probably anticipates the cost of such activities.
If so, the right thing would be for the hotel to make clear to patrons that they're welcome to take a piece of cheese or fruit with them for the day, or pack the Kleenex. Or guests can simply ask at the front desk or in the dining area if it's OK to take extra. They shouldn't have to wonder if it's OK or not -- even if they believe everyone else is doing it. 
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 the euro falls, can the price of French wine be far behind?

Do businesses have an ethical responsibility to pass on savings to the people buying their products?
That's what, G.L, a reader in the Northeast U.S., wants to know. G.L. and his wife spent four months traveling in Europe this past spring. When they left Europe to return to the U.S. in July, the euro was worth around $1.36. Now, eight months later, the euro's value has dropped significantly, to roughly $1.13.
"That's a drop of 17 percent in six months," writes G.L. "And yet the cost in the United States of a French bottle of wine hasn't dropped at all." To G.L., this doesn't sit right. Shouldn't his local wine store drop prices to reflect the weakening of the euro, he wonders.
From a business standpoint, even if a wine shop did decide to lower its prices because its inventory presumably cost less to stock, it would take some time for those lower prices to register. The bottles on the shelf presumably were purchased when the exchange rate between the U.S. dollar and the euro was higher.
Granted, if G.L. and his wife wanted to, they could hop a plane, return to France and get a better deal on their wine than they did when they were there six months ago. But the added cost of the airfare would obviously outweigh any cost savings, and 3,400 miles would strike many as a long way to go to save a few dollars on a bottle of Languedoc-Roussillon wine.
Certainly, once G.L.'s local wine shop starts stocking French wine it purchased at the better exchange rate, it might be able to pass on some cost savings to customers. It would be a nice thing to do.
But is it unethical not to do so? No.
The wine shop is free to charge whatever price it wants on the products it stocks. If customers are willing to pay the same price they've been paying over the past year -- even though their dollars might go further in Europe this month than six months ago -- then the wine shop owner stands to earn a bigger profit than before. This would not be unethical.
If G.L. and other customers are unhappy about the local wine shop's failure to drop prices reflecting the stronger dollar (or weaker euro), he and others are free to shop around to see if other stores offer French wines at better prices. Eventually, if every other store drops its French wine prices slightly and G.L.'s local wine shop does not, it stands to lose business and profit.
This principle holds true for most any business selling products that can also be purchased elsewhere. There's nothing wrong with a business making money, just as there's nothing wrong with customers shopping around for the best price.
As for G.L.'s question about the weakened euro, the right thing for the wine shop owner to do is to stock wine customers want at a price they're willing to pay. And the right thing for G.L. to do is to decide how much he's willing to pay for the wine he likes to drink. Tchin-tchin. 
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.

Passenger under no obligation to help pay for cabbie's mistake

C.N. was traveling in the United Arab Emirates when she hailed a cab. Unprompted by C.N., the driver chose to go through a light that was turning red to get C.N. to her destination faster. C.N. figures that had the driver waited for the green light, it would have taken them several more minutes -- and several more Euros on the meter -- to reach her destination.
Police saw the cab driver run the light, pulled him over and issued a fine.
"The cost of the cab fare was much, much smaller than the cost of the fine," writes C.N. Of course, it also took much longer to reach her destination than it would have if the driver had waited for the light to change.
"What's the right thing to do?" asks C.N. "Should I have given him money to help defray the cost of the fine?"
When C.N. arrived at her destination and the driver told her the fare, he didn't ask for money to cover the fine. However, C.N. decided to give him half the cost of the fine. She's still wondering if this was the right thing to do.
C.N. might have acted out of kindness by giving the cabbie the extra money. She sensed that he was only trying to help her, and in the process incurred the fine. But it was the cabbie who chose to violate the law, not C.N. She didn't cajole him to get her where she wanted to go swiftly at any cost. Even if she'd done so, the driver would have been wrong to run the light. The end result could have been far more serious than a fine if the cab had been hit by another driver.
The right thing would have been for the cab driver to obey the traffic signal. Given that he was fined, he was right not to ask the passenger to help cover the cost. Paying a fine is not akin to paying a toll, for example, which the driver would have been expected to cover.
Once C.N. arrived at her destination, the right thing would have been to pay the fare only. If she wanted to show kindness, she could have added an appropriate gratuity. (The custom for tipping taxi drivers in Dubai seems to be to round up to the next full Euro amount if the ride was good. Given that the driver in question violated the law, C.N. would have had to determine if she received a "good" ride.) But she was under no obligation -- nor should she have felt compelled -- to split the cost of the fine. 
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.

Owning up to overpayment keeps professional relationship solid

Start-up companies often have growing pains, and J.L., a reader from the Northeast, recently found himself on the receiving end of such pain. The incident challenged him on just how honest he should be.
After agreeing to do a small amount of contract work for a start-up, J.L. was sent a check for his services. As he'd grown accustomed to doing, J.L. used an app on his smartphone that allowed him to photograph and deposit checks into his bank account remotely. The process seemed to work seamlessly, as it had in the past.
A day or so later, J.L. received an email from his contact at the start-up.
"I wanted to let you know that I was just notified about a problem with the company's checking account," the email read, "which means that if you deposited the check I sent you it may not have gone through. If so, I'll be happy to send you a new check and cover any fees you may have been charged. So sorry!"
J.L. went online to check his bank account and saw that the check was still processing, so he didn't know if there were any problems. He emailed his contact back to say he'd inform her if the check bounced and any fees were incurred.
Two days later, J.L. checked online again and found that the check had indeed been returned for insufficient funds. There was also a $12 fee assessed his account because of the bad check.
J.L. emailed his contact, who asked him to send her a copy of the statement with the bank charge on it. J.L. did and within days a new check arrived for the original amount plus the additional $12 to cover the cost of the bad check fee. J.L. deposited the check by using his smartphone app again, and this time the check cleared within a few days with no problems.
A day or so after the check cleared, however, J.L. checked his account balance online and saw that his bank had waived the bad check fee and credited his account for the $12 he'd been charged. He still has no idea why the bank did this, although he suspects it had something to do with the size of the balance he keeps in his account.
J.L. had already been paid for his work plus the additional $12. His contact would never know that he'd been credited for that $12 for the bank. Should he tell her and offer to return the $12? Or should he let things lie and chalk up the extra loot to a bank error in his favor?
Without question, the right thing for J.L. to do is tell his contact and offer to return the $12. J.L. recognized this and dutifully told his contact.
"Please keep the $12," she emailed back, expressing her appreciation for his honesty. It's likely to be the beginning of a long working relationship. 
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.

Driver could have avoided gnawing guilt over a car accident

Years ago, a reader and his wife were driving in New York City to a meeting. They were running late and the reader who was driving recalls that he was "tearing down Park Avenue."
He veered into the right-hand lane and cut off a cabbie. Luckily for the reader, the cab driver didn't hit his car, but swerved, striking the side of a light-colored luxury car "parked in front of a fancy building."
The reader slowed down. The cab driver also slowed down. They made eye contact. Then the cabbie turned right onto the nearest cross street and took off.
While the reader didn't hit the parked car, he knew he'd caused the accident. He and his wife considered for a moment leaving a note on the windshield of the car sideswiped by the cab. Ultimately, he writes, "we made like the cabbie and left the scene."
The couple made their meeting in time, but the reader writes that he was "so freaked out" when he got home that he called a lawyer friend to ask whether he'd be hauled off to jail. The lawyer friend told him not to worry.
Nevertheless, the incident still nags at the reader, not because he's afraid of being arrested, but because he believes the owner of the parked car deserved an explanation.
"Were we responsible for paying for the damage to the luxury car since we probably caused the cab driver -- who undoubtedly was driving too fast -- to change lanes and hit him?" he asks.
Whether or not the reader was responsible for the damage is not the first question he should be asking himself. Leaving a note and/or reporting the incident were more important issues to consider. Of course, the cabbie who hit the parked car certainly didn't do the right thing by leaving. He should have at least let the parked car's owner know he's sideswiped him.
The reader who saw the accident, felt guilty and likewise did nothing also fell short of doing the right thing.
Granted, he didn't hit the parked car, nor would his guilty conscience necessarily have  translated into being found at fault for the damage. He certainly wasn't obligated to leave a blank check to cover repairs that might have been the cabbie's responsibility. Ultimately, since he was involved in the incident, the right thing to do would have been to let the owner of the parked car know what happened.
Doing so might have made the reader late for his meeting, but would have tempered the gnawing sense of guilt he still feels. 
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.

Shopper sticks her neck out to make things right

Several years ago, M.A., a reader from Ohio, was shopping for tops in a women's boutique.
After trying on one of the tops she was considering buying, she left the dressing room to look in the mirror on the sales floor. A sales clerk rushed over and clasped a necklace around M.A.'s neck.
"This would look great with that top," the clerk said.
Then the clerk brought over other tops for M.A. to try on. When she was through and had selected one to purchase, M.A., changed back into the sweater she'd been wearing, made her purchase, and left the store.
Several hours later, M.A. realized she was still wearing the inexpensive necklace.
"I wasn't sure what to do!" she writes. "If I took the necklace back, would I be accused of shoplifting?"
M.A. hadn't even been looking for a necklace; the eager clerk had chosen it and placed it around her neck. But would the boutique staff believe her?
 M.A. contemplated what to do. Simply keeping the necklace without having paid for it seemed wrong. She thought about returning to the store and leaving the necklace in a dressing room without saying anything.
After waiting several days, M.A. decided she wanted to keep the necklace, but felt she couldn't bring herself to wear it until the situation was settled.
M.A. was right not to simply keep the necklace. The right thing was to let the store know that she'd mistakenly left without removing the necklace after a clerk had placed it on her. She could call the store, let the staff know what happened and ask how she to rectify the situation. Or she could show up to the store with the necklace, explain what happened and offer to pay for the necklace. In which case, the right thing would be for the store to accept her cash and thank her for her business.
After struggling with what to do, M.A. returned to the store without the necklace, but found another just like it on the jewelry rack. She took it to the cash register, explained what had happened and asked if she could pay now for the same necklace she had at home.
"The clerk laughed and told me to just keep the necklace -- no need to pay for it," writes M.A. "Her simple approach relieved me. After that, I could wear and enjoy the necklace without guilt."
The clerk recognized that M.A. had made an honest mistake. She could have accepted payment for the necklace, but perhaps recognizing that forgiving the cost of an inexpensive necklace might translate into an even more loyal customer, she told M.A. to keep it. As long as the clerk had the authority to make such a decision without consulting the boutique owner, and as long as she told the owner what she'd done, M.A.'s decision to do the right thing not only resulted in setting things right, but also in a small reward to her for doing so. 
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.

Adding a softer touch to customer service can boost business

Are customer service representatives ethically obligated to thank customers for correcting errors? Should they be expected to show sympathy for customers undergoing personal loss? That's what P.W., a reader from the Midwest, would like to know.
Before last Christmas, P.W. had ordered several items from an online gift catalog. She received all of them in time for Christmas.
Two months later, she received another package from the same company. She hadn't ordered anything since Christmas, so she double-checked the shipping label to make sure it had her name and address on it. It did. But when P.W. opened the package, she discovered it was intended for a woman who lived two states away.
"I will not say that I didn't think for a second about keeping it," writes P.W., "but I am a believer in what comes around goes around." So she called the company and reported the wrongly-delivered package.
The customer service person peppered P.W. with questions to make sure the package was indeed sent to the wrong person.
"I don't think she believed me at first because she kept asking me how this could happen and whether my name and address were on the shipping label," writes P.W. She even asked P.W. if the rightful recipient of the package lived close by so P.W. might take it to her.
"I had to remind her that she lived two states away from me," writes P.W.
P.W. asked the customer service representative to send her a shipping label so she could return the package to the company. The customer service rep agreed to send the label, but never thanked P.W. for her honesty. When P.W. received the shipping label three weeks later, there was no note thanking her.
"It would have been nice to have gotten at least a thank you," writes P.W., who went on to recall a similar experience shortly after her stepmother died last month. P.W. called 12 companies to cancel magazines her stepmother had been receiving. Each of the companies complied with P.W.'s request, but out of the 12 publishers she called, only three of the customer service reps expressed any sympathy.
Would it have been nice if the company that sent the goods to P.W. erroneously had thanked her for her honesty? Yes. Would it have been equally nice had each of the publishing companies' customer service reps expressed sympathy? Yes, again. Were they ethically obligated to do anything beyond responding professionally and efficiently to P.W.'s requests? No.
P.W. did the right thing by alerting the catalog company about the erroneous delivery. That company and each of the publishers she contacted about her stepmother's subscriptions did the right thing by providing P.W. with a solution to the problem she was trying to solve.
But beyond encouraging customer service reps to be "nice" by expressing thanks or sympathy, it might also be wise for companies to train customer service people to express gratitude to honest customers and sympathy to grieving ones. Each shows human decency. If this isn't a strong enough motivator, simply expressing care for current or prospective customers can go a long way toward building a business relationship for the long-term.
Three of the publishing company reps likely recognized this fact. The others and the catalog company may have done the right thing, but they blew an opportunity to do more at no cost to themselves or their companies. 
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.

Rejected, then erroneously accepted by your favorite college? Move on

It might have appeared to be an early holiday present when almost 300 prospective Johns Hopkins University students previously denied early admission or deferred for later consideration recently received an email welcoming them to the fold.
The trouble was, the welcome email was sent in error.
Johns Hopkins subsequently sent another email expressing regrets that the welcome was sent in error and that these students were indeed still rejected or deferred.
This wasn't the first time a college or university had made such a mistake. And it certainly wasn't the largest such mistake ever made. In 2009, The Los Angeles Times reported that instead of sending a "congratulations on your acceptance" email to the 18,000 students who'd been accepted to the University of California-San Diego, the message was mistakenly sent to all 47,000 students who'd applied.
Over the years, it's been reported that erroneous acceptances have gone out from University of California-Davis, Goucher College, University of Georgia, University of California-Berkeley, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, George Washington University, Christopher Newport University, Vassar College, Fordham University and others. Some of these notifications arrived via email, others via old-fashioned post
After Cornell University made such an error in 1995 by mistakenly sending a welcome letter to 44 prospective students who'd applied for early decision and been deferred, at least one parent retained a lawyer and threatened to sue. While the prospective student involved later indicated she had other options and needed to "go on with her own life privately," the threat of legal action suggests how harrowing such mistakes can be to the recipients.
When faced with such a colossal mistake, what's the right thing for both the school and the applicant to do?
Occasionally, when an institution makes a mistake, it will try to make good on it. If an online company sends a duplicate order of a product, for example, the right thing is for the recipient to report the error. The company should certainly pay the cost of returning the extra goods. If it decides to tell the customer to simply keep the extra shipment, that's not necessary, but acceptable.
It would be wrong, however, to require an academic institution to accept a student it had really rejected simply because an errant email or welcoming brochure was sent. Particularly if the student didn't meet the academic standards of the institution, such a move could set him or her up to fail.
The right thing for the disappointed student to do is move on. And the right thing is for the institution to do is to send a correction and apology as soon as the error is discovered. Ideally, measures would be taken to make sure the problem didn't happen again.
If the school truly wanted to express its regrets, it might consider refunding whatever application fee the student paid. Returning the money might send a clear message to the prospective student of just how sorry the school was for creating unnecessary discomfort at an already highly anxious time of year. 
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.

Embarrassing public posts can reflect badly on jobseekers

What's the right thing to do when you notice a friend's child is doing something embarrassing on social media?
It may be rare when a parent's social media activities cross with those of his or her child, but it happens. And because profiles and activity on social media websites like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram might be available to the public, it's not unlikely that a parent or the friend of a parent will come across the postings of a friend's child.
Take, for example, the experience of G.S. A friend's college-aged daughter had asked G.S. for career advice, since G.S. worked in a field the child was considering entering after graduation. The two had exchanged several emails, and G.S. offered to provide as much advice as the student daughter wanted.
G.S. knew that hiring managers in her field regularly combed the Internet for information on prospective job candidates. Out of curiosity, she did a quick search on the friend's daughter and found that her Facebook profile picture featured her heartily quaffing an alcoholic beverage. The rest of the Facebook profile was unavailable for anyone but her designated friends to see.
Still, the photo anyone could see when they searched for her on Facebook was one of her drinking.
At first, G.S. wondered if it was her place to say anything. After all, she was not the child's parent. What's more, the young woman was old enough to drink. She wasn't breaking any laws, nor was there any indication from the information G.S. had that the young woman had substance abuse problems.
But since G.S. had been asked for and had offered professional advice, shouldn't she seize the opportunity to say something about what she believed to be the inappropriateness of a public photo? If she did say something, who should she approach?  The child? The child's parents? Both?
G.S. should talk directly to the young woman rather than her parents. Because she had established a relationship with this student, the right thing would be to tell her that G.S. had seen the photo and suggest that she consider taking it down.
Rather than just offer such advice, however, G.S. should go further and explain to the student how images and information available on the Internet can define how a prospective employer perceives a job candidate. While it's fine to choose to have a private life and to engage in legal activities such as drinking, these activities don't present the young woman is the best light for a potential job.
It's not right for G.S. to advise that the young woman try to present herself as something she's not, but if the only image that others on the Internet see is of alcohol consumption this sends an incomplete picture of the skills and abilities the young woman might bring to a job.
Common sense on what to post publicly should prevail. If G.S. can guide the young woman to this realization now, it might prove invaluable as she begins her professional life. 
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.