Business & Commercial

Professionism 101: What Not To Do At Your Desk

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

desknonos_1

A confused commenter who wanted to take the side of that potty-mouthed TV broadcaster fired for making his first words on the job “…fucking shit” has argued that A. J. Clemente should be re-hired because “it could happen to anyone.” Wrong. It could not “happen to anyone,” I explained to her, because civil professionals don’t say “fucking shit” in public or on the job. A.J. is further displaying his cluelessness and gray matter deficit by trying to exploit his 15 minutes of infamy, appearing on Letterman and thus bidding to be known forever as “the guy who said ‘fucking shit’ in his first seconds on TV.”  Why would he think this is the way to start anew and make potential employers believe in his professionalism? Is he bidding to be a reality show cast member?

Who is advising this poor guy? Politicians, like Texas governor Rick Perry, go on shows like Letterman after a well-publicized gaffe to show they are good sports and that they understand that they messed up, but these are celebrities who are already famous for the mistake. For them,the  tactic is designed to remove the sting by laughing along with everyone else. For an unknown like Clemente to do this is self-destructive: it makes far more people aware of the embarrassing incident, it looks like he is exploiting his incompetence, and suggests that he doesn’t understand how serious his conduct was. Letterman doesn’t care if A.J. wrecks his future on the show; Dave just wants some cheap laughs. Not only is A.J. not professional or bright, he apparently has no friends or family members who are, either.

Well, enough of A. J. He has offered a vivid example of one kind of career-killing job conduct, and Salary.com has some more, in a feature it calls “Crimes in the Cubicle.” The list by Heather Dugan suggests 15 varieties of conduct to eschew at one’s desk, and it is all about professionalism, as well as etiquette, civility, decorm, dignity, office demeanor, respect for others…ethics, in short. It is a good collection: send the link to the young man or woman of your acquaintance who is starting their first office job. Or send it to A. J. Clemente.

Perhaps he should start here.

_______________________________

Source and Graphic: Salary.com

Sen. Chris Murphy: Would-be Censor, Position-Abuser, and Mega-Ethics Dunce …But That’s All Right, Because He Wants To Save All Those Children From Being Slaughtered By Semi-Automatic Weapons

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments
All in all, I'd prefer Daffy...and he hates guns too.

All in all, I’d prefer Daffy…and he hates guns too.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: as a long-time supporter of more effective gun controls, the sickeningly dishonest and unethical campaign for them in the wake of Newtown has placed me in a camp I never thought I’d be. Such tactics should never be allowed to succeed, because they debase democracy.

Yesterday, I noted that CNN has abandoned reporting for issue advocacy, a bright-line breach of journalistic ethics. Now Connecticut’s Senator Chris Murphy (D) has attempted to use his position and influence to abridge free speech, unfairly restrict the advocacy of an issue opponent  and encourage media censorship of a political viewpoint.

Eugene Volokh published Murphy’s letter to Fox, the text of which tells me he has no more business sitting in the Senate than Kim Jong-un or Daffy Duck. The letter, addressed to Rupert Murdoch, reads… Continue reading →

The Florist, The Gay Wedding And The Slippery, Slippery Slope

/ Jack Marshall / 69 Comments
OK, she's a jerk. But is it ethical to say she can't be a jerk? Isn't America about having the right to be a jerk?

OK, she’s a jerk. But is it ethical to say she can’t be a jerk? Isn’t America about having the right to be a jerk?

Arlene’s Flowers & Gifts proprietor Barronelle Stutzman had been selling flowers to Robert Ingersoll and his partner, Curt Freed, his partner, for a decade, but drew a line in the sand when they wanted her business to supply the floral arrangements for their same-sex marriage. She refused, citing her relationship with God. This week, Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed a consumer protection lawsuit against  Stutzman, drawing a line of his own.

There are legal and ethical issues mixed up here like gazpacho, and some of them are not difficult. For example, whether Stutzman should have the legal right to do so or not, her decision to reject and stigmatize long-time customers is indefensible ethically. It is cruel, unfair, ungrateful and disrespectful. They were good enough to profit from for ten years, but not good enough to accommodate at the most important time of their lives? Such conduct earns a massive ethics “Yechh.”  Continue reading →

Q: What Do You Get When You Cross The Cheerleading Prosecutor With President Obama? A: An Unethical Quote of the Week!

/ Jack Marshall / 148 Comments

“You have to be careful to, first of all, say she is brilliant and she is dedicated and she is tough, and she is exactly what you’d want in anybody who is administering the law, and making sure that everybody is getting a fair shake. She also happens to be, by far, the best looking attorney general in the country.”

—- President Obama, introducing California’s attorney general (and a possible future gubernatorial candidate) Kamala Harris, at a party fundraiser in Atherton, a wealthy suburb of San Francisco

Hey, she IS hot! I'd love to see HER shake her pom-poms! What is it she does again?

Hey, she IS hot! I’d love to see HER shake her pom-poms! What is it she does again?

You see, all you nay-sayers, another reason why it is inappropriate and unethical for a prosecutor to prominently display herself in the role of unadulterated male eye candy is that it reinforces this kind of subtle (well, not so subtle, really), insidious marginalization of female professionals that occurs daily in offices and places of business all over America. I have taught this in sexual harassment seminars for decades: when a male boss, manager, or superior references a woman’s attractiveness, beauty, or allure in a public settling, it relegates her and all women in that organization to second-class status, and reinforces the glass ceiling. Women who are the target of this sexist, if often innocently intended, practice are usually lulled by the flattery into dismissing such incidents. That has to change. They must register their objections to the speaker for their own sake and that of generations of women to come. Continue reading →

Roland Martin and the Tragedy of Racism

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments
I'll say this: Roland was less irritating than Soledad O'Brien...

I’ll say this: Roland was less irritating than Soledad O’Brien…

CNN has been engaged in either a purge or a make-over in recent weeks, depending on one’s point of view. One of the talking heads given the gate was Roland Martin, who describes himself on his blog as “a dynamic and engaging journalist.” Upon getting the bad news, Martin, who is African-American, took a hard look at his own career and abilities, applied an objective analysis, and concluded…that CNN was racist. He told the Huffington Post:

“You have largely white male executives who are not necessarily enamored with the idea of having strong, confident minorities who say, ‘I can do thisWe deliver, but we never get the big piece, the larger salary – to be able to get from here to there.”

Martin cited as proof the fact that when he guest-hosted a show for the network, the ratings didn’t drop: “If it’s a ratings game, and we won, how is it I never got a show?”

This is the permanent handicap a legacy of racism in the U.S. culture and the workplace bestows on American blacks. Not necessarily discrimination, but the impossibility of ever knowing whether discrimination and not legitimate factors have been the reason for a career setback, a failure, or the inability to advance. It is potentially crippling if the African-American, like Martin, uses the doubts created to relieve him of the duty of honest self-assessment, and to block him from the responsible course of rededicating himself to improving his skills and marketability. Continue reading →

Ethics Poison From Nike and Tiger Woods

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Woods AdWoods Ad2

…and not for the first time, in either case.

But Woods’ new ad for Nike in the wake of his resurgence in his sport, is audaciously unethical, braying a dangerous, corrupting message into the cultural atmosphere, endorsing, in five simple-minded words, consequentialism, the Star Syndrome, the King’s Pass, non-ethical considerations over ethical ones, and “the ends justify the means.” That’s a pretty impressive load of ethics offal in so few words: congratulations to the soulless ignoramus who devised it.

The assorted miscreants, past and present, who would have gladly stood in for Tiger in his damning ad include dictators, despots, mass murderers, gangsters and corrupt politicians like Richard Daley, Marion Barry, Charley Rangel and Tom DeLay, corporate bandits, assassins, robber barons, Wall Street criminals, athletic cheaters like Lance Armstrong and Barry Bonds, serial fathers like the NBA’s priapic stars, arrogant social misfits like Charley Sheen, con artists and liars in all walks of life, and of course, our most popular politician, the man whose entire career is based on Nike’s new motto, William Jefferson Clinton.

I almost forgot the terrorists. Continue reading →

Out Of A State Lottery, A Golden Rule Moment

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments
We're NOT going to be selfish and exclusive, even though we can and you expect us to!

“We’re NOT going to be selfish and exclusive, even though we can and you expect us to!”

It never seems to work out this way, and thus it is interesting to speculate why the office lottery pool at Keller Williams Partner Realty in Plantation, Florida treated a dilemma so differently, and so much more ethically, than the key participants here, or here.

Jennifer Maldonado had only been working as an administrative assistant at the company for two weeks, and because she hadn’t received her first pay check, she decided not to join the office Powerball pool when she was approached. The organizer even offered to loan her the money: nope, insisted Maldonado. Not this time; maybe next. Naturally, the pool not only won that week, but won big: a million dollars to be divided among the 12 person staff…except Maldonado, of course.When Maldonado showed up for work and saw everyone screaming, crying and celebrating, she thought they were playing a practical joke in her to teach her a lesson. “I knew I was the only one who hadn’t put in the money, so I thought they were pranking me and going out of their way to make me feel something,” she recalled, that “something” presumably being “rotten.”

Jennifer obviously didn’t know her co-workers yet. Not only weren’t they trying to make her feel badly, they had held a meeting and decided to give her a cut of the winnings even though she hadn’t opted in to the enterprise—not a full share, but a significant amount. Jennifer didn’t expect anything, wasn’t going to sue them or hold a grudge, and yet they made her part of the group’s good fortune anyway. This is the Golden Rule exemplified. It is also exemplary ethics: generosity, kindness, empathy, and inclusiveness. The staff”s gesture said, and eloquently, “Welcome to the family! You can trust us. We care about you. We look out for each other, and we handle each other’s mistakes.”

Perfect. Continue reading →

Predatory Service: A Tale

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

Hardware

Once upon a time in Greater Washington, D.C., there was a family-owned hardware, home remodeling and garden store chain. They were big warehouse stores, and pretty much synonymous with hardware, flowers, lawns, leaky pipes, Sunday shopping excursions, and earnest, if not always rapid, service, for decades. The old chain was pretty much the only game in town too, except for a few small stores scattered around in various town squares.

Then, seemingly over-night, several new, big, warehouse hardware, home remodeling and garden stores appeared across the area. They seemed a little cheaper, but not much; what they had, however, was this fantastic service model. The place was crawling with eager young experts who not only helped you find what you needed, but who also knew how you should build it, cultivate it, paint it, or tear it down. The usual “what the hell am I doing and where is that stuff?” anxiety of a visit to the old hardware chain was replaced by a feeling of confidence and being in the hands of friendly masters of their trade. It was wonderful. Continue reading →

Ethics Hero: Matt Groening

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Duff-Beer

Cashing in, selling out, maximizing income, monetizing assets: the crash of 2008 only accelerated what was already becoming a coarsening cultural trend in America, the mania of never, never allowing any opportunity to make money go unexploited. Every creation or idea is copyrighted or trademarked; every open space is marked with a billboard; every person, place or thing imaginable is sponsored or branded, every citizen who does something admirable or remarkable will sell his or her life story or hire someone to write a book. The effect of this on the community, on life itself, is toxic.

When everything is a potential cash cow, then our choice is to milk it or wait for someone else to steal the milk. A Profit Above All mindset turns everyone into a potential competitor, which means that trust becomes impossible. There are only two antidotes for this trend, which I fear is irreversible. One is for there to be so much money to go around that nobody worries about it any more, which is to say that there is really only one antidote. That one is for our society to evolve and reinforce a hierarchy of values in which money, wealth, profit and material things are not seen as ends, but as means to ends, and not the only means to those ends, either. Wealth can lead to freedom, for example, but only if it is joined with proportion, moderation, responsibility, modesty, and restraint. Otherwise, wealth and the pursuit of it can restrict choices and liberty as effectively as chains.

This is why a rare case where someone eschews the opportunity to make a lot of money for no other reason than that he thinks to exploit the opportunity will make the world a worse place is a qualification for the Ethics Hero designation.  I hate the speech in “Traffic” given by Seth Abraham, the loathsome preppy coke-head played by Topher Grace, about how suburban drug users corrupt the inner city:

“Ok, right now, all over this great nation of ours, ‘hundred thousand white people from the suburbs are cruisin’ around downtown asking every black person they see ‘You got any drugs? You know where I can score some drugs?’ Think about the effect that has on the psyche of a black person, on their possibilities. I… God I guarantee you bring a hundred thousand black people into your neighborhood, into fuckin’ Indian Hills, and they’re asking every white person they see ‘You got any drugs? You know where I can score some drugs? within a day everyone would be selling. Your friends. Their kids. Here’s why: it’s an unbeatable market force man. It’s a three-hundred percent markup value. You can go out on the street and make five-hundred dollars in two hours, come back and do whatever you want to do with the rest of your day and, I’m sorry, you’re telling me that… you’re telling me that white people would still be going to law school?”__

I hate it for two reasons. First, it is more or less true, and second, it is only true because the vast majority of people have such a weak commitment to behaving ethically and not selling out, because our culture reinforces healthy ethical values less and less effectively. It shouldn’t be true, and in a rational society, it wouldn’t be true.

So I am giving Matt Groening the Ethics Hero for something that is relatively minor and trivial, because, I guess, it gives me hope. Continue reading →

Georgetown Law Center and The Case Of The Double-Crossed Donor

/ Jack Marshall / 25 Comments
Sometimes those naming deals backfire, you know?

Sometimes those naming deals backfire, you know?

Scott K.  Ginsburg, a media mogul who got a J.D. from Georgetown Law Center in 1978, had been wooed by the school’s development team for a major gift when he was riding high, amassing billions in the 1990s. He agreed to contribute some pocket change–five million bucks—to build a new fitness center that would bear his name. The deal was put into writing, and the University issued a cheerful press release. Then, in 1999, shortly after the agreement was reached,  the Securities and Exchange Commission filed suit against Ginsburg, accusing him of passing along inside information to his father and brother. A jury agreed with the SEC, and he was orderedto pay $1 million in fines. After a flurry of appeals, the verdict stuck. (NOTE: In the first version of this post, I implied that this was a criminal case. It wasn’t: this was a regulatory lawsuit, and a civil verdict. A dumb error on my part, and I apologize to readers and Mt. Ginsburg for the misinformation.)

While all of this was going on, the Law Center, understandably, got nervous. Although Ginsburg was not a practicing attorney at the time, law schools don’t like having facilities named after grads who have been found to have violated laws or regulations in high-profile cases. In 2002, then-Georgetown Law Center Dean Judith Areen sent Ginsburg a letter thanking him for his support but also asking to revise the agreement, eliminating the promise of naming rights.  Areen said the school would find some way to “honor your gift without generating negative media coverage.”  Ginsburg, however, refused to sign on. As the years went by and the school continued to promote his gift as enticement to other donors as well as hitting him up for more money, he assumed the Scott K. Ginsburg Health and Fitness Center was under construction. There’s a fitness center, all right, on the GULC campus, but Ginsburg’s name isn’t on it. Now he is suing the Law Center, alleging that it reneged on the deal. Continue reading →