Business & Commercial

Ethics Dunce: Gary Chaplin

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

Temper temper!!

When a job hunter sent a mass e-mail to 4000 potential employers and executive search firms in the United Kingdom, it was not the brightest move in the world.  It had one arguably useful result, however. The mass spamming inspired Gary Chaplin, an executive with one of the search firms, to demonstrate why developing the ethical habit of civility is not only the right thing to do and the smart thing to do, it is also the safe thing to do.

So annoyed was Chaplin by Manos Katsampoukas’s e-mail that he sent this in response:

“I think I speak for all 4000 people you have e-mailed when I say, “Thanks for your CV”—it’s nice to know you are taking this seriously and taking the time to make us feel special and unique. If you are not bright enough to learn how to ‘bcc’ and thus encourage cock-jockey retards to then spam everyone on the list…then please fuck off…you are too stupid to get a job, even in banking.”

Yes, this is bad.

Continue reading →

Ethics Hero: Steven Spielberg

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

The dwarf in the cloth monkey suit is just fine, thanks.

In a long, entertaining interview in the current issue of Entertainment (naturally!), director Steven Spielberg expresses regret over his decision to change his 1982 classic “E.T.” for its 2002 re-release, and vows never to do such a thing again. Here he splits off from the philosophy of his pal George Lucas, who continues to fiddle with his past films as technological upgrades become possible. Spielberg:

“My philosophy is now that every single movie is a signpost of its time, and it should stand for that. We shouldn’t go back and change the parting of the Red Sea in Cecil B. DeMille’s “The Ten Commandments” just because with the digital tools we have now we can make it even more spectacular than it was.” Continue reading →

Albert Pujols: Yes, He’s Disloyal, Greedy, and Confused.

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

I'm sorry! This was supposed to be a picture of Albert Pujols, not King Midas. Well, six of one, half-dozen of the other...

Cardinal free agent first baseman Albert Pujols, generally regarded as the most talented baseball slugger alive, just jumped from his supposedly beloved St. Louis to the Los Angeles Angels because they offered him several more millions of dollars per year that he couldn’t possible spend if he tried than the Cardinals did. The attitude of most players, fans and sportswriters, not to mention the players’ union (naturally), is “Of course! Who wouldn’t?”

Who wouldn’t? A more ethical, less greedy, more thoughtful human being, that’s who.

The Angels won Pujols with an offer of $254 million dollars for ten years, making him the highest paid player on captivity. The Cardinals. on the other hand, whose fans had cheered him, embraced him and worshipped him, and which had established Pujols as one of the franchise’s icons fit to stand with Stan the Man Musial, Bob Gibson, Dizzy Dean and Lou Brock, had offered a measly $204 million for nine years, or about 23 million a year. The difference between the two offers is minimized, if not eliminated, by the cost of living disparity between the two locales: housing, for example, is about 250% more expensive in LA. Continue reading →

The Donald Trump Follies: An Integrity Check for GOP Presidential Contenders

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

Some of the people more qualified to moderate a presidential debate than Donald Trump.

Donald Trump is staging yet another debate among the increasingly depressing field of Republican presidential contenders, with The Donald as the moderator, in Des Moines on December 27. This is extremely useful in assessing the field, and everyone in America owes him a debt of thanks, for anyone who agrees to participate in this offensive farce is unqualified to be President of the United States. Trump has created an excellent integrity test.

Several candidates have already flunked.  Newt Gingrich has agreed to participate—granted, there weren’t many questions about his integrity, so this is no surprise. So has Rick Santorum. I am somewhat surprised at this: Santorum holds some truly objectionable views, but integrity has never been one of his ethical  weaknesses. Well, the Trump Debate is a judgment test too—if you agree to go, yours is none too good. Now that I think about it, Santorum’s decision was predictable too. Continue reading →

Ethics Hero: Ken, Popehat Blogger

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

"You'll find what you're looking for over at Popehat!"

In the spirit of “Miracle on 34th Street,” in which a Macy’s Santa famously sends a shopper to its rival department store Gimbels (R.I.P.), I’d like to direct readers to run, not walk, over to Popehat, the witty and cantankerous blog that often covers similar territory as Ethics Alarms. There Ken, a practicing lawyer, has penned as strong an essay on ethical issues as you are likely to encounter. Writing about an unethical marketer’s outrageous tactics that included posing as a lawyer to intimidate bloggers, Ken powerfully expounds on the use of bogus lawsuit threats to stifle free speech and opinion on the web, and how to fight it.

This has been a continuing theme of his for a long time, to the point of qualifying as a crusade. It is a worthy crusade, and Ken, along with Popehat, is performing a public service with posts such as this one, colorfully entitled, in the Popehat fashion, “Junk Science And Marketeers and Legal Threats, Oh My!”

Good work, Ken.

Ethics Dunce: Alec Baldwin…and Anybody That Sympathizes Or Defends Him In Any Way, Shape or Form

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

"I'm a certified jerk, AND I play one on TV!"

Like Ashton Kutcher and Charlie Sheen, Alec Baldwin is a mega-jerk actor who plays mega-jerks superbly.  Designating him as an Ethics Dunce is like shooting fish in a barrel. Still, there is a material difference between portraying a fictional jerk that people laugh at and behaving like one in real life without apology. Baldwin’s stunt on an American Airlines flight yesterday and his subsequent comments about it mark him as a very special breed of self-entitled jerk, and should, in a culture that understands that admiring jerks is the equivalent of endorsing their warped values, lead to his decline in popularity.

We shall see.

Baldwin was quite properly tossed off an American Airlines flight when he repeatedly defied a flight attendant’s request, then command, that he turn off his iPad, on which he was playing a game. The actor, like the arrested development case he apparently is, retired with his game to the plane’s bathroom, slamming the door, and also verbally abused the attendants. Continue reading →

TV Payola and the Shameless Alison Rhodes

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

" 'Conflict of interest?' What's that?"

She’s not the only one, apparently. But consumer product reviewer Alison Rhodes (“The Safety Mom”), a frequent guest on national, syndicated and local TV shows, not only reviews products whose manufacturers have paid her to mention them, she is unapologetic about it.

Today’s Washington Post reveals that Rhodes, who can be seen on such shows as “Regis and Kelly”, “Today” and “Good Morning America!” as well as local news outlets around the country, raved on the air about a home electronic monitor and a backpack with a built-in alarm known as the iSafe bag without telling either viewers or producers that she had accepted payola from their makers. Rhodes, however, shrugs off the issue. She tells the Post that she doesn’t see any problem, because “I’m not going to take on any engagement with a client unless I believe in their product.”  Amazing. Meanwhile, the news programs the Post interviewed claim that they had no inkling that Rhodes was plugging the product of a client.

This brazen deception of the public is inexcusable, but the shamelessness—or ignorance— of Rhodes and the negligence of those who give her exposure are worse. Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: The Conundrum of the Imaginary Editor

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

The above staff bio is featured on  VibrantNation.com, a website styled as “the leading online community for Baby Boomer women – the place where they connect and support each other on issues unique to life after 50.” The “composite staff member” known as Susan Lee Ward even has her by-line on some articles.

Your Ethics Quiz Question:

Is featuring an imaginary editor on a website unethical if it is fully disclosed? Or is it just batty?

The problem is one that has come up before: does disclosing something as an untruth cleanse it of its unethical characteristics? After all, there is no Susan Lee Ward, yet she is listed as an editor. That picture can’t possibly be her, because there is no “her.” Anyone who doesn’t read staff bios will in fact be deceived–and how often do you read website staff bios? Heck, people still write me angry e-mails saying that they don’t know who is writing all these ethics essays.

As usual, this comes down to a matter of trust. Are we less likely to trust a website that posts the bio and picture of a staff member who doesn’t exist? Or are we more likely to trust a website that tells us that it has invented an editor? OR are we less likely to trust a website that says it has invented a website for new-agey reasons that don’t really make much sense? When a publication uses fake editors, I wonder who or what they are trying to hide.

My reluctant call on this one: I don’t distrust the site because it has invented an editor. It has made a good faith effort to be transparent.

I distrust the site because inventing an editor for the stated reasons tells me that the real staff is insane.

[Thanks to Health News Review for finding this.]

Sorry, Mystery Thief: You’re No Ethics Hero

/ Jack Marshall / 30 Comments

In fact, you’re still a thief.

That C-note isn't worth the $20, Mystery Theif. Nice try.

The UPI reported that an elderly Seattle man who stole money from a store more than 60 years ago “returned it last week — with interest.”

Aw. Except he didn’t.

The manager of a downtown Sears store says the man handed over an envelope containing a hundred dollar bill and a note to the customer desk, reading..

“During the late [1940s] I stole some money from the cash register in the amount of $20-$30. I want to pay you back this money in the amount of $100 to put in your theft account.”

I’m not impressed. He’s had the use of the money for more than 60 years, and now he’s financially secure, so he thinks he can make everything square and clear his conscience. He can’t. Theft is a wrong when it occurs, and unless it is voluntarily undone before any consequences result, there is no going back that clears the ethical slate. But this guy didn’t even try very hard. According to the useful calculator you (and he) can find here, the current day worth of $20 in 1948 is…

    $181.0  using the Consumer Price Index
   $153.00 using the GDP deflator
   $309.00 using the unskilled wage
    $375.00 using the Production Worker Compensation
    $510.00 using the nominal GDP per capita
   $1,080.00 using the relative share of GDP

…and that’s without interest.

So now he’s stealing brownie points.

(By the way…nice work, UPI. Was it really such a stretch to check out the “with interest” claim?)

Now THAT’s Hypocrisy! OWS Protester Tracy Postert, Hypocrite of the Year

/ Jack Marshall / 29 Comments

Tracy Postert, before and after. Integrity is not a job requirement on Wall Street.

Out of work Ph.D Tracy Postert spent 15 days at Zuccotti Park advocating revolution, condemning the corruption of Wall Street and decrying the moral bankruptcy of the capitalist system. Then she decided to hold up a sign advertising her degree and specialty while she was protesting the evil ways of the financial district. Wayne Kaufman, chief market analyst for John Thomas Financial Brokerage, saw her on the street, was intrigued by her background in biomedical science, and took her resume. Then he asked her if she’d like to come for an interview.

Kaufman offered her a job as a junior analyst evaluating medical companies as potential investments, and she accepted. Postert has now just completed her third week as paid employee of the system she was railing against on the street, studying for exams to be a certified financial analyst.

“I want to get a perfect score,” she told the New York Post. She gets a perfect hypocrisy score already. Imagine Martin Luther King agreeing to accept  a special membership in all-white country club, or taking a lucrative job as Sen. Strom Thurmond’s advisor on racial matters. Imagine Jane Fonda signing an Army contract to recruit soldiers for the Vietnam War. Wall Street and capitalism were the embodiment of evil and injustice for Postert, until she had a chance to move from the “99%” to the 1% whose values she had sneered at.

Is there anything wrong with working as a Wall Street analyst? Hell no—unless you have derided Wall Street analysts as the scum of the earth before you had the chance to be one. I don’t assume that Tracy Postert is typical of all OWS protesters, but I am confident she is typical of many of them. Not principled, but angry. Not idealistic, but envious. Not serious, but cynical. In other words, hypocrites, just waiting for the opportunity to show it.

Here is the irony. The fact that Wall Street would make a job offer to someone as ethically inert as this intellectually dishonest and feckless class warrior shows that Occupy Wall Street is not entirely wrong about the dearth of ethical values in the business community

And the fact that an Occupy Wall Street protester would accept such an offer shows that Wall Street may be right about the protesters.