Workplace

Ethics Hero: DoorDash Driver Miracle Heron, and Say Hello To Rationalization #18 A: “Nobody Could Blame You!”

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

The video is self-explanatory, though the various news reports haven’t always emphasized the ethics issue.

Heron was hit by a car and knocked down as well as, I assume, traumatized just a bit. Nonetheless, she picked herself up, dusted herself off (just like Fred Astaire!) and completed her job.

That she would deliver the food despite her mishap shouldn’t have been so shocking: it was the ethical thing to do. Yet I just heard my local news readers exclaim that they wouldn’t complete a delivery after that. Good to know: no one should hire them for any job requiring dedication, diligence, commitment or fortitude.

Since Miracle wasn’t hurt and the incident did not in anyway impede her ability to deliver the food, it would have been unethical for her not to do so. Once again, my theater background is governing: “the show must go on” is a core principle with me, and should be in any field. We never have leave to make our problems into other people’s problems for our own convenience. Undoubtedly, the driver could have used the accident as an excuse not to complete her job; nobody would blame her if she hadn’t. That fallacy, however, is at the root of Rationalization #18. Hamm’s Excuse, or “It wasn’t my fault“ and I realize #18 A is called for.

“Nobody could blame you!” is the new rationalization. The fact that you have an easy out to let you avoid your responsibilities doesn’t make it ethical to do so. Most people default to emotion over rationality and will allow sympathy and empathy to over-rule duty. Most people are ethics dunces. Miracle Heron did her job because someone was depending on her, and her employer had made a commitment to complete a transaction. She could have used the scary brush with serious injury as a reason not to do her job, but she didn’t, because it would have been unfair to the customer as well as her employer.

That near-miss definitely didn’t damage her well-regulated ethics alarms.

The Star Spangled Naked Teacher!

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

It’s been a long time since Ethics Alarms had one of its trademark Naked Teacher Principle tales or even one of it’s many variations, like the Nearly Naked Teacher’s Volunteer Principle, the Drag Queen School Principal Principle, the Naked Porn-Performing Political Candidate Principle, and the Too Sexy Firefighter Principle, to name just a few. This one, from Alexander, Georgia, has nothing to do with July Fourth, except that I discovered the story this morning. It is certainly past time for one of these posts: the last one under the tag was here, and it was only about the related Naked Mayor Principle, involving the moronic mayor of Minot, North Dakota who accidentally sent an explicit nude video of himself to the city’s attorney.

Above is Maris Nichols, 25, a married Georgia high school teacher, who really likes having sex with students: she’s been indicted for showing at least six students the sweet mysteries of life in her classroom, at a golf course, and in a closet). Two of the teenagers were younger than 16. What puts Maris into the Naked Teacher Principle category is that she is a very provocative OnlyFans performer, and was being blackmailed by some of her students—it is unclear if they were among the one she was boinking—for better grades. They had discovered the OnlyFans channel she owns, operates, and uses to display her excellent Linda Lovelace impression, among other things.

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Now THIS Really Couldn’t Happen Here (With Rueful Ethics Observations…) [Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

This is the EU Commission in Brussels. “It’s like feudalism,” a Commission official working on a lower level of the Berlaymont told POLITICO, making a justifiable analogy since the upper floors, where housing commissioners worked, kept their air conditioning running while the proles in the lower floors sweltered

Americans wouldn’t stand for this.

Not yet, anyway.

1. Could there be a more throbbing example of the unethical “Let them eat cake!” attitude, though it is more like “Let them jump into rivers and drown!”?

2. Why would anyone trust the EU if its leadership could even consider something like this? Yet this is the same orientation that Communism inflicted on its populations. I saw the end results as well as the brainwashing of the public it required when I had (and I do mean had) to be in Moscow in the Nineties for two weeks.

3. Bernie Sanders honeymooned in Moscow. What does this tell you? And he’s being credited with remaking the Democratic Party, along with fellow useful idiot AOC.

4. Yet young voters in droves rushed to the polls in New York to elect exactly the kinds of candidates who hold the “government knows best” and “Know your place, serfs!” world view that is antithetical to American traditions, values and thought.

5. The Democratic Party, now being increasingly dominated by socialists and Communists, is counting on Trump Derangement to let it triumph in November, while its policies, and the even worse policies supported by the Democratic Socialists, are ostentatiously irresponsible and anti-American. Good plan!

Ethics Dunces: “The Today Show” and Savannah Guthrie

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

I was briefly tempted to make the latest Savannah Guthrie sympathy porn outbreak on NBC’s “Today” show an Ethics Quiz, but to heck with it: I have no doubts about this. “Today” show is abusing its position as a news or an entertainment show to exploit the disappearance of co-host Savannah Guthrie’s almost certainly dead mother for cheap publicity and reality show appeal. As for Guthrie, it’s simple: she is unprofessional, self-indulgent, and incompetent.

The New York Post reports from “Page Six,” which catalogues celebrity news, gossip, and other matters that waste time and thought,

“[On]“Today” show on Tuesday… Savannah Guthrie broke down in tears while discussing the ransom note her family received in February allegedly claiming her missing mom, Nancy Guthrie, had died. “A lot of people at ‘Today’ are affected by it,” says a source. “There was a sense of sadness today. Everybody just feels so bad for her. There is a lot of uncertainty.” “There is a lot of admiration and praise for her that she is still able to do her job,” says our source. “People really support her and care about her, and people are heartbroken.” During the show, Guthrie said she had “no comment” on the headlines and is “not involved in … coverage” of her mother’s abduction, but that she couldn’t “pretend” to not be present for the conversation. “I just wanted to take the opportunity to really ask people and really beg people to come forward because somebody knows something,” Guthrie continued.“This is a news story today that is on your radar, but this is the life my sister, [Annie Guthrie], lives, that I live, that my brother, [Camron Guthrie], lives, that our extended families live, that our children live every day,” she explained. “We cannot be at peace,” the journalist said. “No matter how much I try to come out here every day and smile and find that joy — and I will, I promise I will — this is a moment to say we need your help. … I’m not gonna miss that opportunity.”Guthrie ended her emotional plea with a promise: “We love our mom, and we’ll never stop looking for her. Ever.”

Ugh.

Ethics Alarms flagged the news media’s Guthrie obsession as unethical special treatment for the rich and famous in February, when the apparent kidnapping was at least new:

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Update: “There Is So Much About This Story I Don’t Understand Except For The Basics…” (The Trash-Dumping DEI Morgan Exec)

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Above is the résumé of the woman discussed in today’s earlier post. With this, I have no sympathy for JP Morgan at all. Or Angie, though it can’t be pleasant having your worst moments (or at least one of them) splashed all over the web.

I have done a lot of hiring in my time, and I have vetted a lot of résumés. That one would have set off all my “B.S.” alarms like the Chicago fire, and adding to the things I don’t understand about this mess is that Angie was hired in the first place. Her education credentials are beyond weak, and the stated markers of skill and accomplishment are pure puffery. In cases like this, not only should the employee be fired but whoever hired her should be dumped too. All right, I’ve sometimes taken a flier on applicants who seem to have a certain spark, “un je ne sais quoi” as the French say when they aren’t too hot, and I’ve suffered for it on occasion. However, when someone gets a job and the hiring supervisor says, “OK, I’m going to take a leap of faith with you, but you better not let me down,” that employee has to be on notice that, for example, engaging in public theft during basketball fan riot is not consistent with the admonition. If ever a hire pulsed with a DEI-hire-to-fill-a-DEI-job vibe, this is it.

Meanwhile, JP Morgan seems to have a bit of a culture problem with its personnel decisions, no? Have you been following this story, the viral lawsuit by a JP Morgan employee who alleges that his JP Morgan manager, 37-year-old Lorna Hajdini, drugged him and turned him into a sex slave?

There Is So Much About This Story I Don’t Understand Except For The Basics…

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

…which is that this woman should never have been hired to fill a responsible position, and deserved to be fired.

Angie Báez, 40, was caught on video emptying a full special New York Knicks public trash can on the street during the Knicks championship parade and then stealing it. This was all caught on camera, as was the idiot on the subway as she brought her souvenir home, grinning happily…

She was the Executive Director of Community and Industry Engagement for Card and Connected Commerce at JPMorgan Chase, but is no more. The bank’s leadership investigated the incident after the pictures hit the web. A bank spokesperson told the media, “This employee is no longer with the company.” Good.

Still, I don’t understand what the woman was thinking. She made a mess, and stole city property. The amazing arrogance and sense of selfishness behind such public behavior is hard to comprehend, as is the fact that such a creep could get hired in a succession of executive positions. She previously served as Executive Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at New York-based review website The Infatuation, which Chase acquired as part of its expansion into lifestyle and experiential content. Earlier in her career, Báez worked as Diversity & Inclusion Program Lead at Squarespace and also held positions as diversity and inclusion chief at Saks Fifth Avenue, Hudson’s Bay, and Saks Off 5th.

What does a DEI executive do? What qualifies someone for such a job? Professional discrimination experience? Baez also co-founded a queer and black, indigenous and people of color-owned talent agency. That figures, I guess. Her bio on The Infatuation’s website says that “dedication to making a positive impact shines through in every aspect of her work…Angie’s efforts have helped position [The Infatuation] as a trailblazer in the pursuit of a more equitable and relatable food media industry….As a vibrant mosaic of Dominican heritage, Bronx roots, and a passion for storytelling, creativity, and culture, Angie continues to lead the way towards a more inclusive and equitable future for food media, leaving an indelible mark on The Infatuation and everything she touches.”

Like that trashcan, I guess.

There is a sense of entitlement that the whole DEI delusion creates within people who are not as special as everyone keeps telling them they are. Baez decided it was okay for her to steal city property because 1) she is a Knicks fan, 2) is “of color,” 3) is represented by one of the letters LGBTQ and 4) is a “vibrant mosaic of Dominican heritage, Bronx roots, and a passion for storytelling, creativity, and culture.” She dumped trash on the street and stole the receptacle while bystanders watched. No shame, no sense of embarrassment.

Nobody in her career noticed the character deficiencies that were behind this conduct, or did they just not care? I don’t understand…

Alcoholic Lawyer Ethics: An Inconvenient Truth

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

[That’s Paul Newman above, playing the alcoholic trial lawyer in “The Verdict.”]

I recently caused consternation (again) on the listserv of the Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers (APRL), the organization that brings together most of the lawyers who concentrate on the contentious field of legal ethics as ethics partners, professors, state bar disciplinary counsel, CLE trainers, consultants, and just interested lawyers. I had been considering dropping this metaphorical bomb on the group for some time. My thesis: lawyers who are alcoholics, “recovering” or not, are ethically obligated to inform their clients of that ongoing and incurable malady. I see no way out of this ethical obligation, but the legal profession has been scrupulously avoiding confronting reality for centuries.

Alcoholism was once the secret meaning of “moral turpitude” in state bar associations’ requirements for admission: if you were guilty of moral turpitude, you couldn’t get a law license because of a presumed character deficit. When alcoholism was finally recognized as the illness it is, being an alcoholic was no longer a basis for bar exclusion or discipline. Bar associations all established “Lawyer Assistance Programs” as the alternative to punishment for lawyers with alcohol or substance abuse problems. That’s nice. However, none of the measures currently employed deal with the inconvenient facts of alcoholism.

Based on my knowledge and extensive experience with friends, family and associates, all alcoholics are untrustworthy by definition. They have a strong tendency to lie, for example (and they will admit that, if pressed) to conceal their addiction as well as the often disastrous results of it. No one, including the alcoholic himself or herself, can know when a relapse will occur or what will trigger it. A binge alcoholic can seem healthy and dependable for months or years, and suddenly go on a bender that incapacitates him. My late wife, a brilliant and capable woman who struggled courageously with the illness her whole life and ran our business and finances (or, should I say, said she was and made a good show of it) would have sudden unpredictable relapses that she covered up with consummate skill. She was what is called a maintenance-level alcoholic. She had a degree of intoxication she needed to maintain to function well and appear sober; below that level of alcohol consumption she suffered from withdrawal symptoms. One drink over that set-point, however, and she was physically and mentally incapacitated. Many maintenance level alcoholics successfully hide their addictions while actually being drunk every day in highly challenging jobs…until they can’t. Alcoholism is a progressive disease. Over time, alcoholics’ ability to control their addiction deteriorates along with their over-all health and mental state.

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From the Res Ipsa Loquitur Files…

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Traditionally, the tale of the plug of tobacco has been law students’ favorite anecdote explaining the term “res ipsa loquitur,” or “the thing speaks for itself.” I have reprinted the story or a link many times, but not yet in 2026, so here you are…

“It seems that appellant [Mr. Pillars] consumed one plug of his purchase, which measured up to representations, that it was tobacco unmixed with human flesh, but when appellant tackled the second plug it made him sick, but, not suspecting the tobacco, he tried another chew, and still another, until he bit into some foreign substance, which crumbled like dry bread, and caused him to foam at the mouth, while he was getting “sicker and sicker.” Finally, his teeth struck something hard; he could not bite through it. After an examination he discovered a human toe, with flesh and nail intact. We refrain from detailing the further harrowing and nauseating details. The appellant consulted a physician, who testified that appellant exhibited all of the characteristic symptoms of ptomaine poison. The physician examined the toe and identified it as a human toe in a state of putrefaction, and said, in effect, that his condition was caused by the poison generated by the rotten toe.[emphasis added]…Generally speaking, the rule is that the manufacturer is not liable to the ultimate consumer for damages resulting from the defects and impurities of the manufactured article…[but the Court can] “imagine no reason why, with ordinary care human toes could not be left out of chewing tobacco, and if toes are found in chewing tobacco, it seems to us that somebody has been very careless.” Agreed. The case is Pillars v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. et al., 78 So. 365 (Ms. 1918).

Similarly, 21-year-old woman Maria Eduarda Rodrigues de Freitas is dead because the idiot staff at a bungee-jumping event threw her from a bridge but forgot to attach the cord, leading to the poor woman plunging about 130 feet into a ravine. Maria was pronounced dead at the scene. The incident occurred on the “Skeleton Bridge” in Limeira, in the state of São Paulo.

Six people have been taken into custody. Good.

You know, hiring the equivalents of Moe, Larry and Curly to supervise bungee jumping is even more irresponsible than letting the Three Stooges be plumbers, carpenters or surgeons, which were among the set-ups for many of their slapstick film misadventures. Neither their employers nor the negligent homicide perps themselves can fall back on any rationalizations on the list and get away with it. #19. The Perfection Diversion, or “Nobody’s Perfect!” and “Everybody makes mistakes!” or #20. The “Just one mistake!” Fantasy are probably their best shots, but the problem is that literally nobody does this, ever, unless they are menaces to society who need to be locked away for the greater good. Tossing a trusting thrill-seeker off a cliff and neglecting to fasten the cord expected to safe her life is signature significance for a reckless moron. I guess #20A, “Everyone Deserves a Second Chance,” is also worth a try, but I would require such a bungee jumping establishment to prominently display a sign that says:

“Warning! Occasionally our staff neglects to attach the cord, which will result in a jumper having their brains splattered all over the ravine floor.”

I hate blaming victims, but I feel compelled to add that those of us who deliberately engage in activities that have no societal utility whatsoever and that innately involve the risk of death or serious bodily injury are limited in the amount of sympathy they can expect from me when their metaphorical tossing of the dice comes up snake-eyes. There are several posts on EA about the topic, as with people who pay absurd amount of money to climb Mount Everest or who go over Niagara Falls in a barrel. Those who feel something as pointless as bungee jumping will enrich their lives and signify a purpose to an otherwise empty existence have their priorities seriously out of order. They don’t deserve to die, but they do deserve to have St. Peter say, when they knock on the Pearly Gate, “You died how? What were you thinking?”

Confronting My Biases, #29: Absurd Fake Eyelashes

/ Jack Marshall / 26 Comments

This is really a “two-fer,” as in “two-for-one.” Here’s the bonus bias:

I visited the gloomy medical office in which I get my monthly blood analysis—I think I’ve mentioned here that the only decoration in the waiting room is a photograph of gravestones. This time I learned that the sad, monosyllabic tech who had manned the office alone for years finally had hired an assistant, and it would be she who would be sticking a needle in that prominent vein in my right arm.

As I went into the blood-letting area, I greeted her, said hello, introduced myself, cheerfully said that I was looking forward to her expertise, and basically tried to be cordial and friendly to a new acquaintance. The youngish African American woman wouldn’t answer, smile, or look me in the face; she just grimly went about her business. She did it well, too: I barely felt the needle, which is more than I can say for her boss’s performance at least 50% of the time.

However, I resent the sullen freeze-out conduct from service providers, clerks and those in similar jobs, and maybe this is my bigoted imagination, but I seem to get this treatment from young black women more often than not. It is the result of poor training, poor manners, and a rotten attitude. My current house guest, who is much younger than I, says this is a Gen Z thing, “pretending to be autistic.” I don’t care what it is: it makes life and society less pleasant, and there is no excuse for it. In the past, there have been instances where I have forced the issue and confronted such jerks, but I sure wasn’t going to try that approach with a woman about to plunge a needle into me.

Now on to the main bias…

The rude tech also was wearing the longest, thickest, fakest looking false eyelashes I have ever seen in my life. I’ve been checking the web about this phenomenon: it’s apparently part of current “black culture,” so no white person is supposed to question it, because to do so is racist. Whatever. We are doing black women no favors by being afraid to point out that this werewolf look is unprofessional, unattractive, makes women of any race look like not just hookers, but cheap hookers, and is a career handicap.

True, a tech in a back office can dress up in a mushroom suit if she wants, but I wouldn’t hire any woman wearing those lashes for a job requiring her to represent me and my company, even if the woman had the charisma of Gladys Knight. My instant reaction to a woman in eyelashes that would make Bambi self-conscious is to assume that she is not too bright, has bad taste, is inclined to blindly follow fads, and therefore untrustworthy. My conclusions about establishments that hire such woman are also uncomplimentary.

Yes, it’s a bias, just like my bias against young black men a while back who wore their pants slightly above their knees. And, as in that ridiculous case, the bias is absolutely justified.

Scott Pelley’s Self-Immolation Proves How Corrupt and Biased the “60 Minutes” Culture Was

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

A year ago I wrote, after Scott Pelley gave a full-Trump Deranged commencement speech at Wake Forest,

“Scott Pelley has long been the most openly biased and partisan of the ’60 Minutes’ team (well, he and Leslie Stahl), and his speech is an instant “It isn’t what it is” classic. His arrogance and fury reveals a destructive, untrustworthy profession beginning to realize that the jig is truly up: they have betrayed their nation and its ideals, and nearly everyone knows it, or as President Trump so wisely observed, our journalists are indeed ‘enemies of the people.’ It is rumored that Pelley is likely to be dumped at CBS: Good.”

Well, it took a year and a turnover in management, but Pelley is finally out. The speech is fun to look back on today, because the pompous Pelley intoned, “America works well when we listen to those with whom we disagree and when we listen and when we have common ground and we compromise….To move forward, we debate, not demonize. We discuss, not destroy.” Yet when a new regime led by New York Times refugee Bari Weiss began the task of reforming the rotten “60 Minutes” Democratic propaganda machine that had embarrassed the network by editing Kamala Harris’s interview a week before the 2024 election to make her seem (sort-of) coherent—not an easy task—Pelley was no longer interested in listening, discussing, or compromising. He was determined to demonize. In a meeting called by Nick Bilton, the new executive producer of “60 Minutes,” Pelley accused Bilton’s boss, Weiss, of “murdering” the iconic Sunday news program. “She was brought in to kill it, and she’s been doing exactly that,” he said, adding, “She has no qualifications for her job; you have slender qualifications for this job. The changes that she’s made at the ‘Evening News’ have been catastrophic, so why should we expect that any of this is going to be any better?”

He went on to mock Bilton’s assurances that he cared about the program. If Pelley had been trying to get fired, he could have hardly done a better job. And sure enough, he got his wish, as Bilton delivered the following “Bye-bye!” letter in short order:

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