Workplace

Comment of the Day: “The Death of Raymond Zack”

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

Raymond Zack

Buck Best, a Northern Virginia firefighter and supervisor, weighs in with his expert perspective and nuanced insight regarding my post on the Alameda, Cal. incident involving a suicide by drowning. His wife Lianne had another Comment of the Day earlier this week; if this keeps up, I will have to call the feature “Best Comment of the Day.”

“As an 18 year veteran of the Fire Dept. and the last ten years as the Officer of a Technical Rescue team that would be responsible for just such a rescue, let me offer another perspective to this ethical question. The Fire service much like many other organizations in recent history are governed by politics and litigation. The management of the organizations are always looking to the risk analysis of any potential situation based of the money that is available. The risk analysis is not based as much on the physical risk as it is on the financial or political risk. Continue reading →

Oxymoron Alert: “Ethical Cheating”

/ Jack Marshall / 25 Comments

What will they think of next?

From Arthur M. Harkins, Associate Professor based in the Department of Organizational Leadership, Policy, and Development, University of Minnesota, and George Kubik, comes a scholarly paper that will have students cheering. Here is the abstract…you can buy the paper here.  Personally, I can tell where this is going, and I can think of more productive ways to spend my money.

Here is the abstract…a good workout for those of you who like to spot euphemisms, buzz words, and looming rationalizations:

Title:    “Ethical” cheating in formal education Continue reading →

What Competent Leaders Do: A Checklist

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

While we are on the topic of leadership (in the wake of Harold Camping’s failure to act like a responsibility one), here are  highlights from “Inside CRM’s list of 101 Common Sense Rules for Leaders. 

The list is specifically targeted at managers, but the principles have broad application to all kind of leadership. If only Harold had given as much study to these as he did to his Bible. President Obama should give them some consideration, however. It’s not too late.

…
Meeting Deadlines

11. Only promise what you can realistically deliver. Don’t create deadlines that you know you can’t meet. By only promising what you know you can do, you’ll be able to finish on time.

12. Set clear goals. Once you know what you need to accomplish, it helps to know how and when you want to do it. Put your goals down on paper and make sure everyone on your team gets a copy.

13. Organize a team. … Pick a team that has the right skills to carry out the job.

14. Delegate tasks. Spread work among your employees in a way that doesn’t leave anyone overburdened while also allowing the project work smoothly.
…
16. Keep communication open. Keeping everyone in touch with the status of the project is key to making sure it’s completed on time.

17. Do it right the first time. Planning ahead will help prevent you from delivering a substandard product. Having to redo something for a client costs money, and, more than likely, future business opportunities Continue reading →

Comment of the Day: “Ethics Dunce: Guitarist Carlos Santana”

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Michael has posted the Comment of the Day regarding my post of Carlos Santana’s criticism of Georgia’s new anti- illegal immigration law. The post expresses my continuing amazement and dismay at the strong support for illegal immigrants in the media and in segments of the public, which I view as both irrational and impossible to defend without recourse to rationalizations and dishonesty. In his comment, Michael is less critical of these defenders as he explores the factors that could make reasonable people oppose efforts to crack down on illegals.

“I can understand why reasonable people are against laws that punish illegal immigrants. I understand your conviction that a law should be either enforced or repealed, but sometimes a law is a bad law that, for whatever reason, legislators cannot or will not turn into a good law (given your frequent posts criticizing Congress, you can understand why some bad laws are not changed). When such a bad law is in place, there is often sympathy for those who break it because reasonable people conclude that, if they were in the same position as those who break the law, they would break the law as well. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Guitarist Carlos Santana

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

Legendary rock guitarist Carlos Santana thought it was appropriate to lecture a ballpark full of Atlantans when he was  honored with a “Beacon of Change” award at Sunday’s MLB Civil Rights Game at Turner Field. Pronouncing Georgia’s  new immigration law just signed into law by Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal “anti-American,” the Mexican-born Carlos Santana said,“I represent the human race. The people of Arizona, the people of Atlanta, Georgia, you should be ashamed of yourselves.”

Dear Carlos: If you can't say something responsible about immigration, please just shut up and play.

Later, he told reporters , “This is about fear, that people are going to steal my job. No we ain’t. You don’t clean toilets and clean sheets, stop shucking and jiving.”

Santana is entitled to express his opinion; he is even entitled to express stupid and ignorant opinions. But when he uses his fame, name recognition and a forum given to him as an honor to express a stupid, ignorant and irresponsible opinion, that is intolerable. Continue reading →

The Freeland Community School District Law Suit: Just or Joke?

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

It’s time for another Ethics Quiz!

Freeland (Mich.) High School Marcie L. Rousseau has already been sentenced to prison for committing sex crimes with one of her students, but the matter is hardly over. The student’s lawyer says he is seeking at least $1 million in damages in a lawsuit  naming Rousseau, the Freeland Community School District, Freeland Superintendent Matthew A. Cairy, Freeland High School Principal Jonathan Good and former high school Assistant Principal J. Barry Weldon Jr. as defendants. The suit alleges negligence, and that the three administrators “neither completed a proper investigation nor reported the findings as they had a legal and ethical obligation to do,” despite having sufficient information to alert them that Rousseau was having sex with her student, who was 16 at the time.

This is pretty standard stuff. What is causing some skepticism and hilarity around news rooms, coffee machines and the Internet, however is this: the lawsuit  claims that the young man has suffered and continues to suffer “physical, psychological and emotional injury” because of the illicit relationship with Rousseau, which the law suit claims “was non-consensual”  and which, according to police reports, included at least 100 instances of sexual intercourse and at least 75 other sex acts between May 2009 and February of 2010.

Your question:

Is the law suit’s contention that the young man participated in various forms of sex with his teacher against his will inherently absurd and dishonest when it includes 175 sex acts in a nine month period? Continue reading →

Now THAT’s Hypocrisy: The Prosecutor and the Teenager

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

As part of Ethics Alarms’ continuing effort to clear up the rampant confusion among the American public and media regarding what constitutes hypocrisy, I offer this illustrative tale.

Former Rock Island County, Illinois State’s Attorney Jeff Terronez has already pleaded guilty to providing alcohol to a minor.  As part of his plea deal, which allowed him to avoid more serious charges, he resigned his position as State’s Attorney, forfeited his pension and agreed to never seek public office again. Now it appears that the circumstances of his misconduct may result in a mistrial in the case in which  Terronez first encountered his 15-year-old victim.

You see, the young woman to whom Terronez provided alcohol was the victim and complaining witness in a previous case Terronez prosecuted, in which high school teacher Jason Van Houtte was accused of inappropriate contact with a 15 years old female student. Terronez saw to it that Van Houtte was convicted and sentenced to ten years in prison. Meanwhile, he met with Van Houtte’s comely prey and plied her with liquor socially…at least.

That’s right: the prosecutor began an “inappropriate relationship” with the under-aged complaining witness in a case he was simultaneously prosecuting involving a teacher’s “inappropriate relationship” with the same girl!

Now that’s hypocrisy.

No, It Still Doesn’t Justify Torture

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

No.

The news of how Osama bin Laden was finally tracked down and killed has caused a predictable outbreak of consequentialism. It appears that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed provided some of the key intelligence that led to the successful operation in Pakistan while he was undergoing “enhanced interrogation” in CIA prisons in Rumania and Poland. “See?” Dick Cheney’s fans are saying today. “Rendition and torture work. We wouldn’t have killed Bin Laden without them. So what do you think of those tactics now?” The opponents of torture who foolishly argued against it based on pragmatic considerations—“Torture doesn’t work!”—rather than ethical ones–-“It is absolutely wrong!“—set themselves up for this.  Now what should they say? Continue reading →

The Incredible Self-Disproving Rationalization!

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

A Chicago scene website is highlighting businesses serving citizens of the Windy City that market lies.  It focuses on three of the breed. The first, The Alibi Network, was one of my Unethical Websites of the Month years ago. For a fee, it will concoct and document elaborate support for excuses, fake illnesses, adulterous getaways masquerading as business trips. It’s the kind of enterprise George Costanza might have started; if you have a strong stomach, you can read about it here.  The second is “Rent-a-Date,” which is less objectionable than it is sad, an escort service with no sex, for guys who can’t get a date and want to impress employers, old classmates and other shallow people by hiring one and pretending that the relationship is real. You know, George would have used this one, too.

The third of these slimy businesses, however, is truly awful, an outfit called “The Reference Store”
The business creates phony former employers, complete with websites and local phone numbers, for job seekers worldwide. (You know, George could have used this service to give credibility to his favorite fake reference, “Vandelay Industries”! It’s a George Costanza Tri-fecta!) Continue reading →

Flashback: “Ethics Test at McDonald’s”

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Background: The McDonald’s beating and video story reminded me of another ethics essay arising out of a McDonald’s incident, one that I was personally involved in. This post first appeared on The Ethics Scoreboard in 2006, and reading it again, I realized it was one of the first times that I used the ethics alarms imagery that became the basis for this blog. The incident that inspired the essay still troubles me. I wish I could blame McDonald’s for the callousness that my 2006 experience and last week’s incident in Maryland exposed, but unfortunately, our problem relates to the Golden Rule, not the Golden Arches. Here is “Ethics Test at McDonald’s”:

Life gives ethics tests like pop quizzes. You often get no warning, and if you’re thinking about something else, you might not even realize the test is going on. Continue reading →