Workplace

Finally! “The Ethicist” Handles a Genuinely Difficult Ethics Query

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Kwame Anthony Appiah, who has been the The New York Times Magazine’s Ethicist columnist since 2015 and teaches philosophy at NYU, has been in a rut for months, choosing queries to answer from the Woke and Wonderful like “My mother likes Trump; should we be mean to her?” This time “The Ethicist responds to an ethical dilemma I have had to face myself: “Is it right to accept a job when I know the company discriminated against another candidate?”

The question:

I have been out of work for four months. I recently had an interview for a management-level position in my field, during which the interviewer asked a number of questions regarding my marital status, parental status and spouse’s occupation. I’ve spent most of my career in management, and the questions are clearly inappropriate and at odds with civil rights protections. I answered the questions, because I knew the responses would be in my favor: I’m a middle-aged guy whose spouse works remotely and son is in college. I’m aware of an internal candidate for the job, a younger mother of two school-age children, and the interviewer made comments about divided responsibilities and time commitments.

I kind of need the job, which raises two scenarios. In the first, I withdraw from the process. Should I notify the internal candidate of the legal violation, because I suspect (although have not confirmed) that the same questions were asked of her? In the second, I accept the position. How should I deal with the other candidate, who would be my subordinate, knowing that a likely E.E.O.C. violation tainted my hire? And additionally, should I notify the E.E.O.C. myself, regardless of whether I continue with this company?

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Switching Jobs Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

A Guest Post by

Alex

(From this week’s Open Forum)

Here are some real life ethics ruminations I’m going through as I’m switching jobs in the next month…

  • Two-week notice: In general, this a good and professional practice. In the past I even extended it to three weeks because of a high-priority project my team was dealing with. This time around it ended up being closer to a week because I had a planned vacation where my last day would have fallen, my current employer provides “unlimited” PTO and did not want to abuse the privilege of extra pay days at the tail end of my tenure. Thoughts?
  • Working for a competitor: In the past I’ve worked for $BIGTECH and seen people who are escorted out of the building because they are going to a company that is remotely involved in the same matters. This time around I’m going to a direct competitor, and yet, my manager, my management chain and HR all seemed fine with me working here until the last day. I’m a professional; in no way would I use the extra time to get access to information I should not or collect data for the new company. Seems like the prudent thing would be for management to cut my access immediately, as there is a balance between getting a good handoff of responsibilities (and actual work) vs. the risk of having someone with broad access. I’m happy the way things are turning out for me – even gives me a chance to say my goodbyes—but at what point is the risk too much for management to accept? (In this case I think the fact that we are not a public company is making the difference)
  • No poaching for a year: All my previous employers had that in the employment contract. This one does not. I don’t plan to try to bring anyone over (it’s a small industry) in the short term, but what does one do when a former coworker expresses interest in coming to the new place?
  • Throwing your own farewell party! This one is on a lighter note. There is a prohibition of using morale budget for farewell parties (understandable), so I’m sort of narcissistically organizing a small pizza get-together for my direct team and coworkers. I don’t need or plan to ask for contributions, but what would be the correct etiquette for that situation?

Anyway, it should be a fun week (as we are also trying to meet a very tight deadline).

New Ways To Cheat: The Fake Flight Attendant!

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Tirone Alexander, 35, has been convicted of impersonating a flight attendant at least 120 times in order to get free commercial airline flights between 2018 and 2024 . He also doesn’t know how to spell “Tyrone.”

There is a common airline policy (that I never heard of before) allowing flight attendants and pilots from other airlines to fly for free. Alexander knew about the benefit because he had worked as a flight attendant for regional airlines between 2013 and 2015. He visited airline websites and checked the “flight attendant” option during the online check-in process. There he would find a form asking applicants to list their current employer in the industry, their hiring date, and badge number. Alexander faked all of it and counted on no one bothering to check. No one did.

Almost all examples of audacious cheating and grifting depend on 1) people trusting strangers to be honest, which is, sadly, a mistake; 2) people not doing their jobs diligently, which many don’t; 3) systems that have yawning loopholes that sociopaths can exploit, and 4) the cheater/con artist having boundless audacity.

Number 4 eventually gets most cheaters caught.

Alexander has been found guilty of four counts of wire fraud and one count of fraudulently accessing a restricted area of ​​the airport. He faces decades in prison at his sentencing, which is scheduled for August 25.

Meanwhile, the airlines will be tightening their free flight policies, and maybe eliminating them. As is so often the case, the rare cheat spoils a nice thing for everyone else.

From Boston, a Stunning “King’s Pass” Rejection [Updated!]

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

“The King’s Pass” is #11 on the EA Rationalizations List, where it is described as follows:

One will often hear unethical behavior excused because the person involved is so important, so accomplished, and has done such great things for so many people that we should look the other way, just this once. This is a terribly dangerous mindset, because celebrities and powerful public figures come to depend on it. Their achievements, in their own minds and those of their supporters and fans, have earned them a more lenient ethical standard. This pass for bad behavior is as insidious as it is pervasive, and should be recognized and rejected whenever it raises its slimy head. In fact, the more respectable and accomplished an individual is, the more damage he or she can do through unethical conduct, because such individuals engender great trust.

Sports teams, both professional and amateur, are among the organizations most vulnerable to The King’s Pass, which is also called “The Star Syndrome.” Thus it is particularly satisfying to see the only sports team I care about, the Boston Red Sox, take a strong stand against the rationalization in one of the most vivid anti-#11 moves within memory by any organization in sports or out.

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Who Says The Supreme Court Is Partisan On Every Issue?

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments


The Supreme Court yesterday sided 8-0 with a straight (okay, “cis”) woman in Ohio who filed a “reverse discrimination” lawsuit against her employer after her boss declined to promote her, preferring to promote “rainbow” staffers. In a unanimous ruling written by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the Justices agreed that a federal appeals court in Cincinnati erred by imposing a tougher standard for the case brought by Marlean Ames to move forward than if Ames had been a member of a minority group. 

The appellant, a straight, white woman, had filed a lawsuit in federal court alleging that she had been the victim of employment discrimination based on her not being gay. The department had hired a lesbian for the position that she had sought, she contended, as well as a gay man to replace her after she was demoted.  The United States Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit threw out Ames’s sexual orientation claim, arguing that her claim could not go forward unless she could show “background circumstances” to support her allegations of reverse discrimination, such as a “pattern” of reverse discrimination. 

SCOTUS reversed, sending the case back to the lower court. Federal employment discrimination law, Jackson explained, prohibits intentional discrimination based on “race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” Period. Minorities have no more intrinsic grounds to claim discrimination than majority groups.

Thank you!

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Now THAT’S an Unethical Doctor!

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

That’s Jorge Zamora-Quezada M.D., 68, of Mission, Texas above, who was sentenced this week tten years in prison and three years of supervised release for perpetrating a health care fraud scheme involving over $118 million in false claims. More than $28 million was paid out by insurers because he falsely diagnosed patients with chronic illnesses to bill them for tests and treatments that the patients did not need. Zamora-Quezada also falsified patient records to support the false diagnoses.

Yikes.

The Justice Department press release reveals that Zamora-Quezada falsely diagnosed his patients with rheumatoid arthritis and administered toxic medications in order to defraud Medicare, Medicaid, TRICARE, and Blue Cross Blue Shield. His patients were told that they had incurable conditions that required regular treatment at his offices, where Zamora-Quezada administered unnecessary drugs and ordered unnecessary testing. These included injections, infusions, x-rays, MRIs, and other procedures, risking harmful and in some cases deadly side effects. Then the doctor fabricated medical records and lied about the patients’ condition to insurers.

Among the debilitating side effects suffered by his patients were strokes, necrosis of the jawbone, hair loss, liver damage, and crippling, chronic pain. “Constantly being in bed and being unable to get up from bed alone, and being pumped with medication, I didn’t feel like my life had any meaning,” one patient testified. Others described abandoning plans for college or feeling like they were “living a life in the body of an elderly person.”

At trial, the more ethical rheumatologists in the Rio Grande Valley testified that they saw hundreds of patients diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis by Zamora-Quezada that did not in fact have the condition. Meanwhile, he was an abusive, dominating supervisor to his medical staff. Former employees said Zamora-Quezada imposed strict quotas for procedures. He threw a paperweight at one employee who failed to generate enough unnecessary procedures, hired staff he could manipulate because they were on J-1 visas and knew their immigration status could be jeopardized if they lost their jobs. Zamora-Quezada also took ultrasounds of employees and used those images to falsify patient records.

Following a 25-day trial, a jury convicted Dr. Zamora-Quezada of one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud, seven counts of health care fraud, and one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice. To go with his prison term, Zamora-Quezada was ordered to forfeit $28,245,454, including 13 real estate properties, a jet, and a Maserati GranTurismo.

My question: why only ten years in prison for such conduct? He should have been sent away for life.

“Res Ipsa Loquitur” at the Vatican: The Pope’s Tombstone

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Did you know that the spacing between letters is known as kerning? I had never encountered the term before, so the high profile botch committed by the stonecutter and those responsible for overseeing the completion of the recently deceased Pope’s tombstone has had at least one salutary effect: it has shined a spotlight on a seldom used word. Thanks, you boobs!

It and they have also revealed stunning ineptitude and carelessness at the highest level of public visibility and historical permanence. The kerning between the letters on Pope Francis’s tombstone make the ten letters read “F R A NCISC VS, rather than how it was supposed to read, “FRANCISCVS,” his name in Latin.

Brilliant. I wonder…. what’s the punishment in Hell for poor workmanship?

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Meet JoAnna St. Germain, the Face of Trump Derangement

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

JoAnna St. Germain, a public school teacher (for a bit longer)at Waterville High School in Waterville Maine, personifies what the decade-long hate, fear and anti-democracy campaign from “the resistance,” Democrats, and the mainstream media has inflicted on the soul of America. Once, presumably, she was a normal, rational human being like you. Now, she posts screeds like this on social media:

The Secret Service has the perfect opportunity, if they choose to step up and take it. You are the ones with power. Coordinate. Take out every single person who supports Trump’s illegal, immoral, unconstitutional acts. Look at the sycophants and give them what they’re asking for.
 
Every other country sees what’s happening and they are taking stands.
If you step up, we can avoid a civil war. I’m not talking about assassinating a president. A president is a person duly elected by the American people.
Tr*mp has shamelessly bragged openly about stealing the election. He is making plans to give himself a third term. I’m talking about Americans recognizing a fascist dictatorship and standing against it.
 
Secret Service, you are Americans.My beloved military, you are Americans.
We, the people, are counting on you.

Nice. Even with rampant madness oozing through social media and the op-ed pages every day, calling for the execution of the President of the United States and all of his supporters from someone not in already in restraints like this guy…

…is unusual, especially when the provocateur has been entrusted with molding young minds. A few hours later, the teacher wrote, “I have zero shame about what I’ve said. I’m not backtracking a single thing. I believe Trump and every sycophant he has surrounded himself with . . . needs to die,” adding that she posted “knowing I’d likely lose my job and benefits.” When her call for violence was reported in some media outlets, JoAnna “doubled down,” and quite arrogantly too, writing a week ago on her Facebook page:

Apparently, I have made the news. People are quite angry with me for stating openly that Trump and his cronies need to die. Gosh, I fear I may have “Trump Derangement Syndrome”!
 
I’m going to hold your hand when I say this, and I say it with my full chest:
Fuck fascism. Fuck a country that suppresses the media. Fuck a country that moves to weaken the education system in order to produce weak-minded people who will follow orders. Fuck a country that sends innocent women and men to die thinking they’re defending democracy when they’re really defending the rights of corporations to fuck over the very people lining their pockets.
 
If you’re mad at this post, knowing that I just threw away a decade of experience teaching the truth, fully knowing that my superintendent will have to fire me? If you’re mad that I’m speaking truth to power?
 
Fuck you. I’ll still take a bullet to keep your child safe.

Niiiiice!

Later, as she had to know would happen, Waterville Public Schools Superintendent Peter Hallen emailed a statement to parents that said in part, “Please know that I have taken steps to ensure everyone’s safety and am, along with the appropriate authorities, actively investigating the incident.” St. Germain’s reaction:

Well all righty then!

Observations:

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President Trump Sacks Waltz: Good

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

From the New York Times: “President Trump is ousting his national security adviser, Michael Waltz, and another senior member of the White House’s foreign policy team, the first significant personnel overhaul of top aides in his second term, according to people familiar with the situation. Mr. Waltz had been on thin ice since he organized a group chat on the commercial messaging app Signal to discuss a sensitive military operation in Yemen and accidentally included a journalist in the conversation.”

Readers will recall that Ethics Alarms issued several posts about the Signal chat debacle, the first of which , on March 24, ended thusly: “This will be an early test of how serious the new administration is about accountability. Someone’s head should roll for this.”

Someone’s head has. It was one of the right heads, too.

Trump’s action is absolutely the ethical and competent course, and should remind everyone, including the lackeys of the news media, that the previous administration didn’t care about accountability, nor competence, performance or merit—just “historic” DEI appointments who could never be fired. President Biden didn’t fire anyone, despite presiding over one of the most inept administrations in U.S. history.

Of course, Presidents are supposed to be demanding and to fire screw-ups, so Trump deserves no special credit for a decision that should have been as easy as it was necessary. Nevertheless, it’s gratifying to know the man in the White House is engaged and has standards he’s devoted to enforcing.

As for me, I’m just glad to get rid of Waltz because that “t” in his name kept making me misspell the last name of Governor Knucklehead in Minnesota.

The Results Are In: After One Year California’s Irresponsible Woke Minimum Wage Hike Has Been Just As Disastrous As I Said It Would Be.

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Fredo and I were not the only ones to predict this result…

It has now been a year and a few weeks since Assembly Bill 1228, the stupid (but typical, for California) law that raised the fast food minimum wage to $20 an hour in the Golden State, went into effect after being signed into law by Gavin Newsome. Shortly after that idiocy, I wrote in part here,

“Certain laws of economics are immutable: if someone’s skills and the value of their labor are not worth the amount they demand in compensation for it, then eventually no one will be willing to hire them….The U.S. Chamber of Commerce charged me with examining just this issue in my role as head of the National Chamber Foundation, the Chamber’s public policy research arm. I hired an independent economist….and he concluded that indeed, raising the minimum wage cost the most vulnerable American workers jobs every…single…time. ..Never mind, though: 21st Century progressives seem to care about virtue-signalling and fealty to socialist cant more than actual results or, to put it another way, reality. Naturally California, one of our extreme leftist kamikaze states, arguably the most reckless one, has adopted this attitude…Governor Newsom signed into law a $20 an hour minimum wage hike on the fast food sector for the “benefit” of fast food workers… Everything we have learned about minimum wage hikes indicated that this would be a disaster, but advocates of the move in the Democratic party pooh-poohed the objections as more proof that conservatives are cruel and greedy.”

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