Safeway

Yes, It’s Another Installment of “It’s Hell Being An Ethicist”

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

This weekend was Grace’s memorial event, and yes, it came off very well despite my long-standing dread. I have wonderful, talented and loving friends, as did Grace. My long-time musical collaborator on my pop music parodies ethics programs, Mike Messer, brought down the house and made Grace smile, I hope, with a rousing performance of her favorite John Lennon solo, “Twist and Shout,” backed up by the unusually musical crowd.

But I digress. The next day, when a friend who helped organize and mange the event (since I was useless), brought me the receipts. I expected the bill for the platters of food I had ordered from Safeway, for he had picked them up. “No,” he said,”they told me you had paid for them when you made the order.”

But I had not. I tried to pay, but the dead-eyed, barely conversant clerk refused to process my credit card, and insisted that payment would be due when the platters were ready. The price is almost $400.

Well, I’m an ethicist, so I have to pay it, though I may take my sweet time about it and wait until my cash flow is a bit more robust. I know what my mother’s reaction would have been—“What luck! The food was free!”—just as surely that I know that my father would have headed over to Safeway by now and paid the bill.

Now, my sister had a dandy rationalization, though she didn’t commit to it. “These stores are incompetent,” she said. “I’ve had similar experiences, though not $400 worth. The only way they’re ever going to get better as if sloppy work like this costs them money.”

“I’d be tempted not to pay,” she said.

Oh, I’m tempted all right. And I’m drowning in debt dating back to when the pandemic crashed my business and ruined my credit. Nevertheless, I got the food, I owe Safeway the money, and I’m an ethicist, dammit.

Phooey.

The Unappreciated Home Depot Hero

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

It’s more exciting than you think!

Ethics Alarms has dealt with this issue multiple times: an employee violates policy by intervening to prevent a crime or serious injury, and is fired for it.  In 2009, a bank teller named Jim Nicholson turned Batman and foiled a bank robbery, then was fired.. A would-be robber had pushed a black backpack across the bank counter to Nicholson and demanded money. The teller threw the bag to the floor, lunged toward the man and demanded to see a weapon. The robber sprinted for the door with Nicholson in pursuit. Eventually Bat-Teller  knocked the man  to the ground and held him until the police arrived.

The bank had to fire him. The episode could have gone wrong many ways, some resulting in bank customers and employees being injured or killed. Law enforcement repeatedly cautions against such conduct, and the bank’s policies were clear.

In other cases, no-tolerance makes no sense, as no-tolerance often does. In 2012, Ryan Young, then working in the meat department of a Safeway grocery store in Del Rey Oaks, California, witnessed a man beating a pregnant woman, apparently his girlfriend. Young told the man to stop, but when he continued with his assault, shoving and kicking her, Young jumped over his counter, pushed the thug away, and ended the attack.

Safeway fired him. So what would it have had Young do, stand there and wag his finger? This crossed into duty to rescue territory. Young did the right thing, and rather than blindly following a policy that didn’t fit the facts, Safeway should have realized that an exception was called for.. (Eventually public opinion and bad publicity forced Safeway to re-hire the hero). A similar scenario involved a lifeguard who violated his employer’s policy by saving a drowning man off a beach adjacent to the property where he was stationed. Jeff Ellis Management, an Orlando, Florida-based company, fired  21-year-old Tomas Lopez for daring to save a life pro bono, and was similarly pilloried by public opinion. Two lifeguards quit in support of Lopez, and he was also eventually offered his job back. Lopez told Jeff Ellis Management to get bent, or words to that effect. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Safeway…Ethics Hero: Ryan Young. Justice? Waiting…

/ Jack Marshall / 26 Comments

“You’re suspended, Kent.”

I’ve asked many times on Ethics Alarms why so many Americans stand by, inert and passive, when a fellow citizen is in peril.  Maybe the stunning ethics blindness exhibited by Safeway in a recent incident is part of the answer.

Ryan Young, who works in the meat department of a Safeway grocery store in Del Rey Oaks, California, was on the job when he witnessed a man beating a pregnant woman, apparently his girlfriend. Young told the man to stop, but he continued with his assault, shoving and kicking the her.  Young jumped over his counter, pushed him away, and ended the attack.

His reward was to be suspended without pay. Safeway has a policy that directs employees to summon security personnel and not to personally intervene when they see a crime or fight in progress. Even though police confirm that Young may have saved the woman and her unborn child from serious injury, the company is insisting that Young’s conduct warranted discipline, not praise. Continue reading →

The Great Chicken Sandwich Caper, Safeway and the Duty to Think

/ Jack Marshall / 39 Comments

In the updated American version, Gene Valjean steals two chicken sandwiches for his starving and pregnant wife, and he is hounded by the relentless Safeway manager, Fred Javert.

[ Update (11/2/2011): Safeway has dropped the charges stemming from this incident, and rescinded its one year ban of the Leszczynskis. None of the commentary on the story is affected by this development. The damage is done, including to Safeway’s image. The fact that the grocery chain decided not to do any more damage, and took a week to decide it, is not anything to admire.]

Periodically Ethics Alarms breaks into a debate over whether prosecutorial discretion is fair and just. When appropriate, it is fair and just, and here is an example of the kind of injustice that occurs when the law is enforced without concern for proportion, intent, or common sense.

The villain in this case was not a prosecutor, however, but a Safeway manager.

Nicole Leszczynski, who is 30-weeks pregnant, her husband Marcin, and daughter Zophia were shopping at a Hawaii Safeway where they bought about $50 worth of groceries. During their shopping, Nicole began feeling faint, and ate two chicken sandwiches, a deal at only $5.  The couple forgot about  the sandwiches when they checked out their other items, however. (Full disclosure: I’ve done this. With a banana.) The store detained them and refused to accept payment. Then the store manager called the police, and they were placed under arrest for larceny.

In accordance with police policy when both parents are arrested, 3-year-old Zophia was taken by Child Protective Services, and not returned to the Leszczynskis until the next day. Continue reading →