Say what you will about the New York Times, but I really admire the fact that they have an ethicist on staff to answer letters from the “ethically torn.”
As someone who teaches ethics to a wide audience, my dream is that every major corporation in America, not to mention every government agency, may eventually have a Director of Ethics on staff. As that isn’t likely, I am more than content to travel the country telling people about my story, and in turn, helping them understand that what we do in life – and more importantly, how we go about doing it matters.
So when the Times ethicist, whose name is also Chuck, but Chuck Klosterman, doled out some pretty important advice in his column his column last week, it caught my attention and admiration. For brevity, I will condense the story a little here, but the dilemma will be the same.
The column answered a concerned a letter writer whose landlord charged him too little. The tenant wondered if he should say something to the landlord and pay the correct amount, or to shut up and make a little money on the landlord for a change. A little twist here is that he and the landlord had known each other for many years and while they weren’t close friends, they had a decent tenant-landlord relationship based on trust. Nevertheless, a friend of the letter writer told him to keep the money.
As the letter writer was mulling over his dilemma, he wondered if he would have had the same dilemma if his cable company charged him too little. This matter of “An Ethical Theory of Relativity,” the title of Chuck Klosterman’s piece, led the letter writer to contact the ethical columnist.
The columnist pointed out that in both situations he should do the right thing. I completely agree.
Whether the cable company, your cell phone provider, or your landlord, the same ethical code should be in place. The columnist summarized the dilemma by essentially asking: Do You Live for Yourself or Other People?
In other words, if I live for other people then it will make perfect sense for me to cheat the big, bad cell phone company if they undercharge me, but if I have a personal relationship with a landlord, or the person who cuts my grass or the neighborhood fish market, then I will be honest and forthright.
But what if I learn to ethically live for myself? That means when no one is looking, and when all of the cards or whatever, are on the table, I will always do the right thing. I will call or write or text or email the landlord and tell them they made an error – and, gulp, I will do the same with my cell phone provider.
“Oh c’mon, Chuck Gallagher,” you might say, “Get serious!”
I am dead serious.
Here is where I wish to expand on Mr. Klosterman’s theme. I will call the expansion: “Who is your cell phone provider?”
No, I am not asking who is providing your service nor am I asking what make and model mobile-cellular device you have. What I want to know is who is the person sitting in the billing department of the company or in the cubicle inputting numbers or climbing the cell telephone tower or working in the phone store? Chances are, you will tell me that you have no idea who those people are.
I have good news. I know all of them very well. They are me, and they are you as well.
The truth of the matter is that the folks who work at the cell phone company pay taxes and some carry mortgages and some have children. A few of them have medical problems and some of them are taking care of elderly parents. They may like sports and root for a team, they sometimes take vacations and enjoy having their friends visit. They may attend a house of worship, they may be trying to put themselves through school or they may have a hobby.
Those people are all me, and I realize that I have an ethical obligation to them just as I must have to myself. For not one of those people came to my house and said, “Chuck, you have no choice but to use our service.”
It was I, Chuck Gallagher, who approached “them.” They told me what my monthly bill would be and I agreed to pay it. I cannot get angry at them for charging me. They are only people doing their job.
I teach in my seminars that ethics are not relative. It makes no difference whether I was undercharged by my neighbor’s nine year-old girl scout when she sold me those cookies, or by my cell provider. I am ethically bound to say something – and to do something about it. In that way, I am ethically living for myself.
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