Cheryl is a trusted commenter 4 hours ago Well - extending the roid business .. the coworkers making fun of the pillow-user are technically unethical in that they were tormenting the writer about what they believed was a physical problem -- Of course, you cant imagine what problems would ensue if the writer actually had a physical problem and complained about the harassment ..... Reply Recommend RDA in Armonk NY 5 hours ago Re the question about the Cheerios: This happens all the time everywhere and everyone who does it and everyone who sees it surely must know that this is not what is intended. Hard to believe someone has to ask about this. I used to work with someone who never had to buy sugar -- every day she would load her pockets up with bags of sugar from our closet. True, this is just a single portion of Cheerios, but it is still meant for consumption on the premises plain and simple. Its like somebody at an all-you-can-eat buffet who puts leftovers in her purse. If this were okay then everybody would then put a little more on her plate than she could possibly finish on the premises and bring very large purses, wouldnt she? But this is not what the management of the buffet expects. Many have taken issue with they consider to be the superficiality of this weeks column. Well, we dont know what Mr. Klosterman had to work with, whether there were questions sent in with a greater heaviosity score -- although I cant imagine there werent. Reply 1Recommend mikenh Nashua, N.H. 14 hours ago The first question reminded of what happened when I worked at a high tech company some years back in which one of the perks was free soft drinks from the company provided vending machine. However, this perk did not last for long for it was found out the cleaning crew at night routinely cleaned out the contents of the vending machine. Suffice to say, when our division was sold off to an overseas firm, the free drinks became history because the new company saw this for what it was worth - an needless, expensive and idiotic perk for over-paid spoiled workplace brats. Reply 4Recommend sjw new york, ny 14 hours ago Is this column now an extended prank that the author is playing on us? 25 cents worth of Cheerios and fake hemorrhoids? How much is he paid for writing answers to stuff that isnt even issues? Reply 20Recommend navamske New Jersey 14 hours ago Kudos to the person who came up with the subhead Roid Rage. But the initial mark of punctuation, indicating the elision of part of the word (even if there is no roid in hemorrhoid), should be an apostrophe, not an opening single quotation mark. Reply 2Recommend JR Pennsylvania 14 hours ago Tax ethics requires the Cheerio caper be reported to your employer to assure it is properly accounted as taxable income in a W-2. Reply 4Recommend Gaijinjoy Winter Park, FL 21 hours ago These situations are too inconsequential to worry over. Surely there are more worthwhile ethical concerns to analyze. Reply 21Recommend jackson oregon 21 hours ago What I dont understand is why Brandon cant eat his breakfast at home like everyone else does BEFORE he comes to work. Are we missing vital information to this ridiculous post? Reply 14Recommend Mark NY 21 hours ago If David believes that taking the food home gives him more time to work then he is helping himself and the company and I do not see anything wrong. Does anybody truly follow every single rule every day, and would this even be a good thing? Reply Recommend Finnie Fairfield, CT 21 hours ago Re the free Cherrios - Maybe the real problem is the guy eats his breakfast on company time. Maybe he should just come in earlier to eat his breakfast on his own time. Reply 10Recommend Phyl Brooklyn 21 hours ago I find it amazing that with all the ethical problems facing the world--and just thinking about ethical quandaries that have faced people I know--these two trivial issues are the focus of a column in the NY Times. I guess this is a humor column then. Reply 23Recommend Ted Dowling Sarasota Yesterday you may as well fold the column if these are the kind of questions you have to deal with. Reply 51Recommend Uncle Sid Minneapolis Yesterday Dear Name Withheld. But you DID have hemmorhoids...your teasing co-workers! The pillow worked! Reply 9Recommend Linda Houston 2 days ago Should non-snackers be compensated for the value of unconsumed treats? Do Cherrios nibbled at an office desk have the same ethos as Cherrios eaten while answering emails at home? This isn’t high ethics, it’s the minutiae of policy. Perhaps the uncertainty could be settled if a sign went up advising that “Snacks are for employees to enjoy on these premises during their scheduled break time.” It could be placed next to the one that says “Please clean up after yourself. Your mother does not work here.” Reply 9Recommend S.L. Briarcliff Manor, NY 2 days ago If Brandon wants to eat breakfast before work, he should buy a big box of Cheerios for his home and eat there. It is one thing to occasionally have a snack at work at break time and another to consider it entitlement every day. His office doesnt run a free breakfast program but offers snacks to expedite break time. Lets call Brandon what he is; a cheapskate. Reply 11Recommend DW Philly Yesterday S.L. - so where would you draw that line? Many if not most workplaces offer free coffee, and certainly employees treat it as if it were a daily entitlement, even if it technically is not. There are some gray areas in this topic ... I certainly dont take foods home that werent explicitly offered as such (which sometimes happens after a departmental luncheon or such, if there are leftovers), but I do sometimes take a water bottle for the road, i.e., the commute home. Is that crossing a line? Maybe. Reply 1Recommend Cowboy Wichita 21 hours ago Do you ever take home coffee for your breakfast or after dinner consumption? Reply 5Recommend w84me armonk, ny 2 days ago I used to work for a company that provided indiv. cereals (both cold and hot); granola bars, fruit, the occasional bagels/cr cheese; and about a dozen different flavored sodas (diet and reg); plus the never empty coffee pot and tea. I used to see certain employees loading up their backpacks before departing for the day w/ soda and cereal (presumably for their kids) that I found to be an absolute abuse of the treat/privilege of the generosity of the company. I subscribe to the kibbutz philosophy -- if youre picking oranges, you can eat as many as you want while youre picking; but you may not take them home for later. Its less about OWNING as you say, but more, about /stealing./ Reply 16Recommend Charlie B USA 2 days ago There are profound ethical dilemmas filling the front pages this week: What obligation does a cop have to refrain from shooting someone who might be a threat but might be a child with a toy gun? What responsibility does a university have to be fair to both people when one student accuses another of rape? What an opportunity for an ethics column to bring some light to these deeply important questions. Or, we could talk about swiping Cheerios and faking hemorrhoids. Reply 62Recommend bookworm New York, NY 21 hours ago Well, yes, discussion on those topics could be profitable, but they are also issues that are being discussed all over the news and I have been reading different perspectives everywhere. On the other hand, not many of us are police officers or university administrators who will be faced with these situations. It might be better to ask what are we as bystanders and citizens ethically responsible for doing. The small questions, like swiping Cheerios, can affect almost everyone in some form or another and is therefore a more global question. It seems like a silly thing to discuss, but the older I get, the more it seems to me that people dont have as firm a grasp on right and wrong as I would think they should. And rather like the broken windows theory, I do think if youre ethically challenged on the small things, it becomes easier to do wrong on more and more things. Its all worth discussing. Reply 8Recommend FFILMSINC NYC 21 hours ago Bingo Charlie B! Reply 3Recommend Jay New York 2 days ago Buy your own stinking box of cornflakes for your own stinking house! Buy an ordinary pillow for your hard stool! This weeks writers are not unethical. They are idiots. Reply 30Recommend OSS Architect San Francisco 2 days ago Our company provides fresh fruit, yogurt, and granola in the morning to get people to work early, but there is not enough for all, so the intent is to make people show up earlier and earlier to be assured of having some breakfast. Many people in Silicon Valley arrive at their desks around 10, because of the heavy commute hour(s) traffic, and leave at 7 or 8. There is no food, except for the vending machine, for people that stay late. I know people that take food home, because they work late and are too tired to cook, or have to go to bed almost as soon after they arrive home. The ethical question for Silicon Valley employees is rather complex. Your employer expects close to a 12 hour work day. How you accomplish this is your problem. My engineers report their time to the payroll system, and the actual hours (12 hrs) get restated to an 8 hour day, so projects get tracked at 75% of the actual labor cost, and all future project work is handled the same way. By providing free food the company spends $20, but gets back $200-400 in voluntary overtime from each employee. I dont think The Ethicist has resolved this issue. FlagReply 20Recommend Share this comment on FacebookShare this comment on Twitter JL NY 2 days ago RE: Should free food be taken home - Brandon swears that he’s more productive after he eats, and taking the cereal home would allow him to eat on his time (instead of after arriving at the office). - - - Brandon could of course eliminate any ethical question by showing up early at work and eating the free breakfast on his own time - - - - but Im sure he wont. Reply 4Recommend Amy San Diego 3 days ago If the issue is that his free breakfast is cutting into the work day (implied when Brandon says that taking the cereal home would allow him to eat on his time), the solution is for Brandon to arrive to work a few minutes early to enjoy this perk. Reply 20Recommend ACW New Jersey 4 days ago You can take leftover prepared food that would otherwise go to waste - say, if your company provides food for a meeting and then leaves it in the
Posted on: Sun, 30 Nov 2014 19:06:24 +0000
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