Ethics/Job ethics

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Expert: Jack Marshall - 5/1/2005


Question
We live in California. My daughter delivers for a florist, they are also a nursery. Besides delivering floral arrangements and plants the owner has been asking her to do personal errands. It's gotten worse over the last year and my daughter has complained about it. The owner said "I'm paying you, you do what I say." These personal errands include; picking up the owners grandaughter from school, renting movies for the grandaughter, taking her to a medical appointment and staying with her, donating the owners personal items to charity, picking up groceries, mailing personal packages (QVC, HSN), taking the owners glasses to be repaired and picking up a passport for another employee.


Some of the items to be delivered are very heavy and if my daughter says they are too heavy, the owner picks them up and says "no, it's not". We do have a man that can also do deliveries. My daughter hurt her shoulder lifting soil when the man was right there.

How much of this if any is illegal? I know some of it is wrong, but how can we deal with it? The threat is she will get fired if she doesn't do what she's told.


Thank you in advance for your answer.


K

Answer
Dear Karen: My guess is that your dughter's boss's conduct isn't illegal, although I can't really vouch for the laws in your state. What it is is unethical, and also something of a swindle. Presumably your daughter's job description does not include such personal tasks, and this is not what she bargained for in agreeing to her salary. Thus she is not only doing his personal tasks, she's doing them for free.
She has three options, as I see it: tell her boss that is her job is to include personal tasks that he did not mention at the commencement of their employment relationship, she deserves and must get more money (I would recommend also that these personal tasks be billed at a premium, like at 1.5 times normal work); quit and find a fair employer (remembering to ask at the outset whether any such personal tasks are part of the job expectations,and bargain accordingly); or take the abuse to keep the job until she gets fed up enough to do #1 or #2.

I don't endorse the last option.

This is common but despicable conduct by her employer, and it should be opposed vigorously.

                    Jack Marshall

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Jack Marshall

Expertise

Jack Marshall is President of ProEthics, LTD. and a trainer, lecturer, writer and consultant on a wide range of ethics issues, including day-to-day ethics issues, personal relationships, workplace ethics (including sexual harassment and discrimination of all kinds), management ethics, financial ethics, professional ethics (including law, accounting, fiduciary, medical, and dental), ethics in the arts, politics, and government, and many more. He is an attorney, a published writer ("The Essential Words and Writings of Clarence Darrow" with Ed Larson, a playwright, and an award-winning stage director as well as his primary profession as an ethicist. Can advise on ethics of accepting personal gifts from bosses or colleagues for good performances at jobs; reporting friends, relatives for drug trafficking, animal abuse, or theft; tape-recording friends or acquaintances; responding to sexual advances from spouses, children, or lovers of friends or relatives; whether to reveal hurtful betrayals to close friends and relatives; sharing credit for good ideas, or blame for bad acts or decisions. Also professional and business ethics, government, journalism and politics.

Experience

I have created and facilitated over 250 ethics seminars in law, accounting, workplace, associations, non-profits, state, national and local government. For 6 years I have been the primary author of "The Ethics Scoreboard," an ethics resource and opinion website, and now write a daily ethics commentary blog, "Ethics Alarms." I have been a regular ethics columnist for O Magazine and Menz magazine, and regularly discuss ethics issues on TV and radio. I have been a lawyer, teacher, manager, entrepreneur, actor, playwright, writer, humorist, prosecutor, publisher, researcher, marketer, father, and husband.

Organizations
President, ProEthics LTD The Massachusetts Bar The DC Bar The American Continuing Legal Education Association The American Century Theater (Board, co-founder and Artistic Director)

Publications
The Weekly Standard Newsday The Virginia Monthly The Hardball Annual (2009 and 2010) Trial Magazine The Federal Lawyer Subtext (newsletter) The Ethics Scoreboard (www.ethicsscoreboard.com) Ethics Alarms (www.ethicsalarms.com)

Education/Credentials
I served in the administration of Georgetown Law Center for seven years and was an adjunct professor of legal ethics at the Washington College of Law at American University in Washington, DC. I am graduate of Harvard college (BA) and Georgetown Law Center(JD).

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