Category: ethics

The Lawn Mower QUESTION

I returned the lawn mower. You have no idea how rare that is for me to return items to a store.

I received a postcard recently telling me that I may be entitled to a $35 rebate if:
1. You purchased a lawn mower, for your own use, containing an engine with up to 30 horsepower in the United States or Puerto Rico and between January 1, 1994 and April 12, 2010.
2. Either the lawn mower or the engine of the lawn mower was manufactured or sold by a Company listed below.
3. You submit a claim.

It’s some class action lawsuit that “does not concern the safety of these lawn mowers.”

I did, in fact, purchase a lawn mower. It was 2002, give or take a year, after we moved here in 2000 and before the daughter was born in 2004. Not only did I have to mow our lawn, but the lawn of the rental property six blocks away. It was difficult to keep up with both lawns with a reel mower, which is what you call those old-fashioned machines that require only human power, not gasoline or electricity. The new machine was purchased from one of the companies listed on the website. To have a good start, you could just leave the job to the experts at King Green to take care of your lawn.

It was gas-powered, which troubled me from an environment POV, but the grass was getting long at the rental property. After mowing our lawn, which went reasonably well, I took it to the rental property, where it quickly became jammed. I unjammed it, and used it again when the grass was shorter, but I had the same problem.

So I returned it. You have no idea how rare that is. I HATE returning stuff; it’s just a hassle. But this was also a couple hundred bucks. The salesman did those things that were supposed to make me feel like scum – more attitude than actual words – but I was not to be talked out of it.

When the postcard came in the mail, the Wife said, “Should I just toss it?” After all, I had the machine for less than two weeks. I think not; let me mull it over. Am I even eligible? It requires having the serial number of the machine, which suggests current ownership. I am pretty sure that we probably DO have the serial number somewhere.

Now I’m not going to file; it seems unethical. But it was VERY tempting.

The QUESTION: Do you ever have such ethical dilemmas? Are they worse when they involve impersonal entities? Bad service?
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A Potpourri of Questions

Please answer any that strike your fancy.

1. Mr. Burgas found this article about a library dropping the Dewey Decimal System in favor of shelving “by topic, similar to the way bookstores arrange books”. This hurts my head, not because I’m married to Dewey – my library actually uses Library of Congress – but because shelving by DDC or LoC IS arranging by topic. But maybe I’m missing something here.
a. How are the books, etc., in the libraries you use arranged?
b. How would you prefer they be arranged?

2. Several folks have linked to the story about e-mail bankruptcy, i.e., to say, “My e-mail’s overwhelmed me. I give up. Let’s start over.”
a. On average, how many e-mails do you get a day at work? At home? How many sit in that limbo-land at any given time, waiting for some sort of action? For me it’s about 150 at work, 30 at home. Occasionally, I’ll get rid of work e-mail at home. At any given time, I have between 60-150 work e-mails and 10 home e-mails waiting for me to do SOMETHING. Sometimes, it’s posting on a blog. The solutions in the article, phone calls and Instant Messaging would not work for me AT ALL; they’d be too distracting. How about for you? And how’s your spam content? The so-called king of spam was arrested this week. About 2% of my work e-mail and 10% of my personal e-mail is spam in a given week.

3. The Yankees’ Alex Rodriguez ticked off some people when as a runner, he misled an opposing fielder, noted here. Was this OK, or out of bounds? Deception has always been a part of the game. A pitcher’s pickoff move. Hidden ball tricks. An outfielder pretending to catch a ball to keep runners at bay. Phantom double plays, where the middle infielder’s foot is in the general vicinity of second base. The A-Rod incident didn’t bother me at all.
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