The Ethics of Manners

There’s a story going around the Internet about a CEO of a firm in New Jersey who sent a memo around his company saying that the next time he caught someone emptying the milk (used in coffee) and not replacing it, he was going to fire them. The memo made it very clear that the company pays for the milk; all the CEO is demanding is that if you are the one who finished the milk, you should be the one to go and get another carton; the story also confirms that the CEO and his office manager are generally the ones who end up having to do this – they’ve replaced the milk carton many times as of the day this memo went out. Most of the online news sources are treating this as a “Lighter Side of the News” story, and most of the comments on those stories seem to feel that the CEO is over-reacting, but it struck me that we should probably take a closer look at the issue…

First of all, there’s nothing illegal about the CEO in our story asking his employees to make sure there is milk available for the next person. Many people believe that if something is not in their job description they can’t legally be asked to do it, but this is only true if you have a work contract that specifically states that you must do the listed duties and only those duties, such as those negotiated by unions for their membership. Some people would tell you that demanding that someone perform menial duties when it is inappropriate for their position within the company (like demanding that a highly-trained CFO fetch your coffee) is demeaning to that person, and therefore morally wrong; others will insist that asking a woman to do so is sexist, asking a member of any ethnic minority to do so is racist, and so on. But even if we agree with those positions, the memo in this case was addressed to all members of the company equally, and can’t therefore be considered discriminatory against anyone…

Then we have the question of over-reaction. Certainly, failing to replace a carton of milk one time is no reason to terminate a valuable employee who has generated millions of dollars of revenue for the company. However, it is rude, and it does show a lack of concern for anyone else who uses the office coffee service. Suggesting that this behavior might lead to worse ones if left unchecked is absurd, but the concept that somebody who is casually rude to his or her co-workers and dismissive of management’s directives (to stop this behavior, or anything else within reason) might have a poor attitude is not. The CEO in our story isn’t asking anyone to wash his car or fetch his dry cleaning; he’s asking everyone in the office to behave like adults and be polite to one another. And as far as we can tell from the story, they’re ignoring him…

That brings us to the concept of insubordination. Granted, this CEO’s directives in this case are trivial, but one assumes that they aren’t always – or, at least, that they won’t always be. If he were asking them to do something illegal, immoral, or personally degrading things might be different, but all he’s asking for here is some basic courtesy. Of course, following through with such an action might also be problematic. In addition to the possibility of losing valuable personnel, there’s also the matter of being sued for discrimination (if one of former employees believes the termination is actually about their membership in any recognized minority and is willing to bring suit), looking like an idiot in the national media, and being mocked by Internet commentators and scruffy bloggers alike. If the CEO’s first duty is to increase stockholder equity (which it is) while doing what is best for all of the stakeholders affected by his decisions (which it also is), then this may not be the best use of either money or resources, especially when he could solve the problem himself by just detailing a specific person to replace the milk every day…

So should this CEO have handled the situation differently? More to the point, perhaps, how would you handle the situation if the company was yours, and you were the one who kept coming in to find an empty milk carton every morning?

It’s worth thinking about…