Subscribe to my Feed
« This Thanksgiving, settle your unresolved feuds with an apology | Home | When it comes to apologies, once isn’t always enough »
This holiday season cut spending, not ethical corners
By Lauren | November 29, 2008
Thanksgiving is over, leftovers are drying out in refrigerators nationwide, and that means the holiday shopping season is upon us. Not surprisingly, the recent economic downturn is putting pressure on everyone to cut back on holiday buying. Early news reports suggest that most shoppers intend to spend less than they did in recent years and are aggressively hunting for bargains.
“Aggressive” seems to be the right word to describe shoppers who are desperate to fulfill their holiday gift obligations without breaking the bank. One worker was literally trampled to death yesterday when he attempted to slow the stampede of frantic customers who poured into a Walmart store at 5:00 AM on Black Friday looking for bargains. So much for the holiday spirit.
Good times and bad times each pose their own ethical hazards. In good times people get overconfident and conclude that they don’t have to play by whatever rules are in place. That’s how the subprime mortgage debacle occurred - financiers decided that they could make a lot more money if they relaxed their lending standards. In bad times people sometimes decide that they can’t afford to play by the rules, and ignore their ethical obligations to jockey for personal advantage. That’s what happened in Walmart yesterday - people chose to climb over a fallen man, trampling him to death, to save a few dollars on Christmas presents.
Yes, everyone’s worried about the economy, but we’ve been through tough financial times before and we’ll come through this one, too. Wouldn’t it have been great if I’d been able to report today that shoppers in that same Walmart saw the fallen worker, helped him up before he was seriously injured, dusted him off, and wished him a merry Christmas? The holiday season is a great time for folks to slow down, take a deep breath, think about what they believe is right, then act accordingly. That might be the best gift we could possibly give to each other.
Topics: Personal Ethics, Social Ethics, ethics |
November 30th, 2008 at 7:06 am
[...] One worker was literally trampled to death yesterday when he attempted to slow the stampede of frantic customers who poured into a Walmart store at 5:00 AM on Black Friday looking for bargains. So much for the holiday spirit. …[Continue Reading] [...]