Debating about the issue of legal obligation vs. ethical obligation in the last class reminded me about all the calls I had to make to call centers of various credit card companies and cellular service operators. Monthly, their legal obligation is to bill the consumer with the rental fee and the usage charges for the service they had provided the previous month. They would, most often, break the ethical obligation and charge me a bit more than the actual amount. If you consider its overall impact on the entire billed amount, it wouldn't be that much, but the fact is that they 'con' the customers with this extra fee and when summed up, would result in millions of extra revenue to the company. They would reimburse this fee only to those customers who realize it in advance and call the customer care.
This scenario got me to think further, and reminded me about an article I read a long time ago regarding the newspaper and magazine business. These agencies make millions of dollars in posting advertisements in their journals that it is most definitely not necessary to charge an extra fee for subscription. By doing it, they actually are making millions more than the actual value of the material cited in their issues. A similar 'minting' occurs in the cable service too.
Apart from all these, the concept of ethical obligations, in India, is most often tested upon by job recruiters with one famous question.
Question : Imagine you are driving in a 2 seater car under a heavy blizzard and you come across a bus stop shelter in the middle of nowhere with 3 people stranded there. One being your best friend forever, the other being the woman/man of your dreams (whom you havn't really talked to yet), and the last being a very old lady. Now, you have only one umbrella with you, in which obviously only two persons can adjust in. The question is, what are you going to do?
There are many many possibilities in this scenario, but there is only one right answer. Post your answers as comments to this blog and I will post the right answer in the end. Im guessing atleast one of you guys would get it right.
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3 comments:
I should have one seat available, so I would give the old lady a ride taking her home and leave the other two my umbrella.
The correct answer would be
You hand over the vehicle to your friend and tell him to drive the old lady home, and you take the umbrella and stay back with the man/woman of your dreams.
Ummm... how is an umbrella supposed to help in a snow storm with 2 feet of snow? They really probably need a shovel, some gloves, maybe a fire pit...
My answer: Tell my friend and the old broad to huddle together for extra warmth by sharing body heat (maybe sex?) until the bus comes and take off with the sexy lady of my dreams.
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