Community ClicksDegree of disclosure
I attended a top-tier acting program at a large state university, completing all my theater classes but not acquiring enough credits for my B.F.A.
I left after my fourth year and now work as an actor.
No degree is required for acting jobs, but potential employers might see my not having graduated as an inability to complete a task.
The head of my program, with good intentions, has enlisted friends and colleagues to urge me to complete my degree.
By disclosing that I did not graduate, doesn’t she infringe the confidentiality of my academic records?
— Name Withheld
Colleges often answer queries about whether they granted someone a degree, so it’s easy to see why your program head saw her actions as mundane.
Nor did she do anything as egregious as post your transcripts on Facebook.
And yet she should not volunteer information about you that she gleaned professionally.
Even if her department does not consider this a violation of privacy, she should keep it to herself.
A professor that I consulted acknowledged her amiable intent but added: “The disclosure was in the cause of the program head’s agenda for the student, not his own.
“She could directly talk to the student and encourage him to graduate, but enlisting others seems to me wrong.”
Incidentally, you, too, should be prudent about Facebook and not post vengeful slatternly photographs of your program head.
Or yourself. Or, for that matter, me.
Update: The actor left a voice mail message for the program head, asking her not to mention his academic status to anyone else.
She has not done so since.
Evaluation rules
I am a civil-service employee.
When our former director retired, someone was provisionally appointed to his position.
I have applied for the permanent position.
That decision will be based on an oral exam and an evaluation of my work submitted by the provisional director, who also hopes to secure the position permanently.
Is it proper for her to evaluate someone with whom she’s competing for a promotion?
— Name Withheld, Philadelphia
It is not.
She should recuse herself and have someone else do the evaluation.
It does not impugn her integrity to acknowledge that anyone might be at least unconsciously influenced when facing such a conflict of interests.
Beyond any immediate effect on you, it is important that everyone in your organization be confident that the promotion process is equitable.
If there is no procedure in place to allow someone else to do the evaluation, your supervisor’s next best alternative is to append a note to the evaluation explaining the awkward position in which she finds herself.
In this latter case, she must also be vigilant not to damn you with faint praise or praise you with faint damns or . . . well, she must just avoid faintness altogether and speak in a clear, strong voice.
Take the stairs?
My office is in a building with two extremely old elevators serving 24 floors.
Recently one elevator was taken out of service, resulting in huge crowds of people on the first floor waiting to go up, especially during peak morning hours.
Sometimes I walk up a floor and ride the elevator down, securing a position for the ride up to 20 where I work.
I justify my actions by thinking that others could do the same but don’t because they are too lazy to walk up a floor.
Ethical?
— David Liu, Xian, China
Clever, perhaps (slightly) aerobic, but not ethical.
You cut the line.
That you did so ingeniously does not mitigate your tactics.
Nor does your unpersuasive rationalization: my victims are lazy and stupid and unstylishly dressed.
Was that it?
Your sole reason for going to the second floor was to finagle a position ahead of those already waiting for the elevator.
While we’re on the subject, we might look askance at those fit and vigorous folks who get on the elevator and ride it one floor when they could easily take the stairs.
Their sloth imposes a tiny but irritating delay on everyone else in the car — if not unethical then at least inconsiderate.
And (slightly) fattening.
