I think you have to look at all of the variables involved. How has your company treated you? I had the unpleasant misfortune of being misled and ended up taking a job that was in an organization that could only be described in civil terms as disfunctional. After two years I finally left when I saw no end to the insanity. BTW, my favorite definition of insanity is doing the same thing each day and expecting different results.

When I left I kept a ticket to Miami and used it to go diving later in the year in the Keys. Felt I had not been treated properly and had no obligation to return it. Now, if it is a legal situation, such as the Federal Government, that is another story.

So, there is a little more involved than "let your conscience be your guide." I am sure this response will bring out all of the abolishionists who chastise my philosophy, but in this day and age of diminishing benefits and increased demands upon our time, I would like to get all that I have coming to me!!!

...and then some, it would appear.

I cancelled an interview trip with a potential employer in March, and offered to return the ticket (on UA). They told me to keep it, as the name could not be changed.
I still haven't decided what to do with it. The company is very large, and hence should have had sufficient clout with UA (it's preferred airline) to get them to accept it towards another passenger. Perhaps UA is stricter than the others.

The answer is very simple:

If your company paid for it, then it belongs to the company, and the tickets should be turned.

Your name which appears on the ticket appears as an employee of the company which paid for it.

If you owned the company yourself, I am sure you would want the same done by your own employees.

spartacus:
At the risk of sounding like I'm preaching...

RIGHT and WRONG are a lot easier than people think. Adding "variables" only blurs the picture - it rarely clarifies.

Speaking HYPOTHETICALLY, and NOT ACCUSING ANYONE OF ANYTHING : treating someone badly does not justify theft.

(Unless you hire a lawyer, but that's the legal form of theft!) http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

When an employer treats you like dirt, you have three options. Put up with it, negotiate a pay raise to adequately compensate you, or find other employment.

If they broke the law, such as harassment or discrimination, you get a lawyer.

But in this day and age of moral relativism, should it be a surprise that this issue becomes a "tough call"?

We've all been shafted over the years. Some worse than others. But if we all decided that whenever our personal threshold has been crossed that it gives us carde blanche to mete out justice on the terms we decide, that is amarchy.


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"I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own."

Jon Toner: I have always felt you were one of the soundest voices on FT. Still do. That's why I need to reply.

Please look at what you wrote. Does what spartacus has suggested indicate that he/she believes he/she has "carte blanche"? I don't think it's quibbling: morality IS affected by situation. There IS NO plain right and wrong. Ethics ARE situational. Morals ARE relative to culture and situation. However, this does not mean what many people think: anything does not go. There are still better ways of behaving, more honorable ways of behaving. But it DOES matter to the MORAL situation that spartacus was misled about the environment in which he was to work.

You wrote: "When an employer treats you like dirt, you have three options. Put up with it, negotiate a pay raise to adequately compensate you, or find other employment."

Simply put, John, and with all due respect, these are NOT the only three options. And they are not the oply three moral options. Morality, in this man's opinion, is a far more complicated thing than that.

I am glad to make the more detailed argument to anyone who wants to hear it. But the nub of it is: the basic premise of traditional western morality, namely that each individual enters into agreements of his or her own free will and is thereby bound to those agreements, is not an adequate description of many moral situations. It is incomplete at best.

OK, but really, this does not boil down to a question of morality. The legal position is clear.

If the company paid for the ticket, then the company has the beneficial interest in the ticket. For a person to convert those tickets to his own use without the consent of the beneficial owner is theft.

No amount of rationaliztion, moral debate, or misconduct on the other party's part can render an illegal act legal.

That being said, it is perfectly open to negotiate. Buy it off the company for, say $0.10 on the dollar for the face value of the ticket. You get a dirt cheap ticket, they get a little recovery they would otherwise have lost.

Good point. The legal issue seems clear.

Many times this ticket is worthless to a company. Tell them your not sure if you need it either,but in case you do you'd split it with them. Meaning you pay for it now.(50%) They will write the ticket off anyway. This way you win, the company wins and the airline has won. Triple Crown Victory for all.

What I am referring to is unilateral action.

If I have been wronged by someone, I cannot unilaterally decide what is adequate compensation if it involves breaking the law.

There ARE mitigating circumstances - I never said that things are absolute. I just said right and wrong are not as hard as people think.

Killing is wrong. Killing someone while defending myself from someone attempting to kill me, is not.

Stealing a loaf of bread can be justified by the needs of your starving family.

I believe that stealing a plane ticket cannot be justified by being mistreated by an employer.

If the mistreatment is serious enough, you have a legal avenue to remedy what you consider unjust. This is a thriving business in fact.

If an employer only partially mistreats an employee, are they entitled to only steal smaller items? Would this be moral?

Can you steal a fax machine for being yelled at? Can you steal a chair if your boss belittles you at a meeting?

I believe right and wrong ARE easier than people think. People know that stealing is wrong, so to justify the action they must muddy the waters. To hear some people (not you, nor anyone on this forum), NOTHING is wrong anymore.

Morality is not concrete, but it isn't sand either.

On this issue, I believe we are standing on a parking lot, not on a beach.

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"I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own."

What's the hourly rate in this parking lot?

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

I appreciate your reply, Jon.

You are of course right about the availability of legal recouse for grievances with employees, but most indignities suffered by ordinary employees occur beneath the radar screen of the legal arena (bad mixed metaphor for an editor like me). They may accumulate over time and affect the moral situation for an employee vis-a-vis his/her employer.

I guess my problem is with the easiness of general statements like "Stealing is wrong."
As you pointed out, there are exceptions to it. As I would point out, there may be so MANY exceptions to it that its standing as a general principle is dramatically weakened.

Employers and employees often do not equal power. To make general statements about right and wrong, something close to equal power must be assumed. If someone injures me unjustly, and I have the opportunity to redress that injury by stealing from them, it is not the same thing as stealing from someone who has not injured me unjustly. The "stealing" in one case is not the same as the "stealing" in the other. I use the scare quotes deliberately: the two acts are NOT instances of the same universal concept "stealing." That is what I reject. To describe acts independent of the circumstances in which they take place is a very bad habit of human beings, one we are only very slowly getting over.

Some would say: "You are justifying wrong behavior (stealing as a reprisal) by assuming no other avenue is available to an employee. An employee can quit, or can picket outside the doors of the offending compnay. He/she doesn't have to steal."

Answer: That's absolutely correct. But I do not agree that the employee MUST do some other thing than steal. To quit or to picket means taking on an additional burden. Why should an injustice require an ADDITIONAL burden on an aggrieved party? Morality should not require this kind of sacrifice, but traditional Judeo/Christian morality does.

But, truthfully, I'm not exactly in love with my own response here, either. I can see the potential problems with it (as Jon rightly mentined--the unilateral aspect of it. It's complex and difficult.

bks- "Ethics ARE situational.

I see you are a bit of a fan of Fletcher! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

bks,

I find your position morally, ethically, and honorably offensive. Yes, there are general conditions where certain immoral, unethical, and illegal are proscribed. Without exception in my lifetime, those conditions have been generally acclaimed as war, or at least combat.

In examples given above, any personal exception to Western morality has been defended by a similar condition, a threat to personal life, liberty, or property. And I challenge the threat to personal property as a right to contravene laws and use deadly force.

I challenge you to drive 15 miles up I-25, visit the school there, and present your case to every student. I will be amazed if you can find one student who will agree with your conclusions. And I would suspect that if you present your case as you have here, every student will find you guilty of quibbling.

As carved above the East entrance to the parade ground, adjoining Fairchild Hall, is the phrase familiar to every graduate, "I will not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do". The instance being discussed here is clearly stealing.

If you discuss with the students how your explanation of facts, events, whatever fit within that simple statement, you will be accused of quibbling. More than likely, they will ask you to tell this story to your parents, grandparents, and ten of your closest friends. To defend stealing. To defend being dishonest.

As the last point, quibbling is defined as any answer other than "Yes" or "No". So the question simply stated is "Did you keep a ticket paid for by your previous employer without notifying or compensating that employer?" Any answer longer than three letters is quibbling simply because you are attempting to obfuscate the issue.

Perhaps I'm old enough that I confuse archaic standards of terms such as moral and honorable with what passes in today's society. 1f you were the employer, would you condone and accept this behavior by one of your employees, or soon to be ex-employees? Or would you then take the moral high ground?

To finish this diatribe, I apologize for pontificating. However, I believe that any erosion of honor, ethics, and morals, especially among a group of highly educated people such as FT, will only lead to a continued decline of civilized life as we once knew it. If we, as leaders and respected individuals within our organizations, don't uphold standards, there won't be any.

Let me put my two cents worth in here.

Has the company been asked what their druthers are? If AAPLATCOGOLD is leaving on amicable terms, the company may be willing to let him have the ticket. If there is animosity, well .... It should be the company's decision.

BTW, why did the ticket cost so much, was it FC. The last time I bought a ticket from EWR to HNL, the price was under $600. I realize this was a great price, but I didn't think that the fares have gone up that much.

DD