The New York Times Magazine, Sunday, August 22, 1999

The Slacker Temp
against humanity. The humane solution is to distribute the most tedious tasks
evenly rather than dumping them on one person. But the current arrangement
brings cars, camcorders and the Backstreet Boys to the millions -- myself included
-- and we seem to like that.
Short of a radical transformation of the labor economy (which doesn't seem too
likely), the situation at your office will continue to be exhausting for everyone
involved: your co-workers, your boss and even the temp himself. And as the
supervisor, you have the responsibility to see that the work gets done, so you must
act. Can you persuade the temp to improve his performance? Great. Can you get
him more money or rearrange his most mind-numbing tasks? Even better. But if
you can't do either, and you continue to feel, as you say, that his job is so wretched
that reporting him would be wrong, you can continue to work there, but you can't
ethically continue as his supervisor. You can be a soldier but not an officer.
We received an invitation to a surprise party for our friend Ted, given by his wife.
It said: "It is a clown party! Ted is afraid of clowns!! Feel free to dress as a clown.
The idea is to scare him! Adults only! We do not want children to see how terrified
Ted will be by the clowns!" Not going is a no-brainer. Should we tell him? —
M.M., Madison, N.J.
By all means, tell him about the party. And about a divorce lawyer.
Do you have ethical queries that you need answered? Send them to
ethicist@nytimes.com or The Ethicist, The New York Times Magazine, 229 West
43d Street, New York, N.Y. 10036.
Illustration by Christoph Neimann
Table of Contents
August 22, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/library/magazine/home/19990822mag-ethicist.html (2 of 3) [8/22/1999 9:15:21 PM]
Dr. Atkins New Diet Revolution
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