response to a creative writing assignment by Margaret Leora Workman; Warponie Art

In chapter two of the book, Practical Strategies for Technical Communication (Markel, Selber, 2024), it talks about four moral standards regarding the idea of ethics and ethical standards. Rights, justice, utility and care. It explains that it is a desirable idea to consider these moral responsibilities when we make decisions regarding these ethical standards in the workplace or school.
When referring to the ethical standard of rights, it suggests that it should be a standard idea of receiving basic needs and regarding welfare. Such as having a safe working environment to having guidelines being followed about the items that we purchase. This ethical standard also states that just because we want a situation to be a particular way, it isn’t a stated right, and we are not entitled to have what we want. Have you ever been to a fast-food restaurant? I have many times and the slogan of “Have it Your Way” comes to mind. I want all of them to have slogans explaining what they are going to follow. Like, “cold fries not sold here” or “we will not garble our words in the drive through speaker” or “you will get what you ordered”. It is nice when they add random bacon to my burger, sweet! What about, “you won’t have to ask for extra lettuce just to get some.” The book talked about rights and the consumer has the right to receive what is considered normal to have when we pay for a service, but are they being followed. Sometimes not, because your one shred of lettuce is another person’s dream of a no-vegetable society.
Justice is the next ethical standard. The effects of justice can be measured through the reactions of the groups of people who are in these circumstances. Either beneficially or costly, these circumstances may be one or the other, or both for these groups of people. In the workplace or in an educational environment, the idea of justice may or may not be followed in terms of two people performing the same job for the same wages. Thankfully the Equal Opportunity Employment act was established at some point, but no one knows what other employees are getting paid because in the workplace people are not allowed to talk about wages. Justice is only hopeful in the workforce in my opinion, which is unfortunate but is a true situation. The effects of this justice in the workforce can be detrimental to the overall morale of the company. Complaints can be ignored because people who are in management do not like to be corrected, and they will say that the idea of a wage and what the job is valued at is subjective.
Utility is another ethical standard that is explained. It encompasses the effects that an action or policy has on people along with the time frame of how long these actions will last. Over time the feelings and effects of these actions and policies will affect people differently. In the workplace, when a temporary setback to performance becomes a normal situation, then employees can become apathetic and uncaring about their own work performance. This has happened at many of the jobs that I have had. It becomes a hopeless situation and management sometimes just does not care about the situation. Such as not having enough employees to take care of the busy lines of customers. Customers will get to the front of the line and complain to the employee. The employee usually becomes bitter at management because they are not hiring enough people. Employees will fight because of the stress of the situation, and this creates a situation of more stress because people quit or just don’t come into work. Another situation that I saw at Ross when I worked there in Colorado is the situation of people stealing merchandise and then running out. We had security guards, but they cannot, by law, chase anyone through the store or outside into the parking lot. The security guards were just there as a deterrent to theft. We could not do anything about it and just had to watch them walk out, it caused a lot of apathy, and we never really talked about it because we could not do anything.
Care involves relationships in the workplace, at home, communities and other individuals whom we do not know are considered in this section. It states that the closer that we are to that person the greater care we owe them. I rent rooms in my house next door to people. One of the guys helps me to find people. I use craigslist and he uses Facebook marketplace. I pay him 12% of the rent. A couple of times he collected rent for me from one of the renters and that was helpful. He is nice and always has been. Sometimes I forget to pay him right away, and if it has been several days I charge myself 10% of the rent and give him that as well as a reminder to myself to pay him on time. It has really worked for me. I believe this is part of the topic of care. I am sure that he hopes that I am late every time! I have taken him out for dinner as well, but I didn’t tell him that it was for doing a great job. I want us to be friends, and I want him to keep doing this job for me. He is a fun guy.
The book explains that we should consider these ideas about the listed moral standards when we make decisions in the workplace or school regarding these four moral standards.
References
Markel, Selber. Practical Strategies for Technical Communication Bedford/St. Martin’s; 5th edition, 2024.
by Margaret Leora Workman
So this is one of my responses to one of my classes assignments. I thought it was a different class, something about reports something or other. It seems like a creative writing, ethics class. Maybe the professor wanted to make it fun. Yay!