Ethics and Industry Practices
“The wisdom of business would make crooks of us all.” — Louise Stinchfeld
Industry practices are those common means and methods of business encountered in the course of doing business in, with, and for a particular profession. There are four general classes of such practices:
- The Good
- The Bad
- The Ugly
- The Obligations
The Good Practices
“A good person loves the sound of true words, the company of friends, the fair profit of able dealing.” — Lao Tzu
Technical Writers are, by and large, a good group of people. They are reasonably honest and typically conscientious about keeping off each others' toes. It is rare for the oncoming technical writer to bad-mouth his or her predecessor, even when they were singularly deserving. When two technical writers come together professionally they are usually solicitous, helpful and sympathetic to their comrade's burdens.
This is not to say that every technical writer is a saint, that they do not make mistakes, or quarrel, or tell the occasional white lie. But, as professionals, ours is a helpful and conciliatory undertaking that is more creative and cooperative than controlling or competitive.
The vast majority of ethical dilemmas technical communication folk find themselves in fall into three categories:
- Errors of commission. You know that you shouldn't do it, but everyone else around you is doing it. No one has ever been caught doing it. If you want to do it enough you'll probably convince yourself that your client actually expects you to do it. Prime candidate: web surfing on client time.
- Errors of Omission. You did not meet a commitment, but no one seems to notice. If you don't do anything about it, then it will probably go away. It will only make trouble if you bring it up. Professionals don't make mistakes, right? Prime candidate: submitting copy for localization on Friday instead of Monday.
- Errors of Avoidance. You can see a pattern here. You pause to examine it and come to the inescapable conclusion that this is trouble. It is also not anything really to do with you, and the person at fault is really quite nice, at least he means well. Prime candidate: uncompleted batch of purchase orders forgotten on shelf above copy machine.
It does not require a degree in rocket science to pick a virtuous path through these examples. It is amazing how few people are as sure footed in reality as in conjecture. All that is really required to improve your ethical behavior in these circumstances is a personal commitment to do the right thing. Even when this is personally difficult or embarrassing, you can always take solace in the fact that it is almost certainly easier and more pleasant to do it right than to clean up after doing it wrong.
An ounce of integrity is worth a pound of sinecure.
The Bad Practices
“Society is like a joint stock company organized for the purpose of defrauding the stockholders.” — Ralph Waldo Emmerson
There are some standard industry practices that are just tailor made to make crooks out of us all. Number one on this list: billable hours. There never was a better correlation between "how to cheat" and "how to make more money." It is an awful temptation to anyone, whether he's a corporate attorney or an auto mechanic.
There is no easy answer to the question of how one should insulate oneself from this temptation. How honest is honest, exactly? When does honest inexactness become dishonest chiseling?
The best thing to do is to be exactly consistent in your recording of time spent on a project. You cannot make too careful a record. Acquaint your client with your timekeeping methodology. The time you spend keeping track of your time is billable time, too. Always follow the same rules of timekeeping regardless of the client or the specifics of the project. Is there overtime? Get it authorized the instant you know that it is going to happen. Is the client wanting you to hang about with nothing to do? Get you client to understand this immediately.
There are plenty of professional practices whose careful records are arrived at retroactively to substantiate a bill that is is dispute. Do not ever get yourself in that noose. Keeping detailed and accurate records is a pain at first, but it soon becomes second nature.
Make yourself a plan for the day. Try to estimate how much time you'll spend doing what. Write down the time you'll reserve for lunch, for that phone call to your bother, to picking up your coat from the cleaners, and to meetings (who will be there). After each item has happened, check it off and record the actual times and circumstances. Keep your notes and to do lists in the same place. If this place is a computer Back — It — Up. If you make notes somewhere else, transcribe them to this central list. Throw nothing away. Keep a file folder for "disposable" things like post-it notes.
Keep this up and never fall behind. When your records show you have 11 hours on a project, bill that and only that. Never manipulate the record — even if you know it to be wrong. When you start adjusting things, regardless of how pure your motives, you are on a very slippery slope and you won't believe how quickly the ground will fall away from beneath your moral feet.
The Ugly Practices
“The ugliness we see in others only becomes intolerable when we discover it within ourselves.” — Frederick Constable
One of the biggest (and most lucrative) areas of legal study involves torts and contracts. Most people have a pretty clear idea of what a contract is, but get rather fuzzy about those torts. Simply put, a tort is a wrong, or an injustice. In legal parlance, a tort is something for which compensation or redress is applied for in a court of law. In contracting terms, a tort is the yawning gulf that opens up between you and your client whenever the two of you do not agree about the things you have contracted together to achieve.
The basis of an independent contractor's contract with his or her clients is the proposal. The proposal starts the process of expectation and delivery. Almost everyone will agree that first impressions are very important in establishing a professional relationship. That being so, it is amazing how little care many people take with their proposals.
From an ethical perspective, the proposal is of overriding importance because it defines you to your client. The proposal makes a professional promise and a personal guarantee. The biggest failing commonly included in proposals are:
- To overstate the possible.
- To define the indefinable.
- To fudge; to be intentionally vague.
- To glaze; to be intentionally over-precise.
- To understate mutual requirements.
Especially in a competitive situation, it is very tempting to promise more than you can possibly deliver. Some people will tell you that conservative proposals don't get contracts. Balderdash. The contract is the confirmation of a done deal — it is part of closing, not part of sales. Overstating what can possibly be delivered is not salesmanship. It is dishonesty.
OK, so you are a writer. Prove it. When approaching a project that has nebulous factors or relationships, be sure to make a stab at defining those factors and relationships in your proposal. For example, the sliding schedule. You propose to document a product that will result from two other projects not currently concluded. Define the flexible relationship between the intellectual bread you will bake and the technological flour yet to be milled from technological grain.
Remember that the proposal should answer questions, not pose them. A proposal that provokes questions isn't worth the paper its printed on. Proposal questions are disputes waiting (eagerly) to happen.
Be not afraid of the simple phrase, "I do not know." Sometimes, you will be asked for a level of precision that amounts to precognition. When an honest statistic can be derived by valid means, then use it in support of your proposal. Some people try to hide indiscriminately sloppy preparation of a proposal behind a veneer of precision. When it works it is obviously dishonest. When it doesn't, it is plainly embarrassing and unprofessional.
Your proposal needs to spell out the promises you are making, but just as importantly, it should also define exactly what you understand your client's promises to you to be. This is another self-defense tactic: a method to avoid moral embarrassment.
There was recently an interesting dilemma posed by a member of the technical writing listserv (an e-mail mailing list): this person submitted a fixed bit ($$$) for an assignment. The bid was accepted. When they got into the project, the discovered that there was much less work involved than they had previously believed. Now they had a dilemma: should they tell the client that it was not so much work? Should they bill the client for less money since it was less work, despite the fact that the bid was a fixed price?
There were basically three classes of response to this question:
- Of course, bill only the amount required. The client will be impressed, relieved, and convinced of your honesty: money in the bank in the future.
- Of course, bill the amount agreed. A deal is a deal. Just because you find that this is not as much work is no reason for you to break a mutual promise. If you were wrong the other way and there was twice as much work, the client wouldn't be pleased to pay for the difference would he? Why should the client get a break one way and not give a break the other? It is also important to remember that people think they get what they pay for. If you volunteer a price reduction then they'll think you're worth less.
- Of course, you should probably let the client know that the bid was in error. But one the other hand, you know that you'll get burned the other way. This is just an operation of the law of averages. Soak the client this time, but be prepared to give him a consideration on future projects (if it bothers you that much). Either that or take the money and run, in certain knowledge of all the un-billable time you've spent slaving for all these ungrateful clients all these years.
The jury was pretty undecided. The voting was split pretty evenly between these options. All three options are morally defensible. When things like this happen to you — and they will — you should have already given similar circumstances thought. Any of these options would be better for having been acted on immediately, and worse for a delay of a day, a week, or whatever.
The Obligations
“There is nothing I can do for my son that I do not owe to him — his right is my obligation.” — John Brown
The phrase is "discharge of obligations." This makes them seem quite unpopular, which they are. Most people look on an obligation like an odious burden. In fact, to be responsible is to be answerable for something that falls within your sphere of control. As a contractor, you need to be wary of circumstances that define you as responsible without granting you sufficient ability to alter events. There are plenty of managerial types who look on contractors as convenient scapegoats for their own inability to achieve results.
What you are, or should be, responsible for are those outcomes defined in your contract. Unfortunately, technical communication is often something of a nebulous commodity: people often contract the resources that might be required to satisfy a situation that does not exist yet. Such an outcome is categorically difficult to quantify.
In such circumstances, you must keep tabs on your clients' expectations by reporting progress. Every day is not too often, if that is what is required. Sometimes those winds of change blow things about terribly swiftly. Certainly, a weekly status meeting — one on one, if you can manage that — is the minimum that is required.
Once you have ensured that you are meeting the current expectations of your client, correctly discharging the current increment of your obligation, you need to then worry about three other classes of obligation: those to your employees, to your co-workers, and to yourself.
What can your employees reasonably assume your obligations to them to be? That depends on how you have represented yourself to them. The least that you are responsible for is their conduct of your business. In theory, it is your responsibility to see that these individuals have the training, the tools and the opportunity to provide a high quality service to your clients. In practice, most contract employees will be unused to serious supervision or assistance. In many cases they will resist your best efforts on their behalf as interference. Work with your employees to gain and maintain a clear knowledge of what you can expect and require of each other.
What can you expect of the client employees with who you work? This is a loaded question in a lot of consulting situations. Remember that many employees will treat you as a temporary disruption of their routine. You may be the boss's darling today, but they plan to be there tomorrow when you've moved on. It is an unspoken aspect of your general obligation to your client that you will work for and establish an efficient, productive, and positive working relationship with the client's staff.
Note: Unless you have been employed to provide the service of management review of employee performance, you are not there to criticize an employee. Sometimes a co-worker can become such an impediment that you must seek relief from their employer (your client) but this is always a last resort.
Again, much of your success as a consultant will result from your ability to communicate with people. The people in this instance are the clients' employees.
What do you owe yourself? This is the question most people don't ask and because they don't consciously answer it, they answer it subconsciously through their actions and attitudes. Once a week you should ask yourself the following questions:
- Did I accomplish anything this week?
- Could I have accomplished more?
- Knowing what I know now, would I have taken this assignment?
If the answer to two of these questions is no, then it's time you left this situation and found some better ones. If you don't move on voluntarily, you will be moved. It is time to take the initiative. If you hang on in desperation (or boredom) then you are doing no one any favors, especially yourself. You owe it to yourself to move on.
Only the most pigheaded client won't let you out of a contract if you come to them saying "I am not accomplishing anything and I feel like I am taking your money under false pretenses. I really cannot continue as a consultant on this project in good conscience." A client who has released you from your contract in this way is probably almost as good a reference as a good client for whom you actually did a tangible service.