Returned Souvenir Shrek Glasses Bring Ethics to Fore

One of my recent weekend chores was to return two bags of cadmium-tainted Shrek glasses to the local McDonald’s restaurant for a refund. In a way, it was a sad moment. They had been purchased in May when we spent several days in Chincoteague, Va. during our family’s pre-summer getaway.
My wife loves to collect those special glasses, and the family does seem to enjoy them because, above all else, they add an air of whimsy to mealtime. Over the years, we have ingested many more calories than we should have in a valiant attempt to fulfill the requirements to purchase special edition glasses, but at least we have something long lasting to remember those meals.
Back to the story. My only gaffe was to report there were 14 glasses in the bags, which I truly believed. Oh, good grief, when the counter person making the refund counted, there were only 13. I could have pulled up the floor tile and crawled underneath. Well, without second thought or fanfare, I was handed $39, $3 each for glass, which cost $1.99 each, and that, was the end of it.
As I walked out into the heat of that Saturday, I had to think once more of the recall process.
How could it be that a reported 12 million of those glasses were manufactured, shipped and sold before someone, somewhere, unearthed the fact there was cadmium in the paint on those glasses? Who was asleep at the design table when they were ordering the paint, and knew there was that stuff mixed inside?
Recalls are so commonplace that many times, we ignore warnings to rid ourselves of those hazards. We do so to the detriment of our youngsters or us.
To this day, within a closet in our home, is a recalled toy. I sleep with one eye open, wondering when the FBI will come tapping at my door at midnight wondering why that little jungle house and its animals, Jeep and Diego, Dora’s faithful sidekick, were not returned when it was reported they had been colored with lead paint that could cause harm if chewed and ingested by children.
Perhaps we were fortunate, since we always had enough to feed the grandchildren so that they did not have to gnaw on the toys.
But really, how could Pop Pop explain to wide-eyed kiddies, “Well, see, it’s like this. Diego was a bad man, so we had to send him away with his animals, and you’ll never again have them to play with and enjoy.”
My job’s tough enough listening to people gripe about Spout Offs that. They freely state, are nothing by lies, and I should have known better than to print such tripe. (It gets worse around full moon!) How could I force myself to ship Diego off to the recall smelter because he was colored with paint that had too much nasty stuff?
Why didn’t the toy manufacturer figure out the paint the Chinese factory workers were using was tainted long before it got to my closet? This is when recalls get really close to home.
Recalls are costly, ask Ford Motor Company. Remember the recall of tires on every Explorer they made? Ask Toyota about the impact of a recall on its sales when it became public knowledge that their accelerators had a glitch that could cause cars to speed up? What of pulling pills from shelves and tainted cereal from supermarkets?
The list could go on and on, some comical, others very serious, like disease-laden produce shipped to stores across the land, an tainted meat that we rightly expected was USDA approved.
I have a sneaking suspicion the problem lies in a six-letter word that, for the most part, many people would like to banish from the dictionary: Ethics.
Ethics is an old-fashioned concept. There was a time when it was closely linked with one’s religious upbringing. With the weakening of that moral fiber, many parents impart no ethics training to their children, and that is to society’s detriment. Simply, ethics is about doing what is right, no matter the cost.
There may be courses in corporate ethics to teach prospective executives, who will someday be on the front line protecting corporate fortunes, to do what is right. Trouble is, if they have to take a course in ethics to learn right from wrong, it’s too late. That is much like trying to learn the violin at age 60, and never having learned how to read music.
We can only read between the lines that many companies hire employees who either do not care about ethics or who rather keep silent, unwilling to risk their jobs, than speak up and tell the boss what he or she is doing is wrong, and someone might get hurt or worse.
When corporation bigwigs sit in front of congressional representatives at those long-winded hearings, does it not become quite apparent who has ethics, guts and backbone, and who is trying to get by with a pack of lies?
Mistakes will be made, here and elsewhere. That’s a fact of life. Owning up to them freely is something that requires ethics.
Shrek glasses, once a treasured souvenir of a happy time with family, are but a tiny reminder how important ethics can be to the good of every member of society.
Take the high road. Speak up. Fess up. Don’t try to cover one lie with another. We see too much of that each day. Ethics, learn what it means, then apply it liberally.