Today’s Ethical Questions
Jun 25th, 2008 by pyra
My neighbor is out for a couple weeks and has asked me to pick up his mail.
He received a movie from NetFlix. Would it be unethical for me to look at the title of the movie?
What about to watch it if it is a movie I would like to see?
The movie is “Dan in Reel Life”. Does this change your feelings about either of your answers?
In other news, a supermarket near where I like to have lunch decided to tow people who park there and do not go inside. It was done out of spite because they told the place next door that their parking lot would not be large enough.
The supermarket’s parking lot is never even close to half full, so parking there does not block an actual customer. Also, those parking there for lunch park in the spaces furthest from the supermarket itself. The few times I have actually gone inside (mostly because it was close to where I went for lunch) the store was empty.
Today, they were threatening to tow everyone. So, I went inside and found the cheapest item I could possibly use. It was a container of Tic Tacs, 85cents plus 2cents tax. I charged an 87cent item for spite. Credit cards take 25cents per transaction plus 5% of the overall sales, meaning they would take 29cents out of the sale, leaving the supermarket with a sale of 56cents to cover cost of the item, plus keeping it there, plus expenses. Was that wrong?
If I say it was a Safeway supermarket, does that change your feelings?
LOL I would have done the same thing at that supermarket. They are just pushing people away and if they did that at a supermarket I shopped at I doubt I would go back to them. Sounds like they have a stick stuck somewhere.
As for the netflix thing, just open it carefully and then find a way to make it look like ya didn’t open it. =P
The supermarket is in their right to tow people away. There’s nothing like seeing a parking lot full of cars yet wondering where the customers are at. The other thing you should consider is that the Safeway may not be the owner of the parking lot. But… if the real owner comes by and see so many parking lots, it can justifiably raise rents according to the perceived “business” the supermarket is doing. So to prevent that, measures need to be taken.
I never said the supermarket was in the wrong, I asked if buying an item that I knew would cost the supermarket more than the sale was wrong. My friends are proposing buying 1 tomato or 1 banana next time — and charging it. We are coming up with things to buy that are so cheap that they will cost the supermarket money every time we shop there for the 2 minutes to allow us to use the parking lot.
As to the questions — the supermarket does own the lot. Their land is worth a small fortune due to size and location (on RT 123 in Vienna Virginia, a very wealthy suburb of DC).
However, I know of several people who will no longer shop at any safeway due to the actions of this one. If anything, it generates ill will towards the brand as a whole. There is a nice new safeway near where I live. I refuse to shop there and will drive the extra couple of blocks to the next supermarket just to avoid the safeway.
They also, by threatening to tow cars (I have yet to see them actually tow one, probably because there is no way to tell if someone went into the next door area to visit the starbucks or get lunch before doing their grocery shopping) they push others into the next lot, which is even smaller, and is usually filled or close to filled. Since that lot is now filled, the supermarket is potentially causing the rental rates of others to go up.
All so the supermarket manager could say “I told you so”.
There’s nothing unethical in buying a cheap item to use a parking lot. Personally, I wouldn’t care about Safeway. I find it frustrating when people park in a parking lot and you see them walk off the lot instead of into my restaurant.
You can also buy: gum and candy.