On Being Ethical

One of the most difficult things about shopping around for new people to work with new providers is that there’s often a backlash that, well, really sucks.

Recently, we’ve been looking into hiring some new people, mostly on the design side of things. I’ve talked with quite a few really great people and been impressed with their work. Some of these discussions have even involved quite a bit of time discussing the needs of the project and the vision that we have.

Ultimately, these things end up ugly as you tend to fall in love with everyone you’re making extended contact with. At the end of the day, you have to choose one over the other and it’s never nice when it happens. The time invested may have been trivial or extensive, but the numerous factors that guide your decisions are never completely obvious to all parties (be it price, style, professionalism, etc).

I have had two of these collisions today and I’m not happy that they had to happen, however, they made the most sense for our organization. Though I try my best to not take up too much time from others before its required, sometimes, they offer it, sometimes its mandated to understand what is being bought and sold.

The big question, of course, is who pays for this. One of the parties actually indicated a bit sorely, which I completely understand mind you, that I should offer to pay for the time they spent preparing a comp for us in good faith (a comp we didn’t solicit and that was not comprised of original work). I’m not sure what good faith means in this context.

When I was a consultant, I lost lots of money on both ends of the snake. Up front, I would often spend loads of time preparing proposals, on phone calls, making revisions. I never got paid - I did it in hopes of winning a client. On the other end, I have had many, many instances where I lost loads of money from clients disappearing, delaying, or outright denying responsibility. Once again, those were the costs of doing business and there was not much action I could take in one way or the other.

In the end, there’s a certain ethical question here. I’m just not sure sometimes when some “calls ethics” is it really that or are these just the natural hazards of being in business? I’m not happy either way - and if I didn’t care I wouldn’t be writing this or be worried about the mistakes I might have made in the process.