The Office Shakedown - NYTimes.com Is it ethical for a department head to walk around the department she oversees and ask for donations to a charity she supports? She was not raising money for a political cause. It was a fund for children who have been dealt a bad hand through no fault of their own. I didn't feel as if not giving would have negative impact on my career. Still, when your boss asks you to donate to something, there's unspoken pressure to do so, and I certainly felt that pressure. Your boss should not be doing this. Now, before I argue why she should not, let me say a few words in her defense: In all likelihood, the motives driving her behavior are good. Your boss is trying to do something positive. I also don't like the idea of infringing on her freedom of expression, and I'm cognizant of the numerous nonwork situations where the complexity of a relationship has an impact on behavior (for example, if a lifelong friend asked you to contribute to a given charity, you would feel extra pressure to do so, regardless of what it was). But the mere existence of this letter suggests that your boss is doing something ethically untoward: at least for one employee, she's creating a culture of anxiety for reasons that have no relationship to the job itself. Whenever you accept a job, you cede certain rights to those in a position of authority. When you arrive to work, how casually you dress while you're there and how you conduct your business are not really your decisions. But you should be able to control what other people (and particularly your superiors) know about you as a private citizen. What you care about, what you're willing to support, how you view the concept of charity - these are things that should be expressed only at your discretion. By directly asking you to contribute to a charitable cause, your boss is forcing you (and everyone you work with) to respond in a way that will incrementally shape how she views you as a person. Her private request could have an unconscious professional consequence. Perhaps you will feel pressure to feign enthusiasm for her charity; perhaps you'll feel the need to aggressively justify why you're choosing not to give; perhaps you will just wordlessly write a check. Regardless, it's not a decision that you should have to make in front of someone who controls your work experience. Your supervisor should not be directly confronting people about issues that don't involve the job they were hired to do. Here's what your boss should do: She should write an e-mail to everyone on staff that says, "This is a charity I care about, and here's why." She should then outline its benefits and explain how people can contribute through a channel that will not involve her in any way whatsoever. I was recently hospitalized and, while in the hospital's care, suffered further as a result of medical incompetence and malpractice. After discharge, I wrote a letter detailing my experience to the hospital, the governing boards, the state board of medical examiners, the insurance investigation unit and various accrediting agencies. Do I have an ethical obligation to pursue this further with a malpractice suit? By creating a public record, the suit would serve as a warning to any future patients. But if I begin a lawsuit and I'm offered a settlement (which would not create a public record), must I ethically see the suit through and risk losing? If someone is a victim of a crime (particularly a violent crime), there's an obligation to report the event to the authorities. This, however, would be a civil action. There's no ethical responsibility to bring a civil suit to trial in order to make a point. You've reported this incident to (seemingly) every possible governing board within the local medical community. It's not as if no one knows that this happened; it's on the record. Your desire to have this be a matter of public record has the trappings of altruism, but this is not a particularly relevant consideration (because the value of such an action hinges on the remote likelihood of future patients researching public records before pursuing treatment). I don't question that you've been wronged. But if every person who felt wronged pursued a lawsuit on principle, the court system would collapse (thereby delaying and complicating the cases of people in far more desperate situations than your own). Don't think about your case as somehow collectively necessary. This is about your life. Do you feel as if your experience warrants compensation? If so, pursue the lawsuit. If the hospital offers a fair settlement, take the offer. If it doesn't, consider going to court. But you should not view this as an opportunity to punish the hospital on behalf of society. That is not your role.