Customer Reviews

You Want Me to Do What: When Where and How to Draw the Line at Work

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DeMars is practical, practical, practical. She tackles the most confudling dilemmas at work and provides an ethical compass to resolve them. You can always quit,but why not resolve the dilemmas and keep your job,too? I didn't always agree with her, but DeMars got me talking to my coworkers and my boss about what was the best solution-which was exactly DeMars' purpose for writing the book in the first place, I suspect. Yes, sometimes good employees do bad things--so here's what you do when it happens.

Bettie Currie, Fawn Hall, and Rosemary Woods needed this book. So did I. Lots of us face ethical choices that keep us up at night, or cause us to wince inside. DeMars uses lots of real-life examples to help us resolve the common dilemmas we find every day at work -- dilemmas about confidentiality, loyalty, office romance, harassment, information manipulation -- it's all here.

She also coaches us about how to get the ethics discussion going -- without losing our jobs.

My favorite chapters were on lying (only very little lies told for social convention and very large lies told to save lives are OK) and "the trouble with the boss" (here's how to talk to him about his profanity, disrespect, lies, thievery, harassment, whatever). DeMars says high ethics boosts productivity and retention of customers and employees, then shows us how to have those long-overdue conversations about how we treat each other. A great book, period. I am so clear now about where I need to draw "that line" between what I will and will not do, and I am so confident about how to do it.

I purchased this book after hearing Nan DeMars speak at an International Association of Administrative Professionals meeting in Plymouth, MN. She is a past international president of the organization, and offered us advice "from the trenches." As a holder of a degree in ethics, I had many questions and comments for Nan following the meeting. We have kept in touch (I'm fortunate to live nearby) via phone, e-mail and luncheon meetings, and our conversations are always lively and informative. Nan has given administrative assistants everywhere permission to stand up to those who would ask us to bend the rules a little - or a lot! It is okay to say "NO!" Her book also highlights what can happen if you choose to go along with requests that are un-ethical or even illegal. Companies no longer offer protection for assistants who are merely "following instructions." For your own peace of mind, I encourage you to devour this book and follow your conscience when confronted - in the workplace or anywhere else - by requests that are not ethical. You owe it to yourself to follow the moral compass!