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

~ Nan Demars (Author) "Think about it: "Secretaries and other office professionals don't have to purchase liability insurance-yet," said the attorney from the podium..." (more)
Key Phrases: ethical office, other office professionals, unethical incident, Civil Rights Act, Professional Secretaries International, Barbara Ann (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Business ethics are often discussed as if they were some sort of an intangible quality, or else they are "reevaluated" in the aftermath of some egregious misdeed of headline-grabbing magnitude. But it is in the details of everyday events that an ethical workplace is determined. And the burden of choosing between committing a right or a wrong act is often shifted from those in positions of power to those in the least position to say no. DeMars, who has served as president of Professional Secretaries International (PSI), has spearheaded the exploration of how ethical conduct affects office professionals at all levels, and the result was a code of ethics for secretaries. She has also surveyed office workers about ethical practices and has written a regular column on the subject for The Secretary, PSI's monthly magazine. The result is this unique but very real collection of examples that illustrate ticklish situations and thorny dilemmas and DeMars' suggestions on how best to handle them. David Rouse

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Fireside; 1st Fireside Ed edition (April 2, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 068485046X
• ISBN-13: 978-0684850467
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #922,725 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very timely,very helpful-but too late for Clinton & Currie., December 17, 1998

By	[e-mail] (Minneapolis, MN) - See all my reviews

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.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very practical guide to resolving ethical dilemmas at work., September 21, 1998

By A Customer

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.