Just Business

Annoying.

Except for a final proofread, today’s article was ready to submit. It now sits in an ever-expanding draft folder, as once again, I’m starting over. I’ve said I need to embrace life’s interruptions, and this is just one of them. It will happen again, no doubt.

I can usually pinpoint the beginnings of these ramblings. It’s a little murky today. A decades-old conversation suddenly popped into awareness and here we are.  

Once upon a time, there was a discussion between a self-proclaimed religious person, me, and an observer. I’m fuzzy on the explicit details, but here’s the gist.

I don’t understand why retailers are allowed to bait and switch. I don’t understand why grocery stores can manipulate and deceive people by shrinkflation. These paraphrased words were part of an acute awareness that I had been duped. The manufacturer had not increased the price but had decreased the volume of an item and I did not notice.

I supplied a few more examples of retailers and manufacturers that, in my mind, conned their customers with unethical profiteering. I’m sure that price gouging in times of tragedy was one of them.

My religious friend, in a proud and boastful manner, continued to inform me that he’d do the same thing with his spoken rationalization, “I plan to screw them before they screw me.” Almost as if he’d beaten his chest, pride seemed evident.

Noting that I did not recognize how this attitude dovetailed with his belief system, I was told (again with smiling smugness), “Well, Mike. It’s just business.” 

There are some moments that one never forgets. 

"Customers may not notice what are effectively price increases, John Gourville, a professor of business administration at the Harvard Business School. "We found that consumers reacted greatly to periodic changes in price, but not at all to periodic (yet systematic) reductions in quantity," Gourville said in an interview back in 2004. 

"Some companies disguise shrinkflation with a package redesign, according to Gourville, like adding dents to the bottom of bottles or touting claims of "lower calories." CNET 

Looking again today, I still found no evidence that shrinkflation is illegal. It appears that this method of deceit is covered under buyer beware excuses. Even yesterday, I found evidence of this practice when shopping. I suspect that the shortages prevalent during COVID-19 were a huge contributor to this policy, but I have no empirical evidence to back that up.

The following story is just one more example of corporate greed.

Several years ago, I was working with a web development agency producing a new site for the company that employed me. I was listed as the domain contact for this website and my name was associated with all content. 

The vice president had reviewed and changed the About-Us page to include a half-dozen non-profit agency logos that were ‘supported’ by the corporation. I inquired about this. “Do we donate or volunteer at any of these places?” His reply was, “Well, they’re near and dear to our hearts.” 

I pushed further, asking if this was what he truly wanted for our introduction to the company. Specifically, I asked if he thought it a good idea to open with lies. This may have hit a nerve because he offered to send each of them ten dollars out of his pocket. 

Two weeks after I asked him to provide the receipts, I was notified by email that my services were no longer needed. Today, another updated website still indicates support for several nonprofit agencies. History tells me this is not true. But again, I have no concrete evidence supporting my hypothesis.

I keep going back to that core conversation, “It’s just business.”

I wonder how many of us accept that phrase and just move on with no further thought.

More concerning than that, I wonder how many of us accept similar phrases. In every area of our lives, I wonder if we rationalize and accept the world’s view, and then move on without second thoughts. 

When driving a car, working a job, and teaching our kids, perhaps we’ve become immune to the meaning of words and phrases heard so often. Perhaps we’re victims of the repetition becoming the normal. Before we know it, the callouses have covered flesh in hard coatings leaving us unaffected by all forms of injustice and oppression without even noticing. 

• It’s just politics
• It’s just the way things are
• It’s the way of the world
• Kill or be killed
• I'm fighting for survival
• It’s a cat-and-mouse game
• Nobody will ever know
• It's legal
• Everybody lies
• Nobody cares anyway
• Me, first
• They’re evil
• Our corporate priority is . . .
• Everybody does it

No data is available, but I think most of us move quite comfortably within the well-accepted phrases above. I’m certain the list is not exhaustive.

But I believe that most of us reject the true meaning of these proclamations. I decided to look at what the bible says about doing the right thing. There was no single quote that said what I wanted to say or that steered me in the way I wanted to be guided.

No single quote but here are 100 Bible Verses About Doing the Right Thing. 

You may now choose what works for you.