{"id":51,"date":"2009-06-15T21:31:43","date_gmt":"2009-06-15T21:31:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/everydayethics\/2009\/06\/my-credibility-or-my-friend-the-ethics-of-a-recommendation.html"},"modified":"2009-06-15T21:31:43","modified_gmt":"2009-06-15T21:31:43","slug":"my-credibility-or-my-friend-the-ethics-of-a-recommendation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/06\/my-credibility-or-my-friend-the-ethics-of-a-recommendation.html","title":{"rendered":"My Credibility or My Friend? The Ethics of a Recommendation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I wish I could blog about the weather here in New York lately. I must say, I believe continuous rain for two weeks in June to be completely unethical!<\/p>\n<p>However, I&#8217;m distracted from the slow drip by other concerns. I&#8217;m on constant &#8220;lay-off&#8221; watch these days, closely monitoring not only my job situation, but that of my friends and family. It&#8217;s a shaky time in the employment world and I want to help those closest to me about as much as I want to help myself. So what to do when asked to write a job recommendation&#8230;for a friend I don&#8217;t actually recommend? <\/p>\n<p>Personally, my desire to keep everyone happy (including myself) is pretty strong, and I tend not to think that honestly is always the best policy. Still, when friends request a recommendation letter, they&#8217;re asking you to be part of an agreement where your credibility is on the line. It&#8217;s a bit like acting as a co-signer &#8211; and I have to be careful when to sign, right?<\/p>\n<p>The best solution I&#8217;ve come up with thus far is a polite, friendly and easy-to-swallow reason to decline, &#8220;I know so much about you as my friend but so little about you as an employee; I really don&#8217;t think my recommendation would have any value. And I hear that a vague recommendation can work against you!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Am I lying? Should I be more honest? Less honest? I welcome your input &#8212; let me know if you have a (better) clue how to handle such an awkward situation. &nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I wish I could blog about the weather here in New York lately. I must say, I believe continuous rain for two weeks in June to be completely unethical! However, I&#8217;m distracted from the slow drip by other concerns. I&#8217;m on constant &#8220;lay-off&#8221; watch these days, closely monitoring not only my job situation, but that&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":198,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,4,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-by-padmini-mangunta","category-personal-ethics","category-work-ethics"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>My Credibility or My Friend? The Ethics of a Recommendation - Everyday Ethics<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/06\/my-credibility-or-my-friend-the-ethics-of-a-recommendation.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"My Credibility or My Friend? The Ethics of a Recommendation - Everyday Ethics\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I wish I could blog about the weather here in New York lately. I must say, I believe continuous rain for two weeks in June to be completely unethical! However, I&#8217;m distracted from the slow drip by other concerns. I&#8217;m on constant &#8220;lay-off&#8221; watch these days, closely monitoring not only my job situation, but that&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/06\/my-credibility-or-my-friend-the-ethics-of-a-recommendation.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Everyday Ethics\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-06-15T21:31:43+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Padmini Mangunta\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"My Credibility or My Friend? The Ethics of a Recommendation - Everyday Ethics","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/06\/my-credibility-or-my-friend-the-ethics-of-a-recommendation.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"My Credibility or My Friend? The Ethics of a Recommendation - Everyday Ethics","og_description":"I wish I could blog about the weather here in New York lately. I must say, I believe continuous rain for two weeks in June to be completely unethical! However, I&#8217;m distracted from the slow drip by other concerns. 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The Ethics of a Recommendation"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/","name":"Everyday Ethics","description":"Moral Ethics Blog","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/#\/schema\/person\/f3ed03a01300bae11302f037d0eb91f1","name":"Padmini Mangunta","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/5a4\/5a49e4a981c7ab22c6c140c90fe5d812x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/5a4\/5a49e4a981c7ab22c6c140c90fe5d812x96.jpg","caption":"Padmini Mangunta"},"description":"Padmini Mangunta is a writer and editor with a Journalism degree from the University of Missouri-Columbia. In addition to writing for a various print and online publications, such as Parenting Magazine and iVillage, she was the Website Manager for the Henry Street Settlement, a social services and arts organization serving Manhattan's Lower East Side. Most recently, she worked on the Thai-Myanmar border as a writer for the Burma Human Rights Yearbook. Her curiosity about human nature, coupled with duel streaks of idealism and Midwestern pragmatism, developed into an ongoing discussion with friends, family and strangers on ethical quandaries. When she's not asking \"Why?\" you might have trouble finding her, as her hobbies include nosing around used bookstores, exploring the world (near and far), meeting new people and occasionally twiddling her thumbs while daydreaming.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/author\/pmangunta"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/198"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}