[Avodah] Ethical (Halachic?) question

SBA sba at sba2.com
Tue Oct 24 18:32:46 PDT 2006


What would you do?

I have a friend who has a small business - let's say, producing
quality chocolates.

Although he mainly supplies stores and wholesalers, he also will 
(happily) sell privately to anyone who drops in.

Being a small operation, he is often out doing other things, leaving the
private selling to an (obviously) trusted non-Jewish factory worker.
I have found that often she the only person there.

She seems to be a nice lady, and me being a friendly chap
we get along fine. Whenever I buy from her, she allows me a small 
discount (which, I presume, her boss would  as well).

But lately she has also dropped in a few free samples of their wares.
These samples may be worth $2-3. This - after I have spent a
nett $45/50 with her.

My questions:

1) Should/Must I report this back to her boss?

     It is, after all, very possible that this is done with his approval, 
(and, in any case, seeing that he leaves the whole place under her 
management, should she indeed be a crook, my $3 free chocs would 
be the smallest of his problems).

2) But if he does not know and/or approve of her generosity, and
because of my reporting this back to him, he gives her a rap over 
the knuckles (or even worse, fires her), am I being a kafui tovah to her?

3) If so, is there a shaaloh of Chillul Hashem?

4) And even if she is doing this with his approval, the fact that the boss
may casually mention to her that someone 'dobbed her in', would
that make it any lighter?

5) OTOH, is there a chashash gezeileh by my accepting her gift?

6) And if I refuse to accept it next time, it could be quite unpleasant -
    and possibly have the problems of 2) and 3).

(I suppose I could speak to the boss and discretely mention all this to
him. But I have no guarantee that he will not pass it on to her 
(especially  if I am being given exclusive preferential treatment),
which will allow her to work out that it was I would was 'holech rochil'.

SBA

(PS 7) Should I send this in to the NY Times 'Ethicist'...? )




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