Friday, August 24, 2012

Is that cab ride a bribe?

We all take it for granted that no one accepts or offers bribes. Yet when it comes to business, where do you draw the line?

Is a lunch meeting or drinks after work a bribe? How about a ride to/from the airport? Money is easy to figure out, everything else is murky. It shouldn't be, but it is in most cases.

We all do it, we ask our boss to have lunch with us, or meet a client after hours at a bar or restaurant, or at a baseball game and few think about it.

In the medical field, drug company sales people take doctors out all the time in an effort to get their product in their hands and prescribed. Does it work? You be the judge, ask your doctor friends how often they get asked taken out by their reps? I guarantee it is more than the IT sales people I know.

I hear from people all the time on the sales rep sides, "we can't spend over (or under in some case) $XXX" on "gifts" be they material, meals or whatever.One could kit out an entire office with the stuff these reps drop off as gifts.

Probably the hardest thing to do, but once again the Torah 3,000 years ago knew what we would face today and probably every day. Doesn't make it any easier, but if you take it to heart, good for you.
16:19 and you shall not take a bribe, for bribery blinds the eyes of the wise and perverts just words.
Yes it does. Like to think we can not be so easily turned but it is human nature.

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Parsha Shoftim in the book of Devarim, Deuteronomy 16:18-21:9 It is said that the Torah or Bible
could be interpreted in over 70 ways. More likely these days 100's of ways. In light of this idea, I am writing some posts that bring a business sense to what we can learn on a weekly basis. Enjoy, Shabbat Shalom

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