We have another anonymous question today—and let's just say that's not the only piece of information missing from this devious Expert Q&A submission:

It used to be, when I had to do an Infernal Form at work, I would read the directions super closely and try to get it absolutely perfect (I am going to get a good grade in Form, something which is both normal to want and possible to achieve). Then I realized that, in the approval chain, there are many and diverse Form Fetishists who take rapturous pleasure in finding at least one thing wrong with every form I turn in. So now, I just half-ass the form on the first go and let the compliance obsessives do the work of telling me what I did wrong.

I'm doing a good thing here, right? The bureaucrats want to do their red-pen bit, and I want to get on with my life. I'm making everyone happy, a win-win. But like, I also worry I'm setting up a sort of tolerance cycle with these nerds, where eventually they will get used to the number of correction opportunities I supply, and start to require increasingly numerous and inventive clerical errors in order to get their fix.

In a situation like this, is it ethical for me to continue to "feed the beast" and enable potentially unhealthy behavior? Or should I be trying to do something proactive to help the bureaucrats work through their problems?

Dear anonymous, your query hints at a frequent ethical tension between caring for oneself and caring for another. Most ethicists throughout history agree that it's a good thing to do a good thing for others—but it could be less of a good thing if that thing involves hurting yourself.

We like to treat both sides of the issue here at the Hades Ethics Consultancy, this isn't a law firm after all! And it's true, as you say, that reinforcing compulsive behavior can be a slippery slope. But in your situation we think we can cut a clear answer: Your need to get on with your day outweighs the risk of sustaining the bureaucrats in their unsustainable behavior.

Our advice is to put a reasonable amount of effort into Infernal Forms going forward. Don't go out of your way to make mistakes—as you say, you'll run out of creative runway pretty quick—but don't try to hard to correct them either. That'll keep you and the entire operation greased and running smoothly.

Hey you, HEC reader: Are you facing an "ethics moment" of your own? Would you like to face it side-by-side with a classic ethics team on your side? Seek advice from the Hades Ethics Consultancy at hades@acaciavalleyhoa.org and we'll see what we can resolve, together.