Tough Customers

There is a unique twist to the ethics of tough customers (TC) when they deal with tough businessmen. There is a cultural connection between the two. The rules of engagement are fairly well known. A very real example of this was a person who was working on a car that needed the cylinder head replaced. It cost about two-hundred dollars at a wrecking yard. The customer paid for the cylinder head with a check that bounced. The wrecking yard owner, not to be outdone, sent a crew over to retrieve the cylinder head. They opened the hood of the car and unscrewed all the bolts holding the cylinder head and took it with them. You would think the owner would call the police, but one knows in this cultural context that when dealing with tough people, violations of the law can escalate exponentially if one wants to fight back.

When an ordinary person attempts to get tough with a tough businessman, things can backfire. Ethics goes out the window leaving "might is right" as the decider of events. TC's evolve in society because there are so many business people that are intimidated by them. Chiseling concessions out of of business people works for a while but sooner or later the TC collides with a tough business person, or TB, who can deal with them in a most unethical way. Theoretical ethics at this point gets a little dicey. Is one to have much sympathy for the TC that they have been unethically treated? Another example might be the gambler who goes to a Las Vegas casino and writes a check for $20,000. The check bounces. When the Casino tries to collect the TC hires a lawyer. Little does the lawyer know that casino's take their debts seriously? First, are heated conversations between the lawyers. After a while it becomes obvious to the casino that there is not going to be a reasonable settlement. The lawyer begins to be physically harassed to the point he is forced to stop representing the client. What has happened is that the lawyer has come between a TC and a TB whose cultural code is "might is right."

Getting involved with people who have criminal connections is not the best choice sometimes. This is called wisdom.

• Extraction