The squishy grey line of ethics

I recently had an opportunity materialize almost out of nowhere that would allow me to continue to grow Arment Dietrich and follow a serious personal passion by intertwining the two.

I went through the whole process and we agreed to terms and negotiated a bunch of really hard stuff. It pushed me way outside of my comfort zone, but I learned a ton.

As we got into the contract, there were some things they wanted me to do that felt very unethical. They weren’t things that were downright lies, but they felt squishy. They sat on the grey line of ethics. When I questioned the things that bothered me, they said, “That’s just the way it’s done in this industry. Don’t worry about it.”

I finally said, “I have to worry about it. I can’t very well have written a book and manage a blog called Spin Sucks, and have built a reputation on my ethics and let these things slide.”

In the end, as painful as it was, I had to walk away from the opportunity.