[Mike]
Yes, and we're back with another episode of the Website 101 podcast. This is the podcast for people who want to learn more about building and managing websites. I'm Mike Mello, one of your co-hosts, and the other two co-hosts are here as well.

Sean Smith, Amanda Lutz. How are you both? Pretty good.

Pretty good. Good. Today, we're going to, it's just the three of us, and we're going to talk about something we have alluded to in previous episodes, namely season seven, episode one, when we had an episode called When to Say No, we touched on this topic, and that is ethics in web development.

Ethical issues that sometimes come up as a web developer or as a client who works with web developers. So we're going to talk about all that kind of stuff, things you have to look out for when you would say no for an ethical reason, all that kind of stuff like that, right?

[Sean]
Absolutely.

[Mike]
So, Sean, you, of course, started this podcast without us, initially. You did the first, and I think the second season without me and Amanda entirely, right? Am I recalling correctly?

[Sean]
First season and a half, around halfway through season two, you did a guest episode, and then following that, I said, hey, Mike, I need you on, and you said yes.

[Mike]
I did a guest episode, and then I wouldn't leave after that.

[Sean]
Pretty much. And then we went a couple more years, and we invited Amanda in, and very happy that we had all three of us. Yes.

Go on. Yep.

[Mike]
That's right. Okay, so what were you thinking when you started the podcast in terms of guests? Like, did you have any ethical things that you considered when you started thinking, who am I going to have on this show?

[Sean]
Well, it wasn't really a deep concern about ethics, about right and wrong, but it was more about inclusion. And my goal was to get as many people of color and women on as possible. In my own personal network, I don't know that many.

I mostly hang out with middle-aged white guys. It is what it is. So, I mean, I really pushed hard to get people outside of my network, and I think that I was successful.

That first season, there was a few women, I had a few non-white people. And it's really, in my opinion, very important to get another perspective and also to provide role models for people who don't look like me. And so I'm happy to do that.

[Mike]
Yeah, it is good when you look at the guest list on the podcast website, there's a lot of diversity in there, which is really nice, I think.

[Sean]
Yeah, you can go to website 101podcast.com slash guests, and you can see everybody who's been on.

[Amanda]
Well, I mean, I have to applaud you, Sean, the fact that you put forth the thought even and the effort to try to get that kind of diversity, because just in technology in general, as somebody who is in sort of the minority of it, it is all dudes all the time.

[Sean]
Yeah.

[Amanda]
And I mean, yes, things have changed in the years, but especially at the beginning, when I was starting, I think in my graduating class from university, I was one of three women. Wow. By the end of it.

So yeah, tech has always been very male dominated. Definitely. So yes, it's a bit different in the design world, and it's a bit different, like maybe in content.

And so I'm sure a lot of the guests that you were aiming weren't all technical, but were sort of those peripheral industries. But like I said, good for you for even putting forth the effort.

[Sean]
Well, thank you.

[Mike]
Okay, so let's jump into some things that you might want to consider when, you know, when you're thinking, am I going to work with this person? I have a couple of stories that I can mention along these lines. I've talked about this one before.

Someone once reached out to me, asked me if I could help him build a website. We went back and forth a bit. I started Googling the guy.

And I later learned that he runs a conversion therapy practice where he tries to turn gay people straight. And it was really gross. And that wasn't the site he wanted to build, but he had a site like that.

And I immediately was like, nope, I don't know. I'm not interested. And I turned it down.

Good on you. So like, in a situation like that, would you two think that mentioning the reason is important or unnecessary? Like in that case, would you have said, listen, I found out that you are into this conversion therapy thing.

I don't support that. I have no interest in working. Or would you just go, no, thanks.

And just leave it at that. Do you think it's important to bring up the reason why you object?

[Amanda]
I think it depends on the reason you're objecting and how strongly you feel about that. For example, and I have never been in this situation, but I would think in that specific instance, I wouldn't tell the guy just because he has these views. I'm not going to change his mind.

If somebody wanted me to, and I think even more so, it was like if somebody wanted me to work on a site that promoted these views, I think if it were something like crazy extreme, I would, there's always like the throwaway comment that, you know, I don't work with Nazis. So obviously I'm not going to, you know, that is going to be a no. But I think it would have to be like a pretty big, completely on the opposite of my viewpoint for me to get into it.

Mostly, I believe that people are going to believe and feel what they're going to believe and feel, and I'm not going to change their mind. So really, it's just a hard pass and no thanks for me and good luck with your search.

[Sean]
I'm on board with exactly what Amanda said. It's, I don't see the value in getting confrontational with them. They wanted to do business with you.

You decided not to. It could be any number of reasons. You don't need to go in about it as I don't like your personal life.

I can't work with you. I don't know. There's a potential backlash.

Like you could just decide to start saying crap about you all over online and ruining your reputation.

[Mike]
Yeah. I kind of feel like for me, if the project is something that I object to, like for in this, in that case, if I were being asked to make whatever a Nazi site, I might say, look, I don't support these views. But if I, if I learned that this person, Nazi is a bad example, but it is, it's so extreme.

Yeah. If it wasn't that extreme and I just learned this person is this particular way, then I don't necessarily agree with, I might just say no in that case. But if, if they want me to be part of that sort of thing that they're doing, then I might go, look, I don't support that.

So no, I'm not.

[Sean]
No, I'm uncomfortable working on something in this particular industry or whatever it is.

[Mike]
Yeah.

[Amanda]
I think, I think also if you just found out that they had their fingers in whatever it is that you don't like, it's kind of the same as finding out that they've got like a bad sense of humor or they make horrible dad jokes that you don't want to listen to all the time. You mean you may not take the project because of those reasons, but you're not going to like insult someone's personality just because you don't want to work with them.

[Sean]
So now I know why Amanda doesn't like me that much. It's all my bad dad jokes.

[Mike]
That's why I don't like you that much.

[Amanda]
I like you, there you go. I like you despite your, your bad dad jokes. How about that?

There's other reasons that I don't like you, but it's not that.

[Sean]
All right. Good enough.

[Mike]
Good enough. Okay. Um, let's talk about porn.

Not literally. I just mean, obviously that's a big, sorry. Yeah.

Sorry to disappoint. Uh, it's a big industry, certainly in the web. If you were asked to work on a porn site and work on it in the sense that, you know, the help with the code, not the content, but the technology.

There you go. Yeah. Uh, yes.

Would, I'm not asking like, would you do that? But I mean, yeah, that's a fair question.

[Amanda]
Like, oh, I'm going to, I'm going to stop you. I'm going to stop you right there.

[Mike]
Do it.

[Amanda]
I would back in the day. Um, and I think we've talked about this before, uh, maybe offline, but back in the day before everyone and their dog had an online store and all of these like payment gateways were available and they would just like take a percentage of, of whatever it is that you sold. It was porn and it was online gambling that was driving the security industry because they were the ones that were taking the money.

They were the ones with the credit card numbers online. They were the ones that they were the forerunners. And so if you were interested in, in that type of technology or just anything, um, I actually, I went to a couple of job interviews, uh, for a porn site and again, not content, but, but writing the code.

And I, I mean, so far as I'm concerned, it's, it's just content. It could be porn. It could be cute puppies.

It could be sure. Shakira boards. I don't care.

I am more interested in the code and the functionality. Right.

[Sean]
Um, fun, fun fact. Porn has advanced technology since the creation of porn.

[Amanda]
Like just, just, I think porn has been around for longer than the internet.

[Sean]
Yeah. I, I said that anytime a new technology comes around, porn's at the forefront of getting the views as it were. That's probably true.

Um, yeah. So I'm not so sure that I would do it, uh, kind of mixed on it. I would probably end up saying no, because I imagine that a porn website has much higher tech skills required than where I currently stand.

I just wouldn't be comfortable. I don't feel like I would be the right guy for the job, just at a skill level.

[Amanda]
Okay. But what if they just wanted front end stuff? Like, like put it in your, in your skill level.

I'm, I'm actually curious about, like, let's, let's where, where's everybody's line in the sand?

[Mike]
Yeah, I guess I would consider it. It's probably the kind of thing, and we'll talk about this a bit later. I would do it maybe, but I would not add it to my portfolio.

I would not have a case study about this.

[Sean]
I would definitely not make it publicly available if I was doing that.

[Mike]
There, there was a, a logo company, uh, like a company that just, it was a graphic design company that just made logos. I think so anyway. And I used to go to their site sometimes just to get like inspiration for stuff because their logos were really amazing.

They just had this big gallery of all these logos they designed for companies. And a lot of them were adult sites and they had weird little innuendo with images of, you know, not, not really explicit stuff, but very clearly that's an adult site, you know, and they didn't mind putting it in their portfolio. So, you know, some people think like that.

[Amanda]
I think that if you did work, if you did like the functionality, worked on a project, whatever it was, and you had very clear positive metrics, and if you wanted to promote that information, I think that the numbers are super more important than, than the name of the company.

[Sean]
All right.

[Mike]
Yeah, that's fair.

[Sean]
Yeah. I guess to go back to Amanda's question, if it was like front end predominantly and I wasn't dealing with security or server optimization, I was just doing like Tailwind or CSS, Money Talks. Yeah, I would do it.

But like Mike, I also wouldn't share that I was doing it.

[Mike]
Yeah. Well, so speaking of sharing things on your portfolio, I recently, again, with looking at inspirational sites for design ideas and that, I came across this company's site that's really incredible and they have great portfolio, great ideas, and I noticed that a lot of their sites were for like missionary organizations, like where they send people to, you know, the global South to promote Christianity, whatever, which is not, you know, that's not awful, whatever. But I personally, it kind of turns me off a little bit. So there's an example where they put something in their portfolio, which to me, I'm like, eh, I don't, I'm not sure I feel good that they're doing a whole bunch of these sites.

Uh, so I wonder if there are clients who think like that, when they see something in your portfolio would be like, nah, I don't, I don't want to work with someone who, and it doesn't even have to be anything that explicit. It could just be, you've done a lot of progressive websites and the client is more of a conservative person, you know, or vice versa, you know, so it's worth thinking about that stuff for portfolio items as well.

[Sean]
I am sure that there are people who will not decide not to work with somebody who has public, publicly opposite political views or moral views or something. It's definitely going to happen. So if you're out there and you're, you know, super conservative, and then you find some, you're this killer, killer web developer you want to work with, but it turns out like he's, he's all woke left or whatever, maybe probably going to not work with him, right.

Or the opposite can happen. Like you, you could be completely like far left and then you find this web developers has got great work and you're like, Oh, he's conservative. He supports X, Y, Z party in my country.

I'm not, I'm not working with him. I don't see, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. You're sticking with your personal values.

Why not? I mean, I, I'm disappointed to lose work if I'm the, I'm the loser on that end,

[Amanda]
but Hey, yeah, well, but I think the same way that, and I don't want to get into politics, but the same way that there are certain issues coming up in the world right now, and I know that there are a lot of people who are not like protesting, but they are choosing where they spend their money a little more carefully than maybe they had before. And I think that everyone is entitled to do that, whether it be, uh, working with a professional service, like a web developer or just going to the grocery store.

So, yeah, I agree.

[Sean]
Yeah, absolutely. 100%.

[Mike]
Yeah. And it's kind of interesting to think of how far you'd take your principles in these cases, right? Like when we say, Oh, some Nazi came up to me and wanted me to make a Nazi site.

I'd say no, but like, like where is the line? Yeah. For example, I am not a big fan of, of Meta, the company behind Facebook.

And if someone said, Hey, I want to a link to my Facebook page up there on the header or whatever, a little icon, they click imagine saying, Oh no, no, I'm not going to promote Facebook. I don't support Facebook. So I'm out of here.

Like that would be pretty ridiculous. So that's a line where even if you're not into it, you might be like, Oh, well, I'm going to. You might do it anyway.

Yeah.

[Amanda]
Uh, there was probably, oh my goodness, probably 10 to 15 years ago where all a bunch of companies were adding, uh, like they would make a Facebook page and within the page you could have like games and apps, I think they called them apps. And it was basically just like a tab that was on the Facebook page that would, uh, load an iframe and then you would just have like whatever it is, load from whatever server you linked it to. Uh, and I could, maybe if somebody was like super against Facebook and Meta and everything else, maybe they would choose to not get into the Facebook developer suite at all.

[Mike]
Yeah. Uh, so, okay. So Sean, you, uh, have asked, well, we've all asked our network, uh, about these issues and what examples do you have from your, uh, your business and your work, uh, along these lines.

And Sean, you have asked in a discord server that we frequent, do you want to talk about that a little bit and what kind of feedback you got there?

[Sean]
Yeah, yeah, sure. So, uh, shout out to the craft CMS discord. Uh, it's very active, good community there.

So the first one came from James Smith, no relationship to me. Uh, he's just another Smith in the world. There's so many of us.

Uh, and James said, it's perhaps tangential, but I've often found myself dwelling on the ethics of a value-based pricing model. And I'll go into what that is after I finish. I mean, of course, it's great for anyone who provides a service to be able to break the link between time spent and money earned, but at what stage does it become unethical?

There are interesting arguments on both sides of that, I think. So, uh, just to step back a second for people who are not familiar with what value-based pricing is, it's not charging by the hour. It's taking a look at the end result and determining what your client feels it's worth and charging them what it's worth.

So if you're doing it hourly and you're charging a hundred dollars an hour, maybe it takes you two days, that's $800. But in that two days, if the value to your client is $10,000, you charge $10,000. So I, what I see with James's question is at what point is too much, is value-based pricing, like just raking your client over the coals for the dollar?

[Mike]
Yeah. Yeah. So like if you have, if a client says, Hey, we want this new microsite for our new, uh, for our upcoming AGM meeting, that's in two weeks and it has to be launched by then, can you start right now?

You might say, okay, well, normally I'd charge whatever, let's say 10 grand for this, but because there, I have them over a barrel because they have no one else. And it has to be in two weeks, maybe I'll double the price. So, you know, those are the kinds of things that sometimes come into people's head when they are in that situation.

And how ethical is that to think of that? Right. That's what James is saying.

[Sean]
The other thing could be that, like, you know, we all use a boilerplate when we're building a site. How many hours of work did I save in my boilerplate? So every time I start a new site, I should charge like $8,000 for the hours I put into it.

I just picked a number out of the air and then charge them for the work I'm going to further put into it. That's, that's kind of weird. Right.

So, but there's got to be some value that I've put into the saving that gets passed on.

[Mike]
Right.

[Sean]
Right.

[Amanda]
Well, you're not going to necessarily charge them $8,000 for the starting point, even if it did take you that long cumulatively, but you shouldn't start at zero.

[Sean]
Oh, a hundred percent. And that's for, where do we draw the line? And I'm not sure what that is.

I think that's a per project, per developer decision.

[Amanda]
Yeah. I don't, I don't think you should draw the line. I think that you should, girls, girls get that cash.

I think that, you know, if your client is willing to pay for it, if you're giving them value, you are sharing your expertise with them. The whole point of capitalism is to, is to charge.

[Mike]
Yeah, that's true. Cause if people are free to just say no, you know, they don't have a gun to their head. So that would be unethical.

[Sean]
So the, the third response on discord was from Ryan Ireland, uh, creator of craft quest. He said in response to James's comment, value-based pricing breaks down at a point because the market won't bear those prices. However, the theme of charging for your experience and ability to do work well and efficiently is still important.

And I think this is exactly in line with what Amanda was saying. You do need to charge for it. It's just a matter of finding that balance or what is the right point that the value is worth it to both you and your client.

[Amanda]
And especially as independent developers, as any independent contractor, you it's a delicate, delicate balancing act. When you're first starting out, how much do you charge when you've got five years experience versus 10? What do you charge?

How often do you increase your rate? And it is like oftentimes just a crap shoot, I guess in the dark, um, that, you know, clients are, will either play it, pay it, or they won't.

[Mike]
Mm hmm. Yes.

[Sean]
Yep.

[Mike]
Um, so there's another, uh, response that we got here from the discord channel. Uh, and it's from, I believe it's Moritz lost. I'm going to say his name that way.

[Sean]
Um, well it's his username, at least. I don't know about it. It's his real name.

[Mike]
So what he said is, uh, it's a really interesting point. I agree with this wholeheartedly. And that is, he, he says definitely, uh, who you work for and who you don't, I think a blacklist of industries that you don't want to work for is too myopic.

Uh, there's a huge number of companies that work in ethically neutral industries, but are themselves definitely not value neutral. And so, you know, he goes on about, you know, fossil fuel industries and, uh, maybe someone doesn't support, uh, various climate initiatives or whatever, but they're not necessarily, you know, like I think he's trying to say, judge every client or every potential project on that own, that, that specific project. Don't just say, you know, I don't work with anyone in the whatever industry.

[Sean]
No need for a broad sweeping brush of like everybody in XYZ industry is terrible. I will never work with them. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah.

[Amanda]
I find that I'm having the same problem in my real life. Um, there are so many companies that you are supposed to boycott and there are so many, uh, sub companies that are owned under the big evil umbrella corporation that it's like, you think that you're trying to do good by supporting one company over the other, again, with your money only to find out later that they, you know, paid into a political campaign that you don't agree with. Or they, um, you know, use the wrong kinds of chemicals in their, in their packing materials, or they, there's just, there's so many things that, um, I can't keep track and as is my default, when I get overwhelmed, I'm just head in the sand and sort of just ignore the issue and just continue on with my life.

[Mike]
I mean, if you do work with someone that you have an ethical issue with, you're always free to take the money you made and put it toward a cause that is the opposite of the ethical issue that, you know what I mean? You could do that.

[Amanda]
That's a nice idea, but if you're working on a project to make money, I think that the project that that money is going to go to is Amanda's mortgage. I don't have the time or the energy to be able to be a good person and redirect somebody's ill-gotten funds.

[Sean]
There's a big call in Ontario right now to take some money that the government's dispersing out to every household and donate it to the political, the opposite political party, because there's a lot of people who are against, you guys know who I'm talking about, but I don't want to pick sides right now. So there's a lot of call right now to take this $200 check and donate it. And I was like, yeah, that's fine and dandy, but that's $200.

I'm going to use it for me, but it's still not going to influence who I vote for.
[Mike]
Yeah.

[Amanda]
Yeah. Yeah. I think that's the big thing.

It's definitely not going to influence who I vote for. But yeah, I, you know what? I would like that money so I could take my podcast friends out for a beverage or something like that.

I will hold you to that.
[Mike]
Yes.

[Amanda]
Don't hold me to that. That may not happen, but it was just an example.
[Mike]
I think it's clearly the ethical thing to do is for you to buy us a few drinks.

[Amanda]
But only if we go to a bar that doesn't still use plastic straws, you know, or it's just the whole thing just ends up being too much, you know?

[Sean]
Yeah.
[Mike]
Yeah. I know, right? Okay.

So let's talk a little bit about taking on certain projects because they support something that you do support instead of like, I don't do this because I'm against that. What do we have to say about, oh, this company does this, and therefore I do want to work with them. Any examples of things like that?

[Sean]
Not me personally, but if it happened, I'd be happy to do it. I just can't think of anything that I want to work with somebody right now. No, I think for me, I'd be like, yeah, I'm interested in working with you.

And then I find out that it's one of the things that I value then that would make me want to work with them more. Sure. But there's not a specific industry or a support for a specific cause that I'm looking for clients in that area.

I will be more happy to work with somebody who is in an industry that I want to support, but I'm not looking actively for that kind of thing. Yeah.
[Mike]
I mean, I can see people if they're into, you know, animal welfare or something like that, they might approach some organization in that sense. But then you get into the whole, like are you volunteering to, you know what I mean? That kind of stuff where it's like, if you're so interested in our industry, you know, how interested are you?

[Amanda]
Well, I have volunteered my technical skills and services to a couple of groups at my kid's school to like, or answer technical questions about social media. Or like I one time did a talk at my kid's classroom about, you know, what developers do and how programming works. And so, I mean, I'm very happy to spend my personal time because it was all volunteer basis about that kind of thing, because hey, guess what?

I like my kid and I want to make his world, you know, better for him. So yeah, that might surprise some people to hear me say that with how much I complain about him, but I do like my kid.
[Mike]
You're just a parent, that's all. That means you're a parent. Isn't that the default for parents?

[Amanda]
Not all of them. Complaining, but still liking? Very possibly.

Oh yeah, not all of them. I've met some that are, anyway. So, but yeah, I guess that's the thing.

Like, and I forget who even brought it up, but it's like, at what point do you say that you are so interested in a specific company or a specific industry that you would be willing to reduce your rate even?
[Mike]
Yeah.

[Amanda]
Maybe take on a project for free, but at the very, you know, reduce your rate so that, you know, you are the more optimum candidate for the project or just, you know, to show your support. Yeah, I could see that.

[Sean]
Yeah, I could see myself giving a discount for a project. I'm not sure that I would be able to do it for free because then it's going to take up all of my time. As a one man shop, I don't have disposable hours.

If I'm not working, I'm not paying my mortgage.
[Mike]
Right, right. Yeah. So Sean, you have written down here in our notes, green hosting and green washing.

You want to talk about that, what exactly that is and how it might affect these kinds of decisions?

[Sean]
Well, I'm not 100% clear about it. Green hosting, I believe, is trying to be carbon neutral. So they offset their electricity by planting trees somewhere or something similar like that.

I think it's a good idea, but I don't know how really effective it is. And then green washing is kind of just something I put out there based on what I read once. It's like people or companies saying green things, but not actually doing green things to look good.

So I'm a bit of a cynic. So anytime I see something like green hosting, and yes, I'm picking on the hosting industry right now, but it could be green anything. I'm a little cynical.

I don't really believe that what they say is what they're doing.
[Mike]
I do often see the symbol green hosting on various hosts. I think it's, I don't know, if they do what you just said, that they plant trees or something to offset their server costs, that's great. But I haven't dug deep into any of it.

So I have no idea how true any of it is. So it might be green washing instead of green hosting. I don't know.

So it'd be nice to see if anyone's done a deep dive on that and like, Hey, these companies are actually doing the work in case someone's interested. You know what I mean?

[Sean]
And if any listeners know more about this, please let us know. Respond in comments on social media or send us an email from our contact page.
[Mike]
Website101podcast.com.

[Amanda]
So a couple of semesters ago at Seneca, we were talking about cryptocurrencies and the blockchain and things like that. And somebody found an example of a company that whatever it was that this company did, they had a lot of heat that was generated as a by-product. And so instead of just letting this heat be dissipated into the environment, they actually figured out a way to take the heat or the steam or whatever it was, build a generator so that the heat or the steam could actually be used to create energy.

And then they use that energy to run the computers to do crypto mining.
[Mike]
Okay.

[Amanda]
So not only was this company doing whatever it was that they were normally doing to make their profits, but they also figured out a way to offset whatever negative by-product was being created and turn it into a positive that again, made even more money for the company. That's really interesting.

[Sean]
And I thought it was brilliant. That sounds a lot like the way braking works on EVs, that when you brake, it somehow puts a little bit of a charge back into the car. I don't have an EV, so I can't speak to that personally.

I want one. Too expensive.

[Amanda]
I do. And that is how it works. It might be something to do with the friction.

It might be something to do with... Andrew would know. I don't know exactly what it is.

But there's actually an indicator on the display where it will show black if you're using energy. And then when you brake or something, the regenerative charging, it'll show green when it's like a little bit of a charge is being put back in.
[Mike]
That's pretty cool. So I wrote down a note here. I think we've gone over it already.

For clients, when would a client refuse to work with a developer? So the other side, sometimes we have actual website managers listening to this show. And when would be an appropriate time for them to not work with a developer?

I think we've gone over a lot of that. I would think a lot of it comes from the portfolio items that that developer has. Although we've also just said if we worked on a porn site, we wouldn't put it in our portfolio.

So maybe that's not a good way to judge anything. But can you think of any other reason why a client might second guess, like maybe I should think twice about this particular dev?

[Amanda]
Just an awful example that I just thought of off the top of my head. And I don't know if it's ever happened. But if as part of your portfolio, you also have like all of your side hustles, the same way that I list Seneca, the same way that I list the podcast.

If somebody is super into multi-level marketing, and if they have half of their online presence is about the side hustle that they've got going, I could see it definitely negatively affecting people wanting to hire them for jobs. Just because it just again, because maybe you just don't want that personality type around you.

[Sean]
Yeah, I have huge issues with MLMs. Anybody who's into one, I direct them to the podcast, The Dream. The title, The Dream, should be enough to tell you what it's all about.
[Mike]
Yeah, there's probably various things that someone could do outside of their business, like just on social media, that might make someone go, I don't know if I want to work with this person, the way they talk.

[Sean]
That's what I was gonna say before I interrupted Amanda earlier, is that if somebody is on their socials, and they're saying stuff that's offensive to me, or you know, whatever, yeah, I'm not gonna want to work with them. Because why would I want to work with somebody who's like trashed in public? What are they going to be like in private?

[Amanda]
It's a huge red flag. Not even just socials. We've all seen stories online of somebody who was caught recorded saying racial comments or doing something very dodgy, and it gets out.

And the people on the internet find out their name and their address and email their employers, and people have gotten fired over inappropriate behavior in the real world. Now, whether or not you agree with that, because, you know, is their personal opinion on immigration, is that really affecting their data entry job skills? I'm not saying it's the right or wrong thing to do, but that's that's been happening a lot lately.

[Sean]
Yeah, it's definitely something to think about, even as an individual, before you do anything in public, just think about the repercussions. And yeah, you know, in the moment, maybe you lose it. You had a bad day, and you lose it, and somebody records you.

That's gonna suck, because you didn't think about it, and you probably were unable to think about it. That's one of the ones I think is kind of gray, and it's like, I don't know if it's so fair. But if you're out there regularly posting on your socials racial slurs or whatever, yeah, you probably deserve it.

Yeah, I'm being judgy. Oh, well.
[Mike]
That's why we like you, Sean, the judgy. Okay, so can we talk a little bit about how to deal with these? This is going to spin more back to the developer angle, but like, what are things people should consider that might make them think twice about turning a project down, if you know what I mean?

[Sean]
Can I go first here? Yeah.
[Mike]
Yes, please do.

[Sean]
So years ago, I was a little bit underemployed in my self-employment business. And I got the opportunity to work with somebody, and she was really nice, great woman, but her industry was kind of a self-help woo-woo. And it rubbed me the wrong way, but I needed the money.
[Mike]
Healing crystals.

[Sean]
Not like that. In any case, you know what I'm talking about. I don't want to say specifically what, because I don't want to call them out on it.

I no longer work with them. She ended up getting a new website by somebody else later, which is fine. But you can have a gray area or a range of like, I want to do it, I don't want to do it.

If I had been really busy, and this woman had come to me, I probably would have said, sorry, I don't have the bandwidth for you just because I don't want to work in that industry. But she came to me when I needed the work. And it wasn't something that was like diametrically opposed, like I can never do that.

If it was an MLM, I still would have said no. That's one of the things I really, really, really against is MLMs. So I don't think everything is black and white here. There are shades of gray for each individual person.

And maybe for you, woo-woo is like, hey, I like woo-woo. Okay, great. You go and do it.

It's not for me though. Except that it was because it wasn't so, so bad that I needed the money.
[Mike]
Yeah. Yeah. I had a similar situation like that, where I worked with, I mentioned this before on the show, I worked with an alternative medicine organization.

And I mean, I probably wouldn't do that today if they had asked me, this was years ago. But they, they paid me a lot of money and I was in the money, you know, tip the scale to make me think, okay, maybe I will do this. And it hadn't, it wasn't that, you know, explicit, you know, revulsion, like you said, it was just like me saying, I'm not really into this, this type of stuff, but I guess I would consider it for the right price.

And that's kind of what I did. So sometimes that happens. Yeah, for sure.

How about your work schedule? That's another, right? Maybe you're, you know, you have a space in your schedule you need to fill.

What about that? You might fit someone in. I wouldn't necessarily work with this client normally, but they fit right in where I need someone.

I think I just addressed that. Yeah.

[Amanda]
I think that in my case, it's usually more of a, I don't know that, well, maybe it could be considered ethical. I have said no to projects just because I knew that my schedule was tight and they had a very short timeline and like it even happened just a couple months ago. And it was somebody that I thought would be really cool to work with.

I was really into what they were doing and what they were talking about and the type of site that they wanted to make. And even just talking to the person on the phone, I was like, this is a cool person. I'd like to, I'd like to hear more.

I'd sign up to their newsletter. But it's just, I, especially as a first project where I wanted to be able to like dedicate the time and the energy, I knew that it just, it would end up being a frustrating, stressful experience for both of us. And it made me so sad, but I had to say no.
[Mike]
Oh yeah. Okay. Interesting.

[Sean]
I can see that.
[Mike]
So we kind of touched on this earlier, but another reason you might, you know, consider, you know, it might make you think when you're considering working with someone that you wouldn't otherwise is your reputation. You know, like if, whether or not you put it in your portfolio or not there's some, you know, sometimes clients talk to each other or a social media, maybe they'll say, Hey, thanks to Mike Mella for helping us with this website we just did. And maybe I didn't want to put that out, but it's their site.

Public recognition. Yeah. And maybe so anyway, that's never happened and whatever, but you know, your reputation is another reason you might think, well, do I want to do this?

Right. Cause it could affect that eventually. Somehow.

[Amanda]
I think that last one is probably the most difficult to manage over time because something that you may or may not be willing to work on now could be something very different than what you would or would not be willing to work on in five, 10 years.
[Mike]
Right.

[Amanda]
So I think that, I think that it's really hard to, to try to be able to predict the future and see how, see how these projects are going to affect you in the upcoming years.

[Sean]
I a hundred percent agree. Everybody changes over time. Things that you support now, you might not support in the future.

Things you don't support now you might support in the future. Like just, it just changes.

[Amanda]
Like my Tesla.
[Mike]
Do you have a, a bumper sticker that says I bought this before Elon was a dick?

[Amanda]
Not yet. I don't, I don't like bumper stickers, but if I were ever going to get one, it would be that one.
[Mike]
Yeah. I see. I feel bad for when I see those.

I don't feel that bad because they have a Tesla. That's great. But yeah, I'm sure there's a lot of people like you.

[Sean]
Side note, Tesla sales have tanked in the last couple of months worldwide.

[Amanda]
They have, yes. But they, Tesla as a company has also announced that they have a new model three coming out soon. Is it model three or model Y?

They have a new updated designs coming out and think about any hardware. When a new, when a new version is being released, everybody, everybody wants to wait to see what the new one is going to be like. I am a hundred percent not saying that's the only reason I would be shocked if that were even a majority of the reason why their sales have tanked.

[Sean]
But yeah, it's probably a contributing factor and there will still be people who support whatever and buy for that. And there'll be people who are neutral and like, well, I love this car. I don't like him, but I love the car.

So I'm just going to buy it anyways. Some people it's less important than others.

[Amanda]
And yeah, it's, it's, it's hard. Cause I have a couple stocks in the company too. So it's like, Oh, I'm like, I don't know what to do about them now.
[Mike]
Yeah. I think I have some stock things in various, you know, not exactly Tony Stark's weapons manufacturing or anything like that, but things that are along the lines of what we're talking about. So what about, can you think of any tips we have for like ways to decline this work?

You're in a situation where you have an ML, Sean, you have an MLM asking you, look, can you build us our website for our pyramid scheme? It's not a pyramid scheme totally, but you know, you buy all this powder and get a downline and whatever. Can you, can you help us with that?

How do you, what, what can you say politely to decline?

[Sean]
I'm sorry. I'm not comfortable working with this industry. I wish you the best going forward.

And while I did that, and while that's technically not true, I'm not in, into creating conflict for no reason.
[Mike]
Yeah. I think I would, I would agree with that. Amanda, what are your thoughts?

[Amanda]
I wouldn't even, I wouldn't even say the bit about the industry. I like, no is the full, no is a full sentence. So while I would elaborate a bit more, it's like, you know, thank you for considering me.

It's not going to work out. Good luck. Yeah.

Yeah. That, that, that's a great way too. Unless I'm like very angry about something that they had proposed or them personally, or, you know, some, some viewpoint that they are really mouthy about that I do not agree with.

I, and some of it's not rocking the boat and some of it is just not wanting to waste my energy on them.
[Mike]
Just no thanks. Yeah. Well, further to your point, Amanda, earlier about, you don't know what position you're going to have in the future about that issue or that industry.

Do you think it'd be okay to just say, I don't have time in my schedule to take this on right now kind of thing, and just make something up to sort of say no in that way?

[Amanda]
If it was just a project that I was not interested in, and if it was because of the ethical reasons, I would still just say, nope, good luck.
[Mike]
Interesting.

[Amanda]
Okay, cool.

[Sean]
What about you, Mike?
[Mike]
Yeah, I think I would try to find a way, again, it depends on how seriously I feel about something. You know, if it's conversion therapy, or something like that, I wouldn't be afraid to just say, No, I'm not, I don't believe in what you believe in that, whatever, say something like that. But mostly, you're your conversion therapy is my MMM.

Yeah. But like, in other, in most cases, I think when it's just a mild, you know, I'm just not into this, I would probably say as few words as possible. Like, like you said, Amanda, just know, the answer is no, that's, that's the important thing.

You know what I mean?

[Amanda]
Yeah.
[Mike]
Alright, so I think we covered everything. This is great. Listen, listener, if you have, we've already asked this, but we'd love to hear more.

If you have any stories about ethical issues you've encountered in your careers, please, please write into the show. We might follow up later with other stories.

[Amanda]
Or join us on our YouTube live that we call lunch bites. It is on the first and third Tuesday of every month at 1130am. Eastern Time.
[Mike]
Absolutely. Be sure to join us there. Thank you for listening.

As always, we'll catch you next time. Bye. Bye.

Bye. Thanks, everyone.

[Amanda]
The website 101 podcast is hosted by me, Amanda Lutz. You can also find me online at AmandaLutz.com.
[Mike]
Hey, it's Mike Mella. Thanks for listening today.

[Sean]
You can find me on LinkedIn if you search for Mike Mella or at BeLikeWater.ca. I'm Sean Smith, your co host, you can find me online at my website, CaffeineCreations.ca and LinkedIn at CaffeineCreations.

(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.)