The professional that I am conducting this interview on is Darrell Norris (Norris, Darrell J.). Darrell Norris assumes the title of owner-manager of tile contracting company Advance Tile and Marble. Darrell has been installing tile for about twenty-six years and has been the owner-manager of Advance Tile and Marble for twenty years. In regards to the job duties associated with his profession Darrell states, “This is a profession that can take a long time to learn all of the duties involved, but you get what you put into it.” The job duties associated with his profession consist of managing, supervising, and training employees, meeting with clients, measuring work projects, establishing quotes and start dates, ordering materials, prepping the jobs for tile installation, installing tile, and maintaining client relations. Darrell’s reasoning for choosing this profession is because he enjoys working with his hands, the variety of work keeps this profession interesting, he loves the satisfaction he gets when an installation is professionally done, this profession allows him to express his artistic abilities, he likes seeing customers happy with their installation, and the pay is good enough to support myself and my family. In regards to a code of ethics, Darrell follows the NARI’s code of ethics ("NARI's Code of Ethics." National Association of the Remodeling Industry. Pella, n.d. Web. 1 Nov. 2013.,). In regards to the code of ethics that Darrell works by, Darrell states,” The most important value within my code of ethics is keeping my customers and employees safe and out of harm’s by taking appropriate precautions to maintain a safe work environment.” Also in regards to his code of ethics, Darrel states, “There are so many people in my profession who advertise for cheap price and cut corners to satisfy that price, but I value advertising prices that can allow me to keep a balance between price and quality.”
Question & Answer section:
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Q: What products do you promote to your customers if they have a low budget?
A: When a customer has a low budget they are given quality materials that are in their budget.
(This answer applies to the code of ethics because the code states that only products that are in good faith can be promoted, which is exactly what he does.)
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Q: What methods do you use to keep yourself, your employees, and your customers safe from harm?
A: To keep myself and my employees safe I require everyone in the work area to wear appropriate material, I always make sure that new employees are trained to the fullest extent before they use dangerous tools, when it comes to my tools I check my tools and equipment frequently for damages and I replace them right away if they are, and I keep my customers safe by telling them the precautions that they have to take.
(This complies with the code of ethics because he is taking appropriate action to preserve the health and safety of employees and clients.)
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Q: Do you have insurance?
A: Yes, I have liability insurance, which is actually one of the most important things that I have to keeps my business functioning.
(The code of ethics states that appropriate insurances must be obtained, which Darrell is doing with his liability insurance.)
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Q: What do you do if a job is going to be more expensive than your advertisement?
A: If I run into a job that is going to be more expensive than my advertisement, I tell the customer that I can’t do the job, but I give them a reference to another company.
(This complies with the code of ethics because the code states that all sales promotions shouldn’t intentionally mislead customers, which Darrell isn’t doing because he isn’t misleading customers.)
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Q: Do you make it difficult for competition to compete with you?
A: No, my competition actually can make it difficult for me to compete with them me because of their low prices, but their quality isn’t as good as mine.
(This complies with the code of ethics because the code states that no acts should be done that suppress competition, which is not being done.)
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Q: How do you acknowledge customer complaints?
A: If a customer had a complaint I would address the issue and fix it in any way I can.
(The code of ethics states that appropriate action must be taken on all customer complaints, which is being done by addressing the issue and fixing it.)
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Q: Do your advertisements apply to all customers?
A: Yes, it doesn’t matter if a customer is commercial or residential, I will always charge the same rates to everyone.
(This applies to the code of ethics because the code states that sales promotions must be accurate, which is being done because everyone is charged the same rate.)
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Q: How do you deal with issues with your installations that your customers create?
A: When a customer creates an issue with an installation, such as walking on floor that is still drying, I fix the problem and only charge the customer for the materials.
(This complies with the code of ethics because it states that there must be a high standard of integrity, which is being shown by not charging the customers for man hours.)
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Q: What is your biggest ethical concern in maintaining your business?
A: My biggest ethical concern in maintaining my business is keeping customers and employees safe.
(The code of ethics states that there is a responsibility to take action to preserve health and safety, which is being done because he is stressing that this is the biggest ethical concern he has.)
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Q: How do you make sure that your employees comply with your ethical standards?
A: To make sure employees comply with my ethical standards, I hire employees who I can trust and I make sure they know my code of ethics.
(This complies with the code of ethics because the code of ethics states that a high level of responsibility must be taken on, which is being done by making sure that employees know his code of ethics.)
A scenario that I came up with that would challenge Darrell’s understanding of the code is a situation in which a customer accidently purchased non-returnable tile that varied in color and size, which would make the job time consuming and difficult on yourself and your employees, but doing the job would make the customer happy. I believe that this is a scenario that would challenge Darrell’s understanding of the code because the code states that he must have integrity, which would be shown if he did the job, but if he did the job it would go against the code because it states he must also be responsible. Doing the job would go against being responsible because if did the job it would cost him time, which time is money. When presented with this scenario, Darrell’s response was, “I would do the job anyways because I am skilled in creating designs out of different variations of tile, but it would cost me a ton of time. However, I enjoy using my artistic abilities to make people happy and this would be a perfect opportunity to make someone very happy. Even if I lose some time and money, it doesn’t matter because I believe that integrity overshadows everything.”
It is clear that Darrell is a very ethical man and his response to the scenario really proves that he would put a customer before his own business. This interview gave me a lot of insight on how important that it is to be ethical. This interview showed me how important it is to be ethical because I now understand that ethical people improve the quality of world and unethical people degrade the quality of the world. When hearing all of Darrell’s answers to the questions I started to reflect on myself and the best thing that I learned from this interview is that I need to work on putting other people before myself. However, even though there are people out there who get happy from going out of the way for other people, there seems to be more people who get happier for money. I feel as if I have learned to be a better person from conducting the interview on Darrell and in the future I plan on treating my profession the same way that Darrell treats his. Overall, this was a great experience and I now have more respect for people who make sacrifices for other people.
Work Cited Page
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Norris, Darrell J.
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"NARI's Code of Ethics." National Association of the Remodeling Industry. Pella, n.d. Web. 1 Nov. 2013.
<http://www.nari.org/about/ethics/>.
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