We get chastised a lot here in the business school at BYU. For some pretty bad stuff, too.

Earlier this year, for example, we were reprimanded for being sexist towards women in our program. Apparently some chump told a fellow student that she’s taking the seat of a breadwinning man and that she has no right to be in the business school.

Isn’t that terrible? Yeah, we were all shocked to hear that one too.

But it’s not all about sexism, either. Just this week we were told that some companies won’t hire our students because we act like “ethical mavericks” in the workplace.

Apparently BYU grads frequently go out into the real world and feel they have to 1) solve ethical problems on their own without talking to others, and 2) impose their ethical standards on other people on the job. Although we’re highly qualified for the positions, companies say we bring along an extra dose of haughtiness that’s bitter for them to swallow.

So they avoid us altogether.

The scariest part is this: everyone in my program seems really nice. Yet if the stories are true, there’s some serious sedition going on behind the smiling eyes. Lots of two-faced people doing two-faced things. Anyone have some scarlet A’s handy?

I’m no psychologist, but I think there should be something called cyclical depression. It hits me about mid-winter every year.

You know what I’m talking about. It’s that time of year when you think it’s never going to get warm again. Sure, you still know the sun is going to rise tomorrow… but it’s not going to make the snow and ice disappear anytime soon. Boo.

We’re right in the middle of it, people. Keep holding on. Summer will come and we’ll be wishing for the winter chills again before we know it.

Yet another scam is making its way around Facebook. This time it comes in the group, “Join For A FREE $25 itunes Gift Card!”

Here are 10 reasons why this group is a scam:

• The description says, “My Business is Conducting a Social Experiment” but there’s no business name anywhere. Tell me what kind of company would spend outrageous amounts of money giving everyone gift cards without even having their company name listed anywhere?
• There are no admins in the group. No one willing to put a face to the scam.
• They encourage you to invite all of your friends to join the group. They admonish you that this is the most important step, because your inviting of your friends is, “how they give away the gift cards.”
• They confuse you by asking you to paste a line of Javascript code into the address bar. This merely selects all the friends in your friends list, but adds a certain magical, technological feel to the whole thing. They’re preying on the technologically unsavvy.
• They describe the selecting of your friends in innocent terms, saying your friends in the box will turn blue. That’s a fancy way of saying the code you pasted into your browser spoofed a clicked on them.
• After you’ve invited all your friends, the group then directs you to an unbranded website that takes down your personal information (http://zaggy.info/itunes.html).
• This unbranded website is really cheaply done (programmed in PHP with no data validation). Just click “Submit” without filling out anything, and the program doesn’t even know. This is a red flag that no real programmer did this, but merely a fly-by-night hacker intent on collecting your personal information.
• After you submit the form, you are once again admonished that if you didn’t complete all the steps in the process, you will be disqualified. Too bad there is no logical way for them to connect your submission on this website to your actual Facebook account (what if your name were John Smith? Uh-oh, they’ll never 100% verify that you joined their group on Facebook AND invited all your friends!).
• At the end of the Facebook group description, they belabor telling you again that this is not a scam. If it’s not a scam, why are you so shady?
• They guarantee that you’ll get your gift card. Well, 80,314 people have signed up for the group to date.  That’s $2,003,350 in gift cards that they’re going to be dishing out. Yeah, with the programming techniques and lack of corporate sponsorship they’re manifesting, this is definitely not going to happen.

Stay away from this group! Who knows why they’re collecting innocent people’s information.

Always protect yourself by never giving out personal information to Facebook groups that you’re not familiar with in the real world.

(Update: I’ve received word that this scam is being repeated by the same person for Amazon.com and Starbucks gift cards as well. See the comments.)

Spread the word about this scam by using the Facebook share button below.

Today I paid someone $14 to give me a haircut. The entire experience took about 15 minutes, meaning I paid my stylist the equivalent of $56 an hour to run a razor over my head.

And as I’m sitting there, I started thinking… how did paying someone to cut our hair become a societal norm? Why aren’t haircutting skills something that good parents are expected to teach their children? We teach our kids first aid to help other people, why don’t we teach them to cut other people’s hair?

There are plenty of other established norms that we should fight. Why should we buy a tablet, just because Apple is releasing one tomorrow? Why should we believe that a college degree is necessary to make six figures? Why should we let our happiness be based on our surroundings?

When you start challenging norms like these, you’re thinking like an entrepreneur. Welcome to the ranks.

Warning: this post contains spoilers from the season 5 finale of Lost.

In the season 5 finale of Lost, Jack Shepard faces an ethical dilemma. Daniel Faraday, a scientist on the island, told Jack of a plan that could possibly rewrite history and prevent Jack’s group from ever crashing on the island (you know, effectively reversing seasons 1 through 5 of the show). This is really attractive to Jack, because he could prevent a lot of suffering that (presumably) didn’t need to happen.

But here’s the clincher. Jack’s hot friend Kate thinks that Daniel’s plan is going to blow up the entire island and kill everyone once and for all.

Who is right? Jack has to make a snap decision. Yet he struggles because he’s faced with two right choices — fixing something that wasn’t his fault or leaving everything alone and finding another way.

Right versus right decisions.

Jack’s decision is similar to many of ours. We’re not always choosing between black and white, good and evil. And when we are, these choices are usually easy.

The most difficult decisions occur when we’re placed in situations where either choice is good. It seems that not even our consciences can reason through these dilemmas, because both are correct.

Do we give money to a charity or to a church? Which of two equally qualified job candidates do we hire? Do we tell a white lie to protect someone’s feelings or be honest with them to maintain our integrity?

Fortunately, we can navigate our way through almost any decision with three short (but not so easy) questions.

1. Who am I?

The first place of inspection should be yourself. What kind of a person are you? If you were a character in a movie, what would you expect yourself to do?

To use the previous example, when deciding to give money to a church or a charity, ask yourself if you’re a church person or a charity person. When making a decision between your career and your family, ask yourself whether you’re a career person or a family person.

The answer to this question doesn’t always come easily. But this type of introspection will give you a new perspective to grasp the problem more clearly.

2. Who do I want to become?

Still, it’s not enough to merely put yourself into this box or that. Maybe you’re not only a career person or only a family person. If you find your arms in two different shirts, you might be stuck in a quandary.

That’s when you ask yourself who you are trying to become. If you want to become an honest businessperson, perhaps you should refund the money that your client was overcharged. If you want to be a family person, perhaps you shouldn’t take the accounts that keep you at work late.

3. What would someone I love think about my choice?

If you’re a parent, how would your kid feel about your decision? I know it’s trite, but what would your mother say about your choice?

If your heart hasn’t been seared with a hot iron yet, this question will definitely crank up the heat.

Finally, allow the dilemma to define you.

At the end of the episode, Jack decides to follow Daniel’s plan. He decides that he’s going to be the hero that makes everything right. He defines himself with that final decision.

In the end, we see that Jack’s plan definitely blows something up — but is it the island? Or something completely different? We don’t know yet. An entire nation has been white-knuckling their TV remotes for months now. If you don’t believe me, go search Twitter.

But no matter what the ending of the story is, the above three questions work because they get at the heart of the problem. They tell you who you are and allow you to recognize how your decision changes that.

And here’s a surprise: when making right-versus-right choices, it often doesn’t matter what you choose in the end. Knowing who you are and staying true to what you want to become is most important. As Billy Shakespeare put it, “This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.”

Do you understand people?

Do you understand what they’re saying, even when they’re not saying it?

I was in a meeting last Friday where someone said, “We’re defying what we know about web stats.” What they really meant was, “We’re defying what we know about Search Engine Optimization.” But I got the picture anyway.

When it comes to technology, I’m usually pretty good at understanding what people are saying, even when they’re not using the right words. But in other real-life conversations… how good am I?

If you want to understand people, you have to understand what isn’t being said. That’s what really matters, since people are probably using the wrong words anyway.

Altering human behavior is nearly impossible. That’s how the shrinks and support groups stay in business — we’re not getting any better, even though they charge us by the hour.

Want to know something? There’s a secret to changing something about yourself. It’s so earth-shatteringly simple, yet most people don’t get it. And I can tell you in three words.

Take. Small. Steps.

What was my reaction when I saw someone slip on the ice in front of me?

I did nothing. I ignored the whole thing. I didn’t want to draw attention to something that was probably very embarrassing for the poor person.

Gather your pitchforks.

Coming home after a hard day to a sink full of dishes is pretty depressing. Especially because I didn’t make a single one of them.

But before I complain, I need to remember that my roommates’ cooking (or lack thereof) has taught me some pretty worthwhile lessons. For example…

There’s no shame in eating frozen burritos everyday.

Lots of people don’t respect the time and money that frozen burritos can save. Sure, they smell funny — and probably stay in your colon for weeks. But don’t let that get you down, because you’re young and don’t really need vitamins anyway.

The same thing with life. There’s no need to spice things up — just keep on doing the same things every day. You’ll never get bored of it, and you’re probably saving a lot of money in the process.

Forget about the mess you make.

Someone will eventually need to use that frying pan anyway, so you might as well let them wash it. The same thing goes for brownies — you’re offering them to everyone, so you might as well leave them in the prime counter space, right in the way of everything else.

Similarly, someone will always be there to clean up after the mess you’ve made of your life. Your debt to society will eventually be paid by someone, so it might as well not be you.

Keep the deep fryer on the counter. Always.

There’s only space for a few appliances, so we might as well keep the deep fryer on the counter too. After all, we make french fries about once every two years. Indispensible stuff like that always needs to be kept handy!

And when you need anything else in life, go ahead and buy it. Then keep it around, no matter how much you don’t plan on using it.

Forget about the leftovers in the fridge.

It’s attractive to have moldy dumplings and stinky hamburger helper sitting on the back shelf. They’re part of the decoration. And while you’re at it, forget about the two pounds of hamburger you bought last week. Just go buy some more, and forget to cook that too.

And don’t forget to write your name on all this stuff. That way no one else will eat it either.

You can forget about your friends as well. They’re waiting to help you. They want to keep you company in times of need, or just make you happy when you’re sad. But you don’t need them — they belong on the back shelf, too.

Living with roommates is always a blast. I wonder, do you get these same worthwhile lessons after you’re married?

Today as I was walking home from work, I saw someone in front of me slip on the ice. The person was obviously unhurt and easily picked him/herself off the ground.

How should I have responded? Help the person up out of courtesy, or keep walking to avoid embarrassing the victim?

Let me know what you would do in the comments, and I’ll reveal my actual response in a later entry.