Is it OK to "round up" your work hours?

• Author: Cohen, Randy
• Position: THE ETHICIST

My college-athlete son and many of his teammates have on-campus jobs. Their coaches, who supervise them, encourage them to report more time than they worked. Is my son, who completes his tasks more quickly than most, an "honest sucker" if he alone reports accurately?

Name Withheld, San Francisco

SOME EMPLOYERS HAVE A POLICY of counting a partial hour as a full hour--that is, paying employees X dollars, whether they clocked in for a full hour or just a portion of an hour. (Employers, of course, may not round down, since legally, all time worked must be compensated.)

It's a silly policy, if you ask me, because it creates a bad work ethic: Who'd want to put in two hours when he can get the same pay for working an hour and a half?

If the college pays by those rules, however, nobody's doing anything unethical; if not, the coaches are wrong for encouraging deceit. But your son's conduct shouldn't depend on the honesty of others.

A better approach for the school: Pay not by the hour but by the task. That way...