Business English: Should I have killed the mouse in the office?

A male journalist (39) wrote: Yesterday I caught a mouse that was wandering sluggishly in the vicinity of my desk. I managed to get it into a plastic bag, whereupon there was a great dispute among colleagues over what to do with it... von Lucy Kellaway, London

... The consensus was to release it into the street outside. But mice are vermin and it was obviously right to kill it, so I stamped on the bag to give a merciful death. Now it seems I have made enemies of everyone. They variously think I am cruel and anti-democratic. Am I missing something or was I in the wrong?

Read what Lucy Kellaway, "agony-aunt" of the Financial Times (London), answered:

There are two questions here. Was it right to kill the mouse? And should one take any notice of what one's colleagues think?

The first answer is yes. Obviously. Mice are disgusting. And if this one was staggering it was probably disease-ridden. To kill it quickly rather than let it suffocate slowly in the bag was doing it a kindness. The stamping was perhaps a bit brutal - especially if you jumped up and down on it in full view of everyone - but the principle was right.

Lucy Kellaway

The second question is a bit more difficult, given that people appear to feel even more strongly about animals than about religion or the royal family. How often do your colleagues start discussing the ill-treatment of a human? Not often, I'm assuming.

Yet the fate of a small creature with a tail that eats your biscuits and leaves droppings on your desk touches their hearts and muddles their minds.

It was up to you

But even so, the mouse belonged to you, because you caught it. It doesn't sound as if you solicited your colleagues' views; they simply weighed in. Therefore, it was up to you to do as you saw fit. Without fear or favour, you did what you believed to be right. You stamped on a mouse. This suggests you have just the right moral fibre to be a great journalist.

Mehr zum Thema

I think you've also just demonstrated leadership potential - in that you are clearly logical, ruthless and insensitive. Your mistake was to be so blatant. In modern corporations the firm smack of leadership is needed just as much as it always was, but we have lost our appetite for the sound of the smack.

You should have taken the bag away, let your colleagues think you were releasing it outside, gone into the men's toilets and stamped on it, while flushing the loo to cover any unpleasant sound effects of mouse underfoot.

An argument with the law?

It is conceivable that through your bravery you may even have picked an argument with the law. On the UK version of the reality television show "I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here" last year, contestants killed and ate a rat - and the broadcaster was found guilty and fined for cruelty to animals.

So far no lawyers have come to me asking awkward questions. I shall, of course, protect my sources if they do.

Aus der Financial Times, London. www.ft.com