A DD reader sent in a great question last week. Answering and publishing it here with their permission: “As a fledgling design freelancer I’m currently working with a client whose values/ethics I don’t agree with. I’m in a position where I can’t be too picky – I’m constantly worried about money and the gig pays well. But I’m struggling with doing the right thing here. Any advice?” (Slightly edited for brevity)

First off, good on you for questioning your decision! I think most of us have been in a situation like that, myself included. (For what it’s worth, I took the money at the time, too!)

Questions around ethics are never as clear-cut as we want them to be – unless, of course, we’re talking about very obviously grave, dark stuff like redesigning the cover of Mein Kampf.

This might not be the practical advice you were looking for, but this is how I think of ethical accountability in our job: The higher you climb in your career and the more responsibilities you have for others, the more stringent you should examine the ethics of your decisions. As someone just getting started, your work probably won’t yet lead to serious consequences. The people above you (team leaders, supervisors, managers) get paid, in part, for making those difficult decisions. Since they are in a position of power, which is often interlinked with a certain amount of privilege, we should scrutinise their decision-making much more closely. And the higher we go (leaders, founders, investors), the more scrutiny we ought to exert.

That’s not to say that ethics don’t apply to you. But perhaps put the decision you’re trying to make into the context of where you are in your career and how that decision will affect your future path and other people. Designing a website for ‘bad money’ should make you uneasy, but leading a whole team at a company that’s making ethically questionable decisions on a global scale should stop you in your tracks. Sadly, the reality is often the opposite: individuals like you worry about the impact of their work, while people in large corporations get a free pass because it’s easier to blame ‘the system’.

Digital agency founder Tom Greenwood wrote a great piece about saying ‘no’ to bad money that is a lot more practical. I’m linking to it in the ‘Food for Thought’ section below. – Kai

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Person 1: Welcome home. Did you have a good day looking at screens at work?
Person 2: Yes, my screens were good. How were your screens?
1: They were less good, so I’d like to watch something on the big screen in our house.
2: Okay, but I might use my small screen while we watch.

– @profmusgrave