"The Ethicist" is Randy Cohen's long-running advice column in the New York Times. Each week, Gabriel Delahaye's "The Unethicist" will answer the same questions as "The Ethicist," with obvious differences.

Although he knows I still have strong feelings for him, my ex-boyfriend applied for a training program at my workplace. May I ask my supervisor to prevent this? The company has many other offices around the nation where he could train without it being at my emotional expense. — name withheld, AUSTIN, TEX.

As someone who has had his fair share of coconut girlfriends, I know how difficult it can be living in a world where people you have slept with continue to draw breath. Yuck. There should be somewhere that you can send them all, like an island out in the middle of the ocean with no sustainable food or water so they are forced to eat each other. Lost, except without any of the mystery or intrigue, just desperate acts of cannibalism. And a smoke monster. That being said, since you were the girl in the relationship, it's obviously all your fault.

I don't really care whether it's abandonment or daddy issues that tore you guys apart, but face it: you're a jerk. Let me ask you this: why did you get a job at a company where your ex-boyfriend would someday want to take a training course? (As if any of that even makes sense. What are you? The admissions counselor at ITT Tech?)

Instead of asking your supervisor to prevent this, since he's probably already onto your little mindgames, you should just keep having pitiful, drunken, late night hookups with your ex in the hopes that he'll love you again. He won't, but it has to beat sitting at home in your Hanes Her Way sweatpants eating Safeway ice cream and trying to find a rerun of Everybody Loves Raymond that you haven't already seen a million times.

As the owner of a new small catering company, I must generate contacts. While catering an event at a venue where I hadn't worked before, I mentioned to the manager that any business she could send my way would be of financial benefit to her. My wife says this is tantamount to offering a bribe. Was my proposition ethical? — P.L., FLORIDA

Your wife sounds boring. You should tell your wife that as the spouse of the owner of a new small catering company, she must shut the fuck up.

And stop acting like a bribe is a bad thing. What are you going to do, let the other small catering companies in your area run roughshod over your dream of providing people who don't care tiny food they don't want? In the cut-throat world of finger foods, you've got to break a couple of rules if you're going to become the regional kingpin of asparagus wrapped in prosciutto. Since you're new to the game, I highly recommend watching the quintessential small-time-caterer-who-rises-to-the-top-of-the-heap film, Scarface.

Seriously, though, can you people quit it with the mini-quiches. That shit is so stupid.

I have the good fortune to look considerably younger than my age. When I travel on business I could take advantage of seniors' discounts, but I would have to produce evidence of my antiquity in front of my younger colleagues — a bunch of 20-somethings who would love to have my job. Instead I pay full fare, and my employer reimburses me. Is this ethical? Is there a better solution? — A. W., BROOKLYN

It's funny when old people talk about how much younger they look. Younger than what? A senior citizen? Okay, congratulations. The "bunch of 20-somethings" who would love to have your job—also, I don't know how they used to do it when you were in your twenties, just after the War, but these days you don't get someone's job that you want just because you find out they're older than they look. But sure, grandpa, whatever you say—might not know just how close you are to death, but I can assure you that they won't like you any less if they find out the truth. How could they? You're already so condescending, self-content, and peacocky that I'm sure you're pretty roundly hated by people of all ages.

I would tell you to drop dead, but why rush the inevitable.

Earlier: Nobody Puts Baby in the Dumpster