[wyldfire]

> shower you with coffee and donuts to much friendlier offers to get sales.

By bringing this up in a thread talking about kickbacks, it sounds as if you're trying to equate the two. Please don't equate this to a "kickback." It's not what that is. There's real standards to what denotes bribes and kickbacks and that's not what those are.

> flexible ethics for personal gain?

If you let the donuts influence your judgment, that is an ethical problem -- I agree. But if you operate in your organization's best interest you can enjoy the coffee and donuts without remorse.

[newsclues]

I don’t drink coffee or eat donuts (allergies) so I wasn’t influenced by the sales people but I understood what was happening and saw it happen to more senior people in the organization who were influenced and cost the organization a lot of money because of “friendship” with a leader at a client who was very generous to the executive.

[olyjohn]

I'd equate it more to ass-kissing than bribing. Kissing ass isn't a crime. Questionable if it's ethical, since you're basically pretending you like someone more than you do, which is dishonest.