Someone is rushing to an important exam and sees an elderly neighbour slip and fall on the way. Why is this an ethical problem and not merely an inconvenient one?

Because two things she has genuine reason to honour — helping a person in need and keeping her own commitment — cannot both be served, so whatever she does she gives something up.

It is tempting to dismiss this as a scheduling annoyance. It isn't, and the test of that is to name what is in play:

• Values in the scene: health and physical integrity of the neighbour, solidarity and compassion, but also her own education, achievement and reliability — and the fairness of not making others wait.
• Norms in the scene: help someone in distress (in many jurisdictions a legal duty, not just a social one); do no harm by omission; be on time; do not gain an unfair advantage over classmates.

What makes it ethical rather than practical is that the competing claims are of the same kind — both are things she ought to do, not a duty pulling against a mere preference. The choice cannot be settled by looking up a rule, because two rules apply at once and they point in opposite directions.

Note also that the structure survives the details. Change "exam" to "a production deployment window" and "neighbour" to "a colleague in visible distress" and the shape is identical — which is why this pattern is worth learning rather than this particular story.

Go deeper:

• Wikipedia: Duty to rescue — where helping a person in distress is a legal duty and not merely a decent impulse — Switzerland included.
• Ethics Unwrapped: Moral Awareness — short video on the skill this card is really about: noticing that a situation contains an ethical question.