High on any Top 10 list of the most frequent advice offered to young faculty members is this: No good deed goes unpunished. The aphorism at first seems cynical, pessimistic, dysfunctional. Doing good, as members of a higher-education community, is their job. What if everyone just looked out for No. 1? The entire promotion-and-tenure system--which depends on altruistic volunteerism--would collapse. Nevertheless, there are many situations where taking too much time, trying too hard to do good, or doing good for the wrong reasons or for the wrong person can lead to career trouble, or worse. In short, people who model themselves after Shel Silverstein's "giving tree" don't get tenure. In a series of columns starting with this one, the author will discuss the good deeds that are most punished, especially for the probationary scholar, in different facets of the faculty career. He begins with teaching--a briary pasture for the virtue-minded tenure tracker. The idea here is not to neglect students or avoid helping them but, rather, to focus on things that will truly benefit them while not derailing teachers from the tenure track.