My organization takes
pride in their values and each department takes it to the next level by being
sure these values are upheld. In my
department because of the sensitive information we deal with it is clear how
important it is to be honest and have integrity. We have leaders in place who make sure we
understand that we must be ethical and we must uphold the honesty of our
students as well. We work as a team and hold
each other to the highest standards at all times.
I have witnessed a situation where a coworker was
unethical which led to his dismissal at a previous job. I had just started and had only been there
for two weeks when things got bad. Over time is always a sticky topic that no
one wants to really ever deal with.
Unless you are sitting with the person who is doing the overtime how you
do know that they did it? That they
worked on work stuff and not personal stuff?
This coworker, we will call him Jim, had worked for this company
for a few years and there never seemed to be an issue with him. When over time was offered everyone took
advantage of this (it was very unusual for it to even be offered). After all most of us had bills to pay and this
extra income would be great. Jim worked his
regular hours and submitted 20 hours of overtime on top of his 40 hour work
week. When the manager asked if he was
able to get caught up his reply was not even close.
This made the manager question how it was possible to not
be caught up if he had indeed worked 20 hours he could be completed caught up
with his work. When asked if he had used
all 20 hours for work he replied that he had.
The manager asked him what all he had done during his overtime which he
state that he returned phone calls and answered emails. So he should have been able to prove that he
had had done his work but when asked for documentation he could not provide it
and claimed that his computer must have crashed and wiped out all the data.
The manager then asked that his computer be checked to
see if it actually crashed and if he was doing work such as returning emails.
When it was checked the manager found out that Jim’s computer had not crashed nor
had not done the work he said he had done and he was on many social websites
for most of the time. So Jim was asked
one last time to come clean about the overtime.
That if he did that it would just go in his file and that he wouldn’t be
allowed to work overtime until he could prove he could be trusted. Jim still maintained that he worked the
overtime so the manager had no choice but to fire Jim.
Watching both videos one major point stuck out for me
that really tied this together for me and that was that every choice we make
there is a consequence for it. Good or
bad it is there. Jim was given a chance
to redeem himself but he chose his pride over being truthful and it cost him
his job. If he had offered an ethically
intelligent apology and took ownership of what he had done I feel that he would
probably still be with the company. He
could have used that lesson to learn more about himself and why he did what he
did.
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