Worlplace Dilemma

Professional Workplace Dilemma

The versatility of life sometimes put us in front of situations where we really stuck in a tug of war between good and not good. Imagine a situation where a customer asked for a product from you. After telling him the price, he said he couldn't afford it. You know he could get it cheaper from a competitor. Should you tell him about the competitor or let him go without getting what he needs? What will you do? What are the issues you will think before coming to a conclusion? What your conscious says, if you know that one of your colleague is going to invest heavy money unknowingly that he is going to lay off very soon under the terms of company plans.

Ethics are about making choices that may not always feel good or seem like they benefit you but are the 'right' choices to make. They are the choices that are examples of 'model citizen' and are the examples of 'golden rules' like; don't hurt, don't steal, don't be dishonest, don't lie. But if we take Ethics as a subjective philosophy then what will happen to these golden rules. Especially at the time of facing any ethical dilemma how one should decide, what is ethical and what's unethical? Organization provides rules, regulations, code of conduct, protocols which provide guidelines to work, it shows how to walk, but it does not show the correct path to walk on. Ethical dilemmas faced by managers are often more real to life and highly complex with no clear guidelines, whether in law or often in religion.

I still remember some of the reasons that why I become self-employed bookkeeper. Starting in 2003, I joined a retail store as an assistant bookkeeper, and was very happy with my job. My superior was also very satisfied with my work. But at the time of closing the accounts in the month of December, Chief Accountant, Mr. David, ask me to do some sort of inventory fraud like, includes pricing inventory at amounts in excess of their actual value, or claiming to have inventory when no inventory exists. This fraud is usually dome to overstate ending inventory, which understate cost of goods sold and creates higher income.

This ethical dilemma put me in a very strange position. On the one side was my first job in this country and on the other side was the moral issue. I know that profit has to be the primary concern of any business. While profit may be the overall objective for a business, two legs support the 'body' for long-term success. One, the methods employed to achieve profits have to be ethical and moral. Two, the company must look around for some ways and means to return to society some endowments for the welfare of everyone. So I decided to stick on my honesty and I quit the job.

Strictly speaking, any act whether it be immoral or illegal, is unethical. But in today's world of erosion of values, one cannot escape, while serving an organization without committing certain deeds to safeguard the interests of the organization. In fact, the more you go up the ladder, the more is expected of you in this direction. So compromises are essential. To what extent compromise, one's conscience can alone tell. Some people mortgage their conscience for their personal comforts and some are prepared to forego their comforts and live up to their conscience. This depends upon the background they have been brought up in.

Here is one such example. It happened almost when I joined another Accounting firm after leaving my first