Question about your job and the ethics behind it..

I have my moral standards, but I think my moral standards are a bit more tolerant than everyone else. That's the sophisticated way of saying, "Show me the money". :grin:

 

In general, I don't do a lot of things not out of ethical reasons, but because I'm a coward who don't want to get into trouble. For example, I think might even take a job as a drug dealer if there weren't the whole illegal/dangerous aspect to the job.

So no, I really don't give a damn if my company is super evil like conning old ladies or hiring kids to work in sweatshops. As long as I don't get in trouble myself, and the job is stable enough for my taste.

Yes, I am a b*stard.

 

Another of the Mathloom "questioning your ethics/america" threads.

YAWN !

DD

 

i have no problem charging law firms to get their invoices paid.

 

Mine was a "when in Rome" dilemna -- if you want to do well in certain work environments / cultures, you have to be an a**hole (i.e. duplicitous co-workers / managers / HR; lazy staff).

Some people are better playing the game than others.

 

Yet .. .. you did not answer the question.

Rocket River

 

Working in corporate america necessitates a certain amount of ethical ambiguity.

 

For Me my morals have a place
but
It is more about Priorities

My family having a comfortable/good life
is
a bit more important.

It is kind of a graph though. . .
there is a point where my morals cause me to sacrifice

For Instance. . . I could not be kill someone to become rich
I could not participate in any way.

Rocket River

 

That's not necessarily true. It depends on the corporation and also the position a person holds in the corporation.

 

I would venture to state that every company has some ugly secrets and or machinations. The point of my comment was that you have to accept these perhaps not-so-nice aspects to potentially work on great things.

Am I directly responsible? - of course not. But I am nonetheless contributing to the company's success, and accordingly supporting the more malignant aspects therein.

 

I agree, there's usually at least a few skeletons somewhere in the corporate closet(any business entity actually). The choices of participants being....
1. actively participating in creating those bones
2. stuffing your head up your butt and not acknowledging them at all
3. acknowledging them and actively refusing to be a part of it as best you can.

I prefer the third choice as well.

Humans are imperfect so therefore anything created by humans will always have imperfections. It's just a matter of the degree of imperfections and to what extent a person's sense of morality justifies them.

 

Perhaps instead of ethical ambiguity I should have said ethical pragmatism.

 

Exactly, it's a matter of doing what we have to do to survive in a way that fits in the parameters of our personal morals and values. It doesn't always look pretty from a puritan standpoint, but it's life and we all have to make those choices at times.

 

I used to raise thousands of dollars through grants and business development for at risk children in MY community. Now I basically do the same thing (business development) in an unregulated industry where some of our members lose BIG money. Feel awesome either way. I hate kids.

 

My own life doesn't meet my ethical standards, so it'd be surprising if a company could. It is good enough for me to keep working with them, and I recognize that some things the company is reproached for (like turning off people's electricity in the summer) is dictated by economic realities bigger than the company itself, and that the company does try to address the problem.

Neither did Mathloom, incidently.

 

Yes.

However, one of the axioms I have found to be very true in life is:

"It's very difficult to voluntarily lower your standard of living."

 

I've done it several times.

Life is too short to pimp yourself out doing something you hate. Tell your friend to take a deep breath and step into the void. When he emerges from the initial struggle, he will be much stronger and much happier.