Can You Top This? Extremes in Non-Ethical Behavior 8

[plasgears]

I am collaborating on a book tentatively entitled "Management by Disaster." This relates to the chapter on ethics. In facility management there is a tendency to direct plant resources and contractor connections towards personal gain.

An electrical engineer described a situation where the plant manager of a power plant had a large metal shed erected on his personal property at plant expense. Plant personnel were involved in the erection. Can you top this?

 

[whyun]

The zone between ethical and unethical behavior is wide as it is different from individual to individual. It is not a fine line.

Taking breaks 5 minutes longer than allotted, taking a few pens off the company's shelf are unethical yet forgivable. Accusing others of unethical behavior for such minor incidents is petty in my opinion. Severely unethical behavior is somewhat controlled by the legal system but even then not always caught.

 

[IRstuff]

There was a story that ran around in a previous company about a product called the "Homing RAM." The production test area was under the gun to test and ship the RAMs, but the product was all failing acceptance test and so there would be nothing to ship that month. The test supervisor then arranged the testers to always pass the parts.

The parts shipped, division made its shipments for the month. Next month, the RAMs started coming back in droves.

TTFN

FAQ731-376

 

[ewh]

Doesn't seem as bad as some of the above, but I saw this early in my career in Florida, and it definitely influenced how I now regard some people.
After some tornado damage, the company GM went around the facility with an ice pick to "insure" that new a/c would be included with the repairs.

Believe it if you need it or leave it if you dare. - [small]Robert Hunter[/small]

 

[IRstuff]

I'm on the side that thinks that some behavior is worse than others. It's one thing to have ill-gotten personal gains; ostensibly, no one actually gets injured or dies.

My previous posting has bad parts being shipped to wherever; some of them could have wound up in equipment where the part failure might have resulted in damage to the equipment or its operators. That's got to be worse than someone getting free repairs on their house.

However, we also know of cases where no gross ethical violations occurred, only gross lapses in competence and judgement. The Kansas City Hyatt Regency walkway case is one such situation, where the contractor made changes to the design, which were not caught nor checked by the designer, thereby resulting in the walkway collapsing:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyatt_Regency_walkway_collapse

TTFN

FAQ731-376

 

[whyun]

Is it unethical for one to behave unethically not knowing that it is unethical?

 

[IRstuff]

Ignorance of the law is not an excuse. About the only thing it might do for you is to mitigate the sentence you receive.

TTFN

FAQ731-376

 

[flamby]

In legal discourse, the "intention" is considered a key factor. There is a big difference in killing a person by accident or intentionally. But both are crimes, nevertheless.

Ciao.

 

[IRstuff]

One is called murder, the other is called manslaughter.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manslaughter

TTFN

FAQ731-376

 

[Senselessticker]

I have "stolen" company graph paper from work for personal use for years. I use it at home for everything from grocery list to wood working and home improvement projects. I'd say I've easily taken 6 pads/year.

Just yesterday, I had our company travel agent book me the 6am flight next week instead of the 7am flight (the 7am flight was $400 more expensive). And I will use mass transit instead of a rental car to arrive at my hotel destination. A hotel, that is virtually across the street from where I will report to work for a few days.

I'm hearing from the 7am flight travelers and rental car enthusiast - that the hotel 30 miles out of the way of our work destination has a nicer free continental breakfast than the Holiday Inn I'm staying at.

Boy... I hope they don't bust me for making my personal to-do list on the company graph paper I lifted from the office before the trip...

 

[ajack1]

Senselessticker I see that situation differently. I would not see booking a better flight or hotel as unethical with the companies knowledge and consent. I do however see theft as unethical, even although the actual amounts of money are very different and before anyone asks no I would not see a fifteen year stint in jail as a suitable punishment for helping yourself to a few pens or pieces of paper.

The way I see it if I go down the pub with you, or anyone else for that matter and choose to buy you a beer that is my choice, I can easily afford to do so and the money is not an issue, if however whilst I go to the toilet you take the money from my wallet and buy me a drink I find that unethical. The amount of money is no different to that I would have paid anyway but one is unethical and one isn’t, at least in my opinion.

 

[monkeydog]

Senslessticker,

Just out of curiosity, why wouldn't you just go the stationary store, and buy the pack of graph paper for your home/personal use?

As far as travel, some people choose to not get a rental car, and hotel close to where they are working as it is more convenient. I myself, when being inconvenienced by the business travel, sometimes choose the 6 am flight because it gives me a better chance of not missing my connection in Chicago (not because it is cheaper). I choose a rental car, because when I go out for dinner, the restaurant within walking distance of the hotel get’s old. I choose the hotel 30 minutes from where I will be working, because it is very close to the airport, and I only have to get up at 4:30 am to catch the 6:30 am flight out (Chicago theory).

 

[Senselessticker]

Ha! I'm not going to loose any sleep over the graph paper... The paper is normally sitting around my house because I do a great deal of work from home. I suppose I just started using the paper for personal matters years ago because a pad was sitting on my desk at home and it was the most "convenient" for me to use to the time.

For those who think its "ethical" to waste thousands upon thousands of dollars per year on travel expenses simply because its marginally more convienent and "approved", but take issue over a few dollars worth of paper being used for personal reasons... well... good luck out there! I'm sure the local McDonald's will always have positions open for squabbling managers who stare at the CCTV tapes busting employees for taking a biscuit out the door at the end of their shift...

 

[BJC]

What about companies where the CEOs raid the treasury "leagly"?
Lots of american companies have interlocking boards of directors and the control of things like salarys and bonuses is controlled by a very small group. The CEO of company A is on the board of company B and the CEO of company B is on the board of company A. And so on with company C,D,E etc. they give each other big pay checks and out rageous stock options.
If you work for a company where that's going on what's a few pens from the stock room?
There are a lot of stories in the WSJ and other publications of this kind of stuff. If you as a stock holder were robbed at gunpoint you would be outraged but these guys are remote from most of us and don't wear a mask and a gun.
There is a lot of research to show that the high pay doesn't correlate to stockholder wealth or company performance.
There are more CEO out there recieving 20, 30 40 and more millions of dollars per year for running poor performing companies. It makes stealing 80 k for a house like taking the change out of the "take a penny, leave a penny" box at 7-eleven. It's legal but how ethical is it?

 

[RARWOOD]

I am familair with a case where a person posed as a P. E.. His name was similair to someone who was registered so he used that persons stamp. He was found out when a problem developed on a multi-story concrete building.

I am also familair with a case where an engineering firm was named in a lawsuit involving a project they had not designed. One of their good architectural clients was doing his own engineering on small projects then using sticky back to apply the engineering firm's P.E. seal to the drawings.

 

[monkeydog]

I did not think you were going to loose sleep over graph paper. It just seemed odd, that your previous posting gave the appearance of stealing graph paper for use at home.

 

[eliebl]

Being ethical and being legal are not the same.

I can legally stamp a document but is it ethical to do so when I was not involved in it's creation? If nothing is wrong with the design, is there harm? It would be entirely legal in my jurisdiction. I just assume the responsibility if there was an error.

I find it easier to talk about legal issues as black and white. You meet the laws or you do not. I wish it was always that simple. In the case of ethical issues there are some that are black, some that are white, but it is all to common to be several shades of gray.

my 2 cents
EJL

 

[josephv]

BJC makes an excellent point.

Further to this, the facilities manager that uses company resources (say a few hundred dollars) to build his tool shed, is not in the same league of unethical behaviour as a company and CEO that steal billions out of their customers pockets. Or certain companies that are responsible for several health problems and even deaths around the world.

 

[stephenw22]

A local university had a scandal a few years ago when one of the engineering professors at the university was found to be using someone else's diploma. There was a huge contraversy about all of the students she had taught, and whether they should have the course invalidated and struck from their records. It would have affected hundreds of students, and also many students who had already graduated. In the end, they found that although she didn't have a diploma, she taught the required curriculum, and the students' courses could stay in their records.

Another recent incident involved a man who operated a foundation repair business. He was lifting a house off its foundation so the foundation could be replaced. He told the homeowners that the lifting procedures were all professionally engineered by him. Several days after the home had been lifted, it collapsed into the open excavation below the house. To make matters worse, he didn't have insurance to cover the damage to the home.

 

[AusSteelMan]

One I know of that happened sometime back now, happened something like this:
2 Electrical Planners set themselves up a contracting business
Then, from their "day-job" let contracts to themselves.
To really do a "good" job of it, the quoted prices included materials
The PO was sent out.
However, they would buy the materials from inside the "day-job" but also send in a delivery docket from the side-job, effectively the Company bought the material twice.Most [if not all] of the work on-site work would be carried out by the on-site guys under the company work order system.
They cashed up on materials and labour costs.

Needless to say since I am telling this story they were cautgh big-time.

ASM

 

[TheTick]

not an extreme, but true story...

Customer asked for prototypes of a stamped sheetmetal assembly. Fairly complex, more than just brake-bress folds. Key customer, high profile project.

We get two quotes, one from trusted never-fail source and one from untried source. Untried source comes in 40% less than trusted source. Despite my cautions that we need these parts right at any cost, we went with the cheaper source.

Parts were late, made from poor material, and dimensionally incorrect to the point of unusability. Rework to whip them into shape cost 2x the savings.

The kicker: sales had priced the project for the customer using the quote for the more expensive, trusted source.