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?

 

[jmw]

Employees as the victims:
Part of a group of companies is in trouble. The other, profitable companies are used to subsidise the ailing company.
As a consequence, no pay awards, redundancies and double working in the profitable company. No gain promotions, cut back on expenses and overheads.
For several years the employees (those that survive) are effectively "investing" in the survival of the weak company.
Then the market recovers and the ailing company recovers and is sold for £20-25million.
The money is shared out among the directors.
Not even a word of thanks to the employees and certainly no cash.
Legally, the directors are in the clear, they had a legal duty to the shareholders (mainly themselves).
Morally?


JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[H57]

I was in a similar situation. Prior to me starting a job the owner and employees of the company started a new non-engineering company. Each had share in the new company.

I started my engineering job and it soon became evident that this venture was sucking ALL the profits, not to mention people time, out of the engineering company. It was fine for everyone else as they would see the benefit if the new company took off, but meanwhile their was no raises, reductions in benefits, and no bonuses as the engineering company was "losing" money.

In the end the venture folded without ever bringing in any money and in the process everyone except the owner is now gone.

 

[Dinosaur]

In the highway industry, our greatest concern is that someone will leak the information about a new alignment to an investor that will purchase low cost (e.g. farm land) along the route in anticipation of reselling it at a higher cost to the highway department when they come to buy the R/W. The original leaker is rewarded in some fashion from the investor.

These days this is believed to be uncommon. Investors learn of highway projects through any of a number of required sunshine requirements and they buy up the key R/W this way.

Our other ethical problem is a contractor buying off an inspector. It happens but I haven't heard any particular stories of this in some time.

 

[btrueblood]

Had a manager use my work (write up for a journal article) as a submitted paper for his graduate ME design class.

 

[IRstuff]

Oh yeah, been there. We gave a presentation to a Government customer, trying to get them interested in funding a new scanner. A couple years later, we find that the same customer patented our idea.

TTFN

FAQ731-376

 

[jmw]

I actually sat in a meeting where the lead brown-nose presented my work to management as his own.
I was struck dumb.


JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[jorton]

jmw,
How did you handle it? I've been in the same situation a few times (same guy every time)and I let it go. I couldn't think of a good way to handle it without sounding petty and making the company look bad. Now he has his own satellite office and company car. I'm still in my cube.

 

[jmw]

There really wasn't/isn't too much to do.
Whatever you do can be made to look petty and that it is you who have the problem, not the brown-noser. That's because they spend their entire lives with their noses .... er, spend their entire lives sucking up to the bosses, so they gain immunity.

I hope there is such a thing as divine retribution, or that he'll discover too late that the spirit comes back in some other life-form and that he will be a laboratory rat or something in his next 200 or so incarnations. But I'm not holding my breath.

I just made sure I put my own stamp on my work as much as possible, tried to pre-empt any of his little games and periodically did a reality check to make sure it really wasn't me.kept the amount of information/ideas etc that flowed to him to a minimum and put up with it till I could get out. (and when I did, made sure that HR knew something of my feelings, for all the good that would do).

However, I heard from some others that they'd made similar representations to HR including stating that they would never work for him if he got promoted (I think HR had a long list on that one).

But what do you do? Get another job? Sure, and first day on your new job you discover the new company is infested with Brown-nosers too? Or pray for a good manager to come along. Yep, it's a management problem. Inadequate managers love to have their egos stroked. Good managers are too smart for that but catch 22 is that good managers don't last long, they go up the tree fast or go to better companies.

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[RossABQ]

At a public electric utility, the construction manager I worked for on a $500 million project (in the '70's -- big project) remarked to the sales rep for a cooling tower company that he "liked" the rep's '65 Mustang. The rep says "drive it for a while". The CM kept it for 4 years, during which time every contract for towers and pumps and even some stuff that the rep didn't normally handle went to that rep. "Somehow" he was always low bidder or "only responsive" bidder. The commission on the towers alone was reportedly $300k. The sales rep retired after the project at the age of 50. The CM returned the car only when it was so torn up it wasn't drivable -- had a tow truck take it back. Consequences for the CM roping this work? Not a thing, and the CM claimed once that he really didn't like the car, he kept it only as a "favor" to the rep. Sure.. There were also regular trips to Mexico, hunting trips, etc.

 

[zdas04]

I had a colleague who regularly presented other people's work as his own. One time he presented my work while I was in the room. Towards the end of the presentation the VP he was presenting to had to leave the room for minute and this slime took that opportunity to acknowledge that I'd done the work.

A couple of weeks later the slime was doing the same presentation to some Executive VP's and our VP (who had been primed by one of his direct reports who saw the first presentation) started asking a list of very technical questions that the slime simply couldn't begin to shuffle his way through. About half way through the list he turned to me and said "David, can you answer the question that [slime] is have so much difficulty with?" I could, and I answered the question on the table, went back to the previous 4 questions and answered them, finally I corrected an error in Slime's slides that cleared up a bunch. It was a glorious moment, the project was approved, Slime was moved to a less visible project, and shortly after that he quit.

It was the only time I ever saw someone get what they really deserved.

David

 

[plasgears]

Looks like I touched a nerve. Thanks for the inputs. Now for a real doozy:

I had the job of refurbishing executive row. I got competitive quotes on one element of the job, and the job went to a croney of the mgr of plant engineering. The material came in, and I had it stored temporarily in an unused loading dock.

There was a strange tag on the material. I called the mfr of the material, and the sales agent aquainted me with the principals on the purchase order. They were the mgr of plant engineering and his croney contractor. The strange company was a ghost company created to financially benefit the mgr of plant engineering and his croney.

I lost my job a day later. My phone must have been tapped. I found other employment thru an outplacing firm. My new boss kept asking why I left the company, and I tried to explain it away without rancour. As it turned out, I was a star performer. That didn't help when I lost my job.

Analyzing the events of the past, I decided to blow the whistle. I found out that the stuff hit the fan in a big way. The scoundrel plant engineering mgr ended up managing waste collection. Any regrets? None.

Keep the stories coming. Thank you.

 

[SylvestreW]

Saw the VP of a company (who is a P.E.) sign off on an engineering report that
a) he wasn't involved in whatsoever;
b) he didn't review; and
c) he didn't have the technical background to properly review anyway.

The person who actually prepared the report was not a P.E.

Later, problems did come up with the project and questions were asked. The V.P. ended up firing the person who did the report because of the mistakes made (which cost quite a bit to fix).


-
Aercoustics.com

 

[IRstuff]

It's unfortunate that the fired person didn't report the VP for a PE ethics violation.

TTFN

FAQ731-376

 

[JStephen]

"It's unfortunate that the fired person didn't report the VP for a PE ethics violation."

The catch is that the fired person was presumably also involved in an ethics violation, as in practicing without a license.

 

[GregLocock]

Oh, so non licensed engineers aren't allowed to write reports?

I'd get off that high horse.

Cheers

Greg Locock

SIGlease see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

 

[IRstuff]

As an subordinate of a PE, you don't need to be a PE to do the engineering, otherwise, no engineer could fulfill the experience part of the PE requirements.

The person writing the report should have been under the "responsible charge" of the supervising PE. Since he wasn't a PE, he would not necessarily know that his supervisor was unqualified to stamp his work.

TTFN

FAQ731-376

 

[btrueblood]

"It was the only time I ever saw someone get what they really deserved."

Zdas, you must have done something really wonderful to deserve a karma warm-fuzzy like that.

The manager that plagiarized my work had his just desserts, he got promoted up and sideways, to a dead-end useless job. He interviewed me to come and work in his department, I had trouble keeping a straight face. Even more trouble when the only other employee working with him was this kinda ugly gal who had really hairy legs. Found out later from my wife (who'd been working there a year before me) that this gal used to be a guy...same guy who won a lawsuit that forced the company health care plan to pay for his operation(s)...and to provide a private bathroom for him/her (the boys didn't want her in their john, the gals didn't want him in theirs).

 

[EddyC]

btrueblood,

Now that is a really unusual story.

 

[IRstuff]

Was her name former name Greg? Maybe not that unusual after all.

TTFN

FAQ731-376

 

[Gymmeh]

Cheers to Zdas, its good to here good stories!