Seen on linked in
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wrote on 18 May 2022, 16:02 last edited by Horace
I thought this was an interesting case study of righteous rule breaking and the pride people take in it.
"My wife tried to kill herself yesterday."
These are not the words you expect to hear when checking on an employee.
It was not the only time this would happen in my career.
I knew something was wrong. A great employee, a real team champion, had been snippy and out of sorts all day.
Still, when I called him into my office for a check in, this was not the direction I saw the conversation heading.
I paused.
I took a deep breathe.
"Oh wow. Is she safe now?"
He went on to tell me the whole story. We talked about how he was so scared, and defeated, and didn't know what to do.
This man was in complete trauma response.
I let him share everything he wanted to. I listened.
Then, he starts telling me how I don't need to worry. He will still get his work done.
Confusion.
Oh right! His wife is in a hospital, in a life or death situation and he is at work. Why?
"(person's name), I know how dedicated you are to this team. That is why you hold the role you do, but why are you here?"
"I'm out of PTO Ms. Kat." (Continues)
He couldn't afford unpaid days off, especially now.
This hit me hard. This man is scared for the love of his life, his partner, but he feels he has to come to work or lose his job.
What the actual f**k?
The company we worked for sucked. They were toxic and then some. (I later reported them for multiple federal violations, but that is another story.)
His concern, tragically, was well founded.
"Don't worry about it. Go be with your wife."
He started to argue with me.
"You won't lose any hours. You won't get in trouble. You will still have your job when you return. I will take care of it. Go. Call or text me in a couple of days. Let me know if I can help in any way."
He thanked me and headed out.
There were no options through company policies. I looked, but wasn't surprised.
So...
I broke several company rules that week, including fudging his work hours. I claimed field work with our veteran programs. I made sure no one else could be blamed just in case corporate decided to pay attention. I made it work.
He deserved it. This man always put his team first. We owed him the same.
Were my actions dishonest? Yep.
Could I have lost my job? Absolutely.
Was my course unethical? No.
My first duty was to my people. I fulfilled that duty.
The company was unethical for not having options in place for emergent situations and for not putting people first.
Had I lost my job, I would have held my head high.
Integrity comes first. Always.
My integrity, my ethics, involved putting my team mate first. I did.
A job isn't worth your integrity.
You won't starve.
Maybe your integrity is different than mine. Maybe you think helping him was wrong.
That's fine.Put your integrity and ethics first.
Always.
Integrity is everything.
(By the way, he and his wife are happy and healthy, and yes, I had permission to share.
)I think that's quite an indictment of her own manager(s), who she never afforded the opportunity to do the human thing in this case and let the guy have some personal time one way or another, without getting fired. It must be a small company to have no policy for emergency medical leave and such. But if it's a small company, why the inhuman approach? That means the owner is a monster. Why work at a small company where the owner is a monster? That means you're a truly bottom rung human being, which I suspect this person does not consider themselves to be. So, what is wrong with this story, if anything? I get that large organizations can become inhuman in their policies, but emergency leave is common enough.
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wrote on 18 May 2022, 16:43 last edited by
Where I worked 45 years ago, there was no such thing as personal time.
But, the policy was something like "if you need time off, take time off", your manager can work it out.
Eventually times changed and everyone had to have an equitable, equal, same number of days off for medical, personal and vacation.
This kind of equity is sad. It assumes that managers are stupid cruel robots. The managers see this and perform to expectations.
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I thought this was an interesting case study of righteous rule breaking and the pride people take in it.
"My wife tried to kill herself yesterday."
These are not the words you expect to hear when checking on an employee.
It was not the only time this would happen in my career.
I knew something was wrong. A great employee, a real team champion, had been snippy and out of sorts all day.
Still, when I called him into my office for a check in, this was not the direction I saw the conversation heading.
I paused.
I took a deep breathe.
"Oh wow. Is she safe now?"
He went on to tell me the whole story. We talked about how he was so scared, and defeated, and didn't know what to do.
This man was in complete trauma response.
I let him share everything he wanted to. I listened.
Then, he starts telling me how I don't need to worry. He will still get his work done.
Confusion.
Oh right! His wife is in a hospital, in a life or death situation and he is at work. Why?
"(person's name), I know how dedicated you are to this team. That is why you hold the role you do, but why are you here?"
"I'm out of PTO Ms. Kat." (Continues)
He couldn't afford unpaid days off, especially now.
This hit me hard. This man is scared for the love of his life, his partner, but he feels he has to come to work or lose his job.
What the actual f**k?
The company we worked for sucked. They were toxic and then some. (I later reported them for multiple federal violations, but that is another story.)
His concern, tragically, was well founded.
"Don't worry about it. Go be with your wife."
He started to argue with me.
"You won't lose any hours. You won't get in trouble. You will still have your job when you return. I will take care of it. Go. Call or text me in a couple of days. Let me know if I can help in any way."
He thanked me and headed out.
There were no options through company policies. I looked, but wasn't surprised.
So...
I broke several company rules that week, including fudging his work hours. I claimed field work with our veteran programs. I made sure no one else could be blamed just in case corporate decided to pay attention. I made it work.
He deserved it. This man always put his team first. We owed him the same.
Were my actions dishonest? Yep.
Could I have lost my job? Absolutely.
Was my course unethical? No.
My first duty was to my people. I fulfilled that duty.
The company was unethical for not having options in place for emergent situations and for not putting people first.
Had I lost my job, I would have held my head high.
Integrity comes first. Always.
My integrity, my ethics, involved putting my team mate first. I did.
A job isn't worth your integrity.
You won't starve.
Maybe your integrity is different than mine. Maybe you think helping him was wrong.
That's fine.Put your integrity and ethics first.
Always.
Integrity is everything.
(By the way, he and his wife are happy and healthy, and yes, I had permission to share.
)I think that's quite an indictment of her own manager(s), who she never afforded the opportunity to do the human thing in this case and let the guy have some personal time one way or another, without getting fired. It must be a small company to have no policy for emergency medical leave and such. But if it's a small company, why the inhuman approach? That means the owner is a monster. Why work at a small company where the owner is a monster? That means you're a truly bottom rung human being, which I suspect this person does not consider themselves to be. So, what is wrong with this story, if anything? I get that large organizations can become inhuman in their policies, but emergency leave is common enough.
wrote on 18 May 2022, 17:10 last edited by@Horace said in Seen on linked in:
I think that's quite an indictment of her own manager(s), who she never afforded the opportunity to do the human thing in this case and let the guy have some personal time one way or another, without getting fired. It must be a small company to have no policy for emergency medical leave and such. But if it's a small company, why the inhuman approach? That means the owner is a monster. Why work at a small company where the owner is a monster? That means you're a truly bottom rung human being, which I suspect this person does not consider themselves to be. So, what is wrong with this story, if anything? I get that large organizations can become inhuman in their policies, but emergency leave is common enough.
I've told this story before, but my SIL was unfairly let go after being treated absolutely terribly in a small company - she was being treated for a serious illness at the time. The guy who had to do the actual firing committed suicide in his office a year or so later.
It's not always as simple as 'why don't you get another job?'
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wrote on 18 May 2022, 17:11 last edited by
Pretty much everything has gone that way, from jobs to parenting to law enforcement. There's the letter of the law or rule, and that's it. No room for exercising judgement.
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wrote on 18 May 2022, 17:12 last edited by
Another family member was constructively dismissed (i.e. they made up a load of shit about him and fired him) from a big retail place after he needed to take stress-related leave.
I admit I celebrated a little when they went out of business.
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Pretty much everything has gone that way, from jobs to parenting to law enforcement. There's the letter of the law or rule, and that's it. No room for exercising judgement.
wrote on 18 May 2022, 19:12 last edited by@Mik said in Seen on linked in:
Pretty much everything has gone that way, from jobs to parenting to law enforcement. There's the letter of the law or rule, and that's it. No room for exercising judgement.
We're building our own Babel.
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@Horace said in Seen on linked in:
I think that's quite an indictment of her own manager(s), who she never afforded the opportunity to do the human thing in this case and let the guy have some personal time one way or another, without getting fired. It must be a small company to have no policy for emergency medical leave and such. But if it's a small company, why the inhuman approach? That means the owner is a monster. Why work at a small company where the owner is a monster? That means you're a truly bottom rung human being, which I suspect this person does not consider themselves to be. So, what is wrong with this story, if anything? I get that large organizations can become inhuman in their policies, but emergency leave is common enough.
I've told this story before, but my SIL was unfairly let go after being treated absolutely terribly in a small company - she was being treated for a serious illness at the time. The guy who had to do the actual firing committed suicide in his office a year or so later.
It's not always as simple as 'why don't you get another job?'
wrote on 18 May 2022, 19:25 last edited by@Doctor-Phibes said in Seen on linked in:
@Horace said in Seen on linked in:
I think that's quite an indictment of her own manager(s), who she never afforded the opportunity to do the human thing in this case and let the guy have some personal time one way or another, without getting fired. It must be a small company to have no policy for emergency medical leave and such. But if it's a small company, why the inhuman approach? That means the owner is a monster. Why work at a small company where the owner is a monster? That means you're a truly bottom rung human being, which I suspect this person does not consider themselves to be. So, what is wrong with this story, if anything? I get that large organizations can become inhuman in their policies, but emergency leave is common enough.
I've told this story before, but my SIL was unfairly let go after being treated absolutely terribly in a small company - she was being treated for a serious illness at the time. The guy who had to do the actual firing committed suicide in his office a year or so later.
It's not always as simple as 'why don't you get another job?'
I was more speaking to the fierce pride this person has in their chosen actions. The attitude of "if this is wrong, I don't want to be right". If the company she is participating in and helping to succeed, has inhumane rules, then is she in fact operating ethically in her life? If ethics are a red line issue for her, and she believes she is forced to violate that line by following the rules of those who pay her, then isn't it as simple as finding a new job? She didn't even trust the humans above her on the chain to operate humanely towards their employees, and is willing to steal money from the company in the process of circumventing those rules. It's not her signature on the fraudulently claimed paychecks, after all. My issue with her holier than thou humble brag of a story, is that she did not allow the organization to prove itself humane, but rather assumed it would not be. Yet knowing this, and being a person to whom ethics is everything, she continued to participate in that organization, and cash its paychecks.
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wrote on 18 May 2022, 19:46 last edited by
I do see an element of cowardice in this person's actions. Her chosen course was invisible to everybody other than her report, who would have loved her for it. The only risk she took was in getting caught, a risk she was in a position to weigh. It may have been all but zero. It was a social gain for her to enact her righteous and fraudulent plan, and it came at no cost, financial or otherwise. She even ended up bragging about it in a linkedin post that went so viral that I saw it. (Universally lauded, of course. Ps. This person works in HR and is a white female 'diversity' executive.)
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I do see an element of cowardice in this person's actions. Her chosen course was invisible to everybody other than her report, who would have loved her for it. The only risk she took was in getting caught, a risk she was in a position to weigh. It may have been all but zero. It was a social gain for her to enact her righteous and fraudulent plan, and it came at no cost, financial or otherwise. She even ended up bragging about it in a linkedin post that went so viral that I saw it. (Universally lauded, of course. Ps. This person works in HR and is a white female 'diversity' executive.)
wrote on 18 May 2022, 20:07 last edited by@Horace said in Seen on linked in:
I do see an element of cowardice in this person's actions. Her chosen course was invisible to everybody other than her report, who would have loved her for it. The only risk she took was in getting caught, a risk she was in a position to weigh. It may have been all but zero. It was a social gain for her to enact her righteous and fraudulent plan, and it came at no cost, financial or otherwise. She even ended up bragging about it in a linkedin post that went so viral that I saw it. (Universally lauded, of course. Ps. This person works in HR and is a white female 'diversity' executive.)
This sort of thing is very common on LinkedIn. I mean who tells a personal story in this way? Have you ever had this happen on a phone conversation?
"Hello?"
"Horace, 'My wife tried to kill herself yesterday.' These are not the words you expect to hear when checking on an employee. It was not the only time this would happen in my career..."When guys do it it's broetry. When the right team does it's compassion. It's all shite.
I like reading posts from folks who are at least savvy enough to know the tropes and play around with them.
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wrote on 18 May 2022, 20:07 last edited by
I have no problem with her actions if she felt they were truly necessary up and until she posted about it. Then it’s no longer about doing the right thing, it’s about her telling people she did the right thing.
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I have no problem with her actions if she felt they were truly necessary up and until she posted about it. Then it’s no longer about doing the right thing, it’s about her telling people she did the right thing.
wrote on 18 May 2022, 20:08 last edited by@LuFins-Dad said in Seen on linked in:
I have no problem with her actions if she felt they were truly necessary up and until she posted about it. Then it’s no longer about doing the right thing, it’s about her telling people she did the right thing.
Welcome to LinkedIn!
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@Doctor-Phibes said in Seen on linked in:
@Horace said in Seen on linked in:
I think that's quite an indictment of her own manager(s), who she never afforded the opportunity to do the human thing in this case and let the guy have some personal time one way or another, without getting fired. It must be a small company to have no policy for emergency medical leave and such. But if it's a small company, why the inhuman approach? That means the owner is a monster. Why work at a small company where the owner is a monster? That means you're a truly bottom rung human being, which I suspect this person does not consider themselves to be. So, what is wrong with this story, if anything? I get that large organizations can become inhuman in their policies, but emergency leave is common enough.
I've told this story before, but my SIL was unfairly let go after being treated absolutely terribly in a small company - she was being treated for a serious illness at the time. The guy who had to do the actual firing committed suicide in his office a year or so later.
It's not always as simple as 'why don't you get another job?'
I was more speaking to the fierce pride this person has in their chosen actions. The attitude of "if this is wrong, I don't want to be right". If the company she is participating in and helping to succeed, has inhumane rules, then is she in fact operating ethically in her life? If ethics are a red line issue for her, and she believes she is forced to violate that line by following the rules of those who pay her, then isn't it as simple as finding a new job? She didn't even trust the humans above her on the chain to operate humanely towards their employees, and is willing to steal money from the company in the process of circumventing those rules. It's not her signature on the fraudulently claimed paychecks, after all. My issue with her holier than thou humble brag of a story, is that she did not allow the organization to prove itself humane, but rather assumed it would not be. Yet knowing this, and being a person to whom ethics is everything, she continued to participate in that organization, and cash its paychecks.
wrote on 19 May 2022, 00:44 last edited by@Horace said in Seen on linked in:
@Doctor-Phibes said in Seen on linked in:
@Horace said in Seen on linked in:
I think that's quite an indictment of her own manager(s), who she never afforded the opportunity to do the human thing in this case and let the guy have some personal time one way or another, without getting fired. It must be a small company to have no policy for emergency medical leave and such. But if it's a small company, why the inhuman approach? That means the owner is a monster. Why work at a small company where the owner is a monster? That means you're a truly bottom rung human being, which I suspect this person does not consider themselves to be. So, what is wrong with this story, if anything? I get that large organizations can become inhuman in their policies, but emergency leave is common enough.
I've told this story before, but my SIL was unfairly let go after being treated absolutely terribly in a small company - she was being treated for a serious illness at the time. The guy who had to do the actual firing committed suicide in his office a year or so later.
It's not always as simple as 'why don't you get another job?'
I was more speaking to the fierce pride this person has in their chosen actions. The attitude of "if this is wrong, I don't want to be right". If the company she is participating in and helping to succeed, has inhumane rules, then is she in fact operating ethically in her life? If ethics are a red line issue for her, and she believes she is forced to violate that line by following the rules of those who pay her, then isn't it as simple as finding a new job? She didn't even trust the humans above her on the chain to operate humanely towards their employees, and is willing to steal money from the company in the process of circumventing those rules. It's not her signature on the fraudulently claimed paychecks, after all. My issue with her holier than thou humble brag of a story, is that she did not allow the organization to prove itself humane, but rather assumed it would not be. Yet knowing this, and being a person to whom ethics is everything, she continued to participate in that organization, and cash its paychecks.
Oh, I see what you mean. Yes, her hypocritical virtue signaling is extremely tiresome.
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wrote on 19 May 2022, 00:53 last edited by
Yep just do it and stfu about it.
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@Mik said in Seen on linked in:
Pretty much everything has gone that way, from jobs to parenting to law enforcement. There's the letter of the law or rule, and that's it. No room for exercising judgement.
We're building our own Babel.
wrote on 19 May 2022, 02:55 last edited by@Aqua-Letifer said in Seen on linked in:
@Mik said in Seen on linked in:
Pretty much everything has gone that way, from jobs to parenting to law enforcement. There's the letter of the law or rule, and that's it. No room for exercising judgement.
We're building our own Babel.
Yeppers.