Ethics

So R. called the other day all upset. She has taken on additional responsibilities at work and they have caused her no end of grief. First of all, she hired her long time best friend to work in the office. Well B. is a new mom and was missing a lot of work because she couldn't bear to leave her daughter with someone else, and the environment at work was not fit for an infant, so R. had to tell her friend to shape up or ship out. It was hard for her.

She also started going out and doing estimates. There is a monitary bonus for every new customer you sign up. She started doing some of the book keeping, just ballancing the daily ledgers. She noticed that the manager, who is her friend and hired her, was taking money that she was not entitled to.

She called me to get advice as to what to do. I told her that even though it was going to be difficult, she needed to tell the owner of the business what was going on. The owner is an absentee owner, and is never around, so she had to make arrangements to meet him outside the workplace. So when she was out doing an estimate, she met him at Starbucks, and let him know what was going on.

He told her that she had done the right thing, and that they had been suspicious for some time and were about to do an audit of the books.

I have no idea where things go from here. The owner asked her if she thought she could do the job as General Manager, and she is hesitant to take it. It would be a real challenge for her. After all she is only 21, and there are around 25 enployees. A lot of responsibility.

I told her to grab on to the opportunity with both hands and go for it. Opportunities don't come around all that often, so you need to pounce on them when they do. It will look to some people like she ratted out her boss so she could get her job, but that is not it at all.

All in all, I am very proud of R. She made a couple of very hard decisions, and made the right call.

Somebody must have done something right.