Jump to content

In your employment..


Wilbur

Recommended Posts

Sure, all the time.  My moral compass tells me that some people should just be left on their own to die with some dignity and grace.  Family members want them kept alive for their own selfish reasons all the time.  It has happened the whole time I have been in this field.  Plenty of times in transplant there were lots of hard decisions that I didn't agree with.  

  • Sad 1
  • Hugs 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I had a summer job in college.  It was basically aimed at smooth talking suckers into giving me and the business money.  I lasted a day.   But I see more morally repugnant toadyism than anything else in my world.  It is clear who are the kiss-ups and back-stabbers, and who are the "good" folks.  Some (many) folks like to do whatever it takes to get ahead. We have countless examples of that sort of thing being both acceptable and even applauded.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, Longjohn said:

Truck driving, I was told I had to run more hours than permitted, make the log book look legal. One of the many reasons I quit that job without a real job to go to. It all worked out.

I bet that has only gotten worse :(  This weekend, I spent about 10 minutes behind a semi in the "no trucks over 5 tons" left lane.  He was doing a nice speed - 75 or so - so I couldn't complain that he was impeding traffic, just that the BIG signs on the interstate are pretty clear about no trucks in that lane, but he was inclined to make up some time by ignoring that rule.  Probably ignoring many other rules.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 minutes ago, Razors Edge said:

I had a summer job in college.  It was basically aimed at smooth talking suckers into giving me and the business money.  I lasted a day.   But I see more morally repugnant toadyism than anything else in my world.  It is clear who are the kiss-ups and back-stabbers, and who are the "good" folks.  Some (many) folks like to do whatever it takes to get ahead. We have countless examples of that sort of thing being both acceptable and even applauded.

Thanks for the reminder about toadyism and kissing ass.

Hey @Kzoo I made this for you

 

image.png.2682e3571cb0e04d914b057b732547fb.png

  • Haha 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

38 minutes ago, Wilbur said:

..Have you ever been asked to do something that conflicts with your moral values or you know is morally wrong and reprehensible? 

Standardized testing became a hard sell when we had to sign non-disclosure statements that prohibited “saying anything negative about the test.” 

  • Heart 1
  • Sad 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

23 minutes ago, Razors Edge said:

I bet that has only gotten worse :(  This weekend, I spent about 10 minutes behind a semi in the "no trucks over 5 tons" left lane.  He was doing a nice speed - 75 or so - so I couldn't complain that he was impeding traffic, just that the BIG signs on the interstate are pretty clear about no trucks in that lane, but he was inclined to make up some time by ignoring that rule.  Probably ignoring many other rules.

From my limited knowledge of the trucking field I understand that it is nearly impossible to cheat now with electronic logs and GPS.  I hear truckers bitching about it all of the time on the facebooks. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

26 minutes ago, Razors Edge said:

I bet that has only gotten worse :(  This weekend, I spent about 10 minutes behind a semi in the "no trucks over 5 tons" left lane.  He was doing a nice speed - 75 or so - so I couldn't complain that he was impeding traffic, just that the BIG signs on the interstate are pretty clear about no trucks in that lane, but he was inclined to make up some time by ignoring that rule.  Probably ignoring many other rules.

The law generally states no trucks in left lane unless passing or overtaking.  At least that is how I understand the law here in Tejas.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In my experience, many jobs involving sales have shady tactics built in.  Usually it is bad companies with short-term mindsets.  In the tech world, sometimes people ask for "finder's fees" and the like, which is legal but doesn't generally give the best rates to clients as you have to make up for that fee in margin.  My referral partners just send me business and I send them business when our capabilities are different, and it doesn't end up costing the clients more.  I have enough trouble sleeping as it is, I don't need anything else to worry about..

Link to comment
Share on other sites

23 minutes ago, Bag of Dicks said:

In my experience, many jobs involving sales have shady tactics built in.  Usually it is bad companies with short-term mindsets.  In the tech world, sometimes people ask for "finder's fees" and the like, which is legal but doesn't generally give the best rates to clients as you have to make up for that fee in margin.  My referral partners just send me business and I send them business when our capabilities are different, and it doesn't end up costing the clients more.  I have enough trouble sleeping as it is, I don't need anything else to worry about..

Spiffs.  My experience in retail sales involved manufacturer spiffs for salesmen who sold a specific product.  Some of my fellow sales people concentrated on these for the extra money.  I found that selling the best product to the customer usually turned out better in the long run.

  • Heart 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

28 minutes ago, Bag of Dicks said:

In my experience, many jobs involving sales have shady tactics built in.  Usually it is bad companies with short-term mindsets.  In the tech world, sometimes people ask for "finder's fees" and the like, which is legal but doesn't generally give the best rates to clients as you have to make up for that fee in margin.  My referral partners just send me business and I send them business when our capabilities are different, and it doesn't end up costing the clients more.  I have enough trouble sleeping as it is, I don't need anything else to worry about..

I much preferred your previous name.

  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

50 minutes ago, MoseySusan said:

Standardized testing became a hard sell when we had to sign non-disclosure statements that prohibited “saying anything negative about the test.” 

As a parent, I was not in favor of standardized testing.  I suspect the problem they were trying to solve was the underserved areas getting a similar education.  Instead, what happened was other kids got their education based on passing a test.  My kids always scored at the very top of those tests.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

45 minutes ago, maddmaxx said:

Spiffs.  My experience in retail sales involved manufacturer spiffs for salesmen who sold a specific product.  Some of my fellow sales people concentrated on these for the extra money.  I found that selling the best product to the customer usually turned out better in the long run.

Ah, spiffs.  When I was in college and worked in the bed department in a department store, I hated Stearns and Foster mattresses, too hard for my tastes.  People liked them, though, and they often paid $25 spiffs for mattresses sold.  I always told people which mattress brands I liked, but always pointed at the Stearns and Foster mattresses and said those are some of our best-sellers.  They were pricey, but still amounted to a third of all the mattresses sold.  I was happy I didn't lie and still made money with those mattresses.

At that time, I didn't really know anything about mattresses, btw.  I know a lot now, though!

42 minutes ago, jsharrwick said:

I much preferred your previous name.

It'll come back, I promise!

  • Heart 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

24 minutes ago, Bag of Dicks said:

Ah, spiffs.  When I was in college and worked in the bed department in a department store, I hated Stearns and Foster mattresses, too hard for my tastes.  People liked them, though, and they often paid $25 spiffs for mattresses sold.  I always told people which mattress brands I liked, but always pointed at the Stearns and Foster mattresses and said those are some of our best-sellers.  They were pricey, but still amounted to a third of all the mattresses sold.  I was happy I didn't lie and still made money with those mattresses.

At that time, I didn't really know anything about mattresses, btw.  I know a lot now, though!

It'll come back, I promise!

Arnold Schwarzenegger didn't want to say 'I'll be back' in first 'Terminator'  film, new book says - New York Daily News

  • Heart 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Providing documentation to support $1 million construction claim..when I knew it was just a tactic for firm to make money. The defendant...was a public sector facility owner.  Yes, folks you want hard-ass project managers working in govn't so it will reduce the cost of such claims. You don't want sheep as managers.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Augmenting question...

If you worked for a reprehensible and horrible company that did illegal things you didn't know about, how would you react if approached to take the fall for the illegal activities for a sizable amount of cash?

"Hey RG, you are one of billions of piddling pawns in this world and I (the CEO) have done illegal things in order to get a much bigger yacht and my 18th through 24th vacation homes.  The feds are breaking down my door and I need plausible deniability.  Would you take one for the team if I transferred 5 million dollars into your account right quick?  Wilbur will fly you to a tax haven where you can open your anonymous numbered account, you can wait to verify the cash is there, then you come back and sign a confession and spend 4 - 5 years in a white-collar prison.  What do you say?"

I would do it, I think.  I would definitely take the fall for that kind of cash.  If I had bunches of money already, probably not.  Even modest lump sums seem enormous to most folks, though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, Wilbur said:

..Have you ever been asked to do something that conflicts with your moral values or you know is morally wrong and reprehensible? 

I have a fairly open interpretation of what is morally wrong. Especially in the data collection, sciences, and prediction world the edges blur in what would be considered morally wrong.

I once wrote a series of self-adjusting, black box, neural nets that scored people with a reliability index for automotive insurance without any credit checks or traditional data (driving history included). Was an interesting thought exercise trying to negate the typical demographical biases you find with ease of access to credit, wealth, and all that. 

Long story short, the black boxes eventually learned to basically be classist, racists. Horrible outcomes from a moral perspective, but absolute banger for selling insurance policies. It would gauge the potential client, score them and then route them to appropriate policies all in the background. They ended up buying the rights to the product. What happened beyond that is in a wrapper of "security"

I was paid a fairly healthy ransom for that along with a very interesting NDA where I can say exactly what I described above and no more. Was it reprehensible? Meh, someone else would have profited off it by making it. An now I know where never to get a quote from.

  • Heart 1
  • Awesome 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

22 hours ago, Wilbur said:

..Have you ever been asked to do something that conflicts with your moral values or you know is morally wrong and reprehensible? 

Fortunately, no.  I've always had bosses who wouldn't do such a thing themselves.

There were policies of the Dow Chemical subsidiary I worked for and the Board of Ed. I worked for that I disagreed with, but they weren't morally wrong and I was a team player: the organization succeeds better when all the members are rowing in the same direction.

For example, I was disgusted with the dumbing-down of America's high schools by G. W. Bush's "No Child Left Behind," but it would have served no purpose to tell parents on parents' night, etc., that their sons and daughters weren't being challenged in our school system when any change would have meant losing federal funding and would have hurt things worse.  So, the vast majority of us who knew that system stunk worked behind the scenes to get it changed.

When three of us were chosen to write the Physics Semester Exams for our 12 county high schools - previously each teacher wrote his/her own, the Board of Ed rep objected to us having problems where, for example, a student would have to use the Mirror Equation: 1/f = 1/di + 1/do, saying that Special Ed students would eventually be taking Physics classes and they can't handle equations like that.  She wanted us to sub a multiple choice question where the answer was "A convex lens tends to magnify."  We pointed out that it wasn't a Physics class without equations like that but got nowhere.  So, I contacted a former county physics teacher I had worked with who had moved on to the State Board of Education, and she wrote an official letter stating that such equations were REQUIRED in Maryland high school physics courses.  So we got it in despite No Child Gets Ahead.

  • Heart 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

We have the fifth amendment to the Constitution in the US. 

"No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."

I believe I am eligible for more than one protection afforded to me by the amendment.

  • Whatever 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...