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Life sometimes has gray areas. To me, most of the time things in life are pretty black and white. Right or wrong, good or bad.
Sometimes it isn't that easy to do what is right.
I have a situation at work that two of my supervisors are sorta kinda asking me to do something that is a little on the chinsy side of things. I'll try to explain it with out all of the boring technical details. It involves things of a technical nature.
We did some work for a customer about 1.5 yrs ago. During that warranty period which is a year the customers device, we will call a "controller" started to act a little flaky. We went out and did what we thought was a fix. The issue went away, or so we thought a few weeks ago the customer calls and says the same problem is appearing.
Well now we are out of the warranty period and so on good faith we go out and determine the a small component failure was to blame. We then utilize the "spare" component on the "controller." This fixes the problem for good. The only problem is now the customer has lost his "spare" component.
This customer has been a real pain in the a@@ and we know that they won't give us any more work,nor do we want to pursue it with them. Matter of fact they asked us to bid on another project a few months ago and we refused, that's how much of a pain they are.
Anyway the customer is asking us to replace the entire controller which would cost us a couple grand. Straight out of our pockets.
Now bear in mind everything is functioning and we are wayyyyy out of warranty. My supervisor asked me to go out to the site with the new controller and pretend to replace it.
This request was followed with a couple of wells, and if you feel like its.....You know that this money is coming right out of our pockets....types of comments. But only if you feel comfortable doing this.
That type of hemming and hawing around.
My first gut reaction was f em, they been unreasonable and a holes to the nth degree.
I think you need to reason with your supervisor -- tell him or her that you need to cut off service to this customer now and for good. If you even go out there and "pretend" to do a repair, then the PITA customer will keep calling and calling for every little thing. You need to sever the relationship and this is the best opportunity. You have absolutely no further legal/warranty obligation to this customer and responding once again to their calls will continue to give the impression that y'all are at their beck and call. Surely the supervisor can't disagree with that?
And it saves you from having to do something shady, too.
i think few things, if anything, in life is absolute or fixed. there always is relativity in things.
there may be some times where it is right to lie, or steal.
in your example, i think you should look into your company's whistleblowing policies. Good practice in the workplace is a must, since shady behaviour can always bite on the behind in the long run.
Yes, if you go out there and "pretend" to fix the controller, it'll be on your conscience or in the back of your mind forever.
I don't think it's right or fair for your supervisor to ask you to go out and do something like that. You're not really fixing it, you're making your supervisor and the company look good and you're the one going to bear the psychic consequences of it all.
Plus if you ever visit that customer again, you'll be thinking about what went on previously.
I don't agree with your supervisor's thinking, and since I don't know the lay of the land there in your company or the culture, I have no solution for you, only sympathy that they've put you in that terrible position.
Nope, wouldn't do it and I wouldn't hesitate to say, and have, that I won't do it. I've been put in the ethical/unethical position before and bottomline is YOUR own reputation. What if this person calls again and you don't happen to work for this company anymore, they could BLAME YOU for lying to them. What people can do with you - they can do TO you.
This wasn't so much a situation of ethics, but of reputation and character, not to mention it ticked me off royally. I worked in mutli million dollar contract work. We had a new District Manager, who I don't believe had any faith in my abilities when he first met me and told me to go after this contract and I told him what was required. He said, just ask them what it will take to get it and I got it and since it was public contract work and they were voting to give us the contract (which would make the news) that night I was happy. He tells me, "You got it? We can't do it!" I blew a gasket over it because he wanted me to tell them and I said absolutely not and handed him the receiver to the telephone and said, "YOU are going to tell them." and guess what he said, right in front on me to them, "She got a bit over zealous and didn't realize, blah blah, bah."
That's right - push comes to shove he saved his own ass and took mine down along with all my credibility. District Managers come and go but this is where I lived and worked my whole life and I was so livid it was all I could do not to either take that telephone and throw it at him or quit right on the spot. He never did that to me again tho and treated my abilities with respect from there on out, but it ruined my credibility in the field.
Plus, frankly, even your personal computer at home is under warrenty and if something breaks after the warrenty expires YOU pay out your ass to fix it or replace it - when has Dell or whoever ever fixed something out of warrenty periods for free?
Hell, those bastards won't even help you over the phone with a problem for less than $30 per question
Last edited by Thursday007; 04-17-2010 at 01:06 PM..
Life sometimes has gray areas. To me, most of the time things in life are pretty black and white. Right or wrong, good or bad.
Sometimes it isn't that easy to do what is right.
I have a situation at work that two of my supervisors are sorta kinda asking me to do something that is a little on the chinsy side of things. I'll try to explain it with out all of the boring technical details. It involves things of a technical nature.
We did some work for a customer about 1.5 yrs ago. During that warranty period which is a year the customers device, we will call a "controller" started to act a little flaky. We went out and did what we thought was a fix. The issue went away, or so we thought a few weeks ago the customer calls and says the same problem is appearing.
Well now we are out of the warranty period and so on good faith we go out and determine the a small component failure was to blame. We then utilize the "spare" component on the "controller." This fixes the problem for good. The only problem is now the customer has lost his "spare" component.
This customer has been a real pain in the a@@ and we know that they won't give us any more work,nor do we want to pursue it with them. Matter of fact they asked us to bid on another project a few months ago and we refused, that's how much of a pain they are.
Anyway the customer is asking us to replace the entire controller which would cost us a couple grand. Straight out of our pockets.
Now bear in mind everything is functioning and we are wayyyyy out of warranty. My supervisor asked me to go out to the site with the new controller and pretend to replace it.
This request was followed with a couple of wells, and if you feel like its.....You know that this money is coming right out of our pockets....types of comments. But only if you feel comfortable doing this.
That type of hemming and hawing around.
My first gut reaction was f em, they been unreasonable and a holes to the nth degree.
Now, after thinking about it........
A man of character and ethics would not do this, so I hope you won't
The truest test of our character is whether or not we do the right thing even when nobody else would know that we did or didn't. The point is - YOU know, and you have to live with yourself.
If there's any "gray area" here it's whether or not the controller should be replaced, not whether or not you should lie to the customer.
Several years ago I was hired as a consultant for a publishing company that was having problems staying solvent. It was owned by two guys, the one who hired me and who had been a friend for decades and his silent partner.
After I'd been there for a couple months the friend asked me to tell his partner that their company had plenty of potential but needed more capital. My opinion was that it already had too much indebtedness and could have hardly survived without any. I could have been wrong, but there was no gray area here. I was being paid for my opinion, and my opinion was that the business wasn't worth salvaging. To say anything else would have been a lie, and that's never right.
It cost me a friend; it cost me a month's income, and the business declared bankruptcy, but my conscience was clear, at least about that.
Hint: If you're ever asked to be a consultant for a company on the brink of bankruptcy, insist on payment in advance.
This is not about an interpretation of rules or even something that you could argue might be ok.
It's a straight out lie - pretending is just another word for it.
If your sup wants it done, tell him to do it himself. If you do this and someone catches wind, you're just as culpable as your supervisors.
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