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Yes. A job soon after college I worked in manufacturing company. The VP of operations calls me in one day a few months into the job to tell me to 'prepare' some documents for an audit by one of our larger clients. These were documents to verify material contents used in the manufacture of parts.
My youthful response was , "well, where are the documents aren't they kept on file somewhere?"
I refused and resigned shortly thereafter.
It was a dump of a company and went out of business within a few years due to poor quality control in manufacturing process. An early career learning experience. Signs Your Company is Cheap
When I worked for a property management company in another state, we managed a building that was legally zoned as 4 commercial units and 7 residential. However, due to the size of the 4 "commercial" units, their location, and their layout, we were never able to rent them for commercial purposes without accepting significantly less rent than market value.
Our firm then began to rent them as residential units, just like all of the others in the building. (Changing the zoning in the state and city I worked it would take years of dealing with bureaucracy, and thousands of dollars in legal and professional fees, which the company didn't want to incur.)
What bothered me was when my boss told me to represent to our insurance carrier that we were renting the units for commercial purposes, in accord with the zoning on the building. This was completely false. My boss told me that we were not being dishonest, since we specifically targeted a special type of tenant for those four units, namely, those who were self-employed small business owners, those who worked from home, or those who were in the art/performance business.
Pretty much every employer I've ever had. I refused because I could... I didn't NEED the job. I thought I'd come across it less in a corporate environment and stopped working for small businesses.
Nope. It's less frequent, for sure, but the unethical matter is much, MUCH bigger.
Years ago, I worked as a mortgage processor for a few yrs & took a new job, which lasted 2-1/2 hrs before I escaped... yes, escaped.
I was assigned a desk & immediately approached 1/2-dozen times in 1/2-hr by varying loan officers & asked to sign off on copies of documents that looked suspicious, meaning fabricated. The excuse was that their processor was at lunch... at 8am?? When I refused & insisted on seeing the originals as well as the loan pkg, because I couldn't sign off as the processor if I didn't process the loan & originals were the only acceptable legal form for most lenders, I was given inept stories as to why they couldn't supply them. Each one would then run into the owner's office & there would be heated, animated discussions behind the glass, each one turning to glare at me over & over. Being a young girl, it was very intimidating. Obviously, I was brought in as some sort of daft scapegoat, expected to take the heat for their shenanigans.
Within 15-min, I knew I needed to leave. I was seated 10-ft from the locked front door that people needed to be buzzed through, in or out. Every time I glanced at the door, to see if I could get out when someone was buzzed through, different men would come over & virtually stand guard, staring at me. The hostile receptionist, who'd need to buzz me in or out, also watched me like a hawk. Nothing was said, but it was clear I was being blocked from leaving.
People were in & out often, so I just waited for my opportunity to slip through. It happened at 10:30. A few visitors came in together, the "guard" of the moment was distracted & let go of the door, the receptionist had her back to me momentarily & like lightning, I slipped out the door before it closed.
I walked to my car as fast as I could without drawing attention, my heart pounding. When I drove by the office from the lot, I could see through the window that there was utter chaos, with a frantic crowd surrounding my desk. I felt like I was in some sort of espionage movie. They never called to ask if I'd be coming back.
I've seen a lot of shady things at the mega-corps I've worked for, but this was the only time I was asked to be part of the drama.
Yes. I once had an Admiral (one star) physically yank me into his office by my arm and ask me to overlook the possible unethical considerations of a purchase he had made. As the command's IG, I refused. He wasn't with our command for very long; he actually went up to DC and found out quickly that he was totally outclassed there (in every way) and got shipped back out to sea. He wasn't happy working with civvies anyway, and that feeling was totally mutual.
Years ago as a young captain, I was ordered by a colonel to alter the results of a test I'd run to show the system as successful when it had actually failed. It was a major event in my life caught between the rules of "failure to follow a direct order" vs "duty to disobey an illegal order." I was scared to death when I told him I could not sign off on falsified results but as my superior that HE could sign HIS name to the falsified results. At that point he dropped the whole thing; he was perfectly happy to have me as a scape goat, but didn't want his name associated with it.
I'm now a civilian and one of the things I've learned is many senior military don't like working with civilians for that very reason -- we aren't under the UCMJ and it's much harder to intimidate us into doing something unethical than it is to intimidate a junior inexperienced lieutenant.
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