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It’s All in the Family am the new head of the payroll Department at Wonky Widgets, Inc. , a firm of 75 employees. This is my first job since graduating from the university of New Haven. I was hired by Eddie, the General Manager of the company, who informed me of the need for maintaining strict confidentiality regarding employee salaries and pay scales. He also informed me that he fired the previous Payroll Department head for breaking that confidentiality by discussing employees’ salaries. I have been working at Wonky Widgets, Inc. Or three months, and everything has been going smoothly. One day, I see Eddie handing Greg, his brother, a separate stack of work tickets, to create unfairness in the salaries for service technicians. First, this creates an ethical decision-making issue for me. Eddie told me he will fire me if say anything about this. I can’t say anything to Brad, the owner, see the three of them having lunch and talking all the time. This puts me in a tough situation, and I’m on probation. Plus, this creates disadvantage between the service technicians.
Greg gets a separate stack of work tickets from the other technicians, so he can get higher commission than everyone else. Now am stuck between a rock and a hard place with these fundamental issues. Second, all 75 employees are impacted by this scandal at Wonky Widgets, Inc. All the service technicians and their families are getting less money because of the scandal with Eddie and Greg. This is an unfair advantage, and don’t know if Brad is involved with the brothers. Plus, Eddie told me the last person in my position got fired discussing salaries.
He was probably discussing Serge’s high salary to one of the employees, Eddie, or maybe Brad. Also, Brad told me to come to him if I have any questions or problems. This problem is making me feel guilty for knowing what is going on in this business and scared, because don’t want to get fired, I just started. Immediately, I started to think about how to fix this with the best possible outcome. I can go to Brad and tell him what Eddie and George are doing, hoping he is not involved. Also, can go to all the workers other than Greg and tell them what is going on.
Or, I can totally let this situation brush off and not tell a soul. The consequences of not telling anyone is Greg obviously keeps getting the unfair advantage if stay quiet. If I don’t stay quiet, will either get fired or fix everything in the workplace. Since this is my first job after graduating college, this makes the decision very hard. If wasn’t three months in, and actually had a say that mattered in the business, I would have told Brad man to man that very day. I can get fired for a little mess up right now since I’m on probation at work, I’m basically walking on thin ice.
Ultimately, decided to tell Brad and the workers privately about the situation with Eddie and Greg. The reason I told the workers privately was basically for leverage just in case Brad did know about the situation, and was just not caring about it. I’m sure Brad will fire me and just hirer new head of the Payroll Department, but he won’t fire me with 72 other employees behind me. All in all, did what I thought was right at my position. Hope Brad understands where I am coming from in this situation, and realize had to put al my cards on the table.
Personally, I couldn’t let Eddie and George get by with this, it’s just not the way I was raised or taught at the University of New Haven. At the end of the day, I did what was right to me, and that’s all that matters in my eyes. If get fired, this obviously wasn’t the job was suited for. If Brad agrees with me, am possibly looking at a long-term spot in the business, or maybe a promotion to the General Manager position. Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do.