Re: ethics and job-hunting
Would it make a difference if you felt a prospective employer was
essentially burning investors' money and had no possible way of succeeding?
For example, what about working for one of the rapidly expiring dot-coms
that had no workable business model? I don't know that this is unethical,
particularly if the investors are sophisticated venture capitalists who
fully expect to have 9 bad investments and 1 great one. But what if the
investors are friends and family of the company owner?
I could say that no one can be sure whether a company will succeed. However, that begs the question.
I did walk away from a company that I was convinced would fail. By the time I left, I could foresee the company's failure, so I felt that I was leading customers and potential partners on. I also believed that, feeling the way I did, I couldn't give the company my best work.
However, ethics were only part of the reason. I was probably equally motivated by a strong wish to get away from the feeling of futility that started to dominate my work hours. I also calculated, rather coldly, that, since I was number three or four in the company, that going down with the ship would make me publicly responsible for part of the wreck.
I tried for a couple of months to ignore the ethics and misgivings, and even quit twice, but the trends I saw were only accelerating. And I was right; within six months after I left, the company had put everyone on half wages, and within nine it had failed altogether, leaving a long list of creditors, including many customers who had been promised a rebate.
Meanwhile, I had moved on to much better jobs, both in terms of working conditions and pay. Which only goes to show, I suppose, that worrying about ethics isn't nearly contrary to self-interest as naive cynicism would lead people to believe.
--
Bruce Byfield bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com 604.421.7177
"Humpty Dumpty was pushed: head over heels all over the wall,
Humpty Dumpty was pushed: nobody noticed at all,
And all the king's horses and all the king's men
Gathered round Humpty and kicked him again;
And they called for a priest and a couple of friends,
And they all stood around and chanted, Amen."
-Tommy Sands, "Humpty Dumpty Was Pushed"
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References:
Re: ethics and job-hunting: From: Lois Patterson
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