Ethical Dilemma in the Workplace

xmanagement week 3 axia online college

Ethical Dilemma in the Workplace

In the summer of 1985 I obtained my first full-time job at a textile mill. Being raise in the southeastern part of the United States at that time most everyone in the community and surrounding areas were employed by organizations of this nature. In that era an individual would go to work and see family and friends sometimes working in the same department. Raised in the south my parents were very family and community orient. My mother was a very religious woman and taught each sibling every golden rule of the bible and taught us to treat others the way that you would want them to treat you. My father had somewhat a different value or perspective on how things were supposed to go. He believed that when situations occur and no one was harm at the time of the incident it was all right to forgive and forget. He believed people in the community should handle their own problems without any outside interference.

On the first day at work all employees had to attend an orientation class where we told all about the rules, regulations, policies, and procedures of the company. New employees were also told if any individuals see someone in violation of these policies to report it to management. The job that I was chose for was to take the rolls of cloth off the loom machine by using a small sled-like vehicle, take the roll of cloth to a station and weight it, package the roll and take it to the warehouse for shipping. I had to work on the night shift from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. During this time all of the department heads were off and only the supervisors were there with the exception of the warehouse which had only four employees and management left this crew unsupervised. The nightshift in the warehouse consists of my cousin and one of my father's friends from the community and two other friends which, I knew. In the following weeks it came to my attention that the warehouse was the source of a lot of illicit activities. Some individuals would meet there for romantic purposes and others for drinking beer and smoking marijuana. It seems that it was common knowledge throughout the plant among employees that the party was in the warehouse and it centered on my father's friend who was team leader in the warehouse. The activity in the warehouse did not brother me or interfere with my job so I though the guys just having fun at work no harm is being done. This is the mindset I had at this time but as I look back over this situation this was the setting of a scenario for an accident waiting to happen. All the employees in the warehouse were forklift drivers and had to unload and load trucks. Most of the time I knew that those employees were impaired from one too many beers or high on marijuana. I never realize how dangerous of an environment that the warehouse was until one night I was bringing