Business Ethics Reflection

When one is faced with ethical dilemmas he or she needs to look at the situation as a whole and determine what the outcome of the situation would be and to whom it may effect. As I remember facing a dilemma when asked to write this paper what came to mind was haven to decide how I was going to confront a fellow employee on knowing that she was stealing money and that she was abusing our friendship by coming into work late on a regular basis. She was a single mom of one and was struggling to make ends meet but that gave her no right to steal from the company and do not make it right to take advantage of our friendship. My dilemma was that of having to report her. This person took advantage of our friendship while working together and to me that makes it harder at times to report a person to those of authority. I looked at her situation but that did not make me change my mind to report her. First, I made sure that it was her taking the money and I monitored the money for a week to determine about how much she was taking from the register so that I was able to have something to follow up on when I reported her. I then went to my supervisor and reported the incident and asked that we both sit down and talk to her and explain what we know and how we know of her stealing money from the register. After the sit down with this employee we let her know that there were consequences of her actions and that she was going to have to be let go from the company. We could have pressed charges against her but we chose not to since the amount of money was not a large amount. The moral issue in this dilemma is that of a person taking advantage of one’s friendship and that of losing a close friend. This person put our being friends on the line and looked at our friendship as it was okay to take the money and that nothing would happen to her since we were friends. The issue I had to face here was that of our friendship and how it would affect our families and then I had the obligation of being the office manager of reporting her since I was the one in charge of the office and responsible of what goes on in there. I as the office manager had to make my priorities to the company since her taking money could possible affect business. Yes, the money was not a large amount but after taking money for a number of days or weeks it could potentially affect profits. This person to me did not value our friendship by doing what she did because if she had she would have not put me in that situation in the first place. She did not value our friendship and she did not value her job and not to mention the position that she had put me in. Also she did not value the job that she had and put her family in harm by possibly being sent to jail for stealing. To me she did not think that she had to follow the rules of the company and that she even though she did get caught was sorry but was she sorry for getting caught or was she sorry she was losing her means of getting extra money? I am not as close to this person anymore because if she could do that then who’s to say she would not try to steal from me and my family? Social pressure does affect how people put themselves in certain situations when it comes to business. This person used her struggling to raise a child on her own to think that it was alright to steal money to make ends meet. Instead of going to the boss and asking for extra hours or even a raise to make more money she decided to take it in to her own hands and to steal money. With how expensive it is now-a-days to make ends meet people do things that they would not normally do such as stealing but that does not make them morally right. If I were to be faced with this type of situation again I think I would have done the same thing and reported it to the proper authorities. I would not want to put my job on the line to make sure a friendship stayed intact. I would have probably try to see warning signs and ask that person if there was anything I could do to help out or try to get that person more hours at work. I work from home so right now I am not put in situations such as that but thinking back I would most definitely take the same actions. I would also make sure not to work closely with good friends so that I am not put in such a situation. Keeping a working relationship but not one of a social relationship outside of work will help to keep me from having to be put in the type of dilemma.