Week 2 Xmgt 216 Business Ethics Reflection

Every day people face many different issues in their work environments. These issues range from pay related issues to performance issues and among them are the ethical dilemmas that they may face. The moral beliefs that people have are causing plenty of strife in their work places. One particular situation is my husband’s friend and his abuse of working the supply room and using the gas card he was issued by the military for his personal vehicles. My husband has a friend who worked in the supply room.

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This gave him access to plenty of supplies that the Army orders on a constant basis but it also allowed him to order things on the Army dime that he himself wanted. They have a budget and sometimes they are told to spend the money on whatever, they just need to spend it before they lose it. This friend, let’s call him Frank, would order things for his own personal use and let the Army pay for it. He was able to get away with it because he never accounted for the item once it came in and because it was never put on their hand receipts people never asked where it was.

Frank was also issued a credit card by the government, I don’t know if it was specifically for gas or was a regular credit card. I just know that I had only seen him or heard him talk about it being used for fuel. I do know that on a particular trip that we made together Frank offered to pay for our gas as well. I overheard him talking to my husband about it after we declined his offer. My husband was telling him that he could get into a lot of trouble for spending this money to fuel his personal vehicles.

These cards are constantly used to put fuel into vehicles that issued to soldiers by the government, they are government vehicles but can be your everyday car or truck that are used for making trips to field sites or other government activities that do not require them to use military vehicles. My husband was then faced with the ethical dilemma of keeping this information to himself or reporting it his chain of command. My husband spoke with his First Sergeant about it and the soldier was punished by the military. I am not sure of the punishment that he was given. Virtues are character traits that are habitual.

Growing up my husband was taught to be honest no matter what, you might get into trouble for what you did wrong but if you lie it will only make matters worse. It is also the right thing to do; nobody likes not knowing the truth. My husband truly makes an effort to be honest in all that he does, this is one of the reasons why he choose to report the illegal activities that were going on. Values are passed onto us by society. Although many people in society are not always honest, it is important that dishonesty and theft is still frowned upon by the vast majority of people.

This was a friend so there were many social pressures, if it were to come out who reported the situation then the friendship could be lost. Regardless of the poor ethical decisions made by Frank he was still a good, close friend of the family and there were many fears that this would cause an irreparable riff in their relationship. My husband’s morals and values were important enough to him that he had to risk losing his friend instead of carrying this information around with him forever. If I were faced with the same situation today I would do it the exact same way. It is wrong to steal, period!

If you can’t afford something then you shouldn’t have it, you don’t just take it from someone else. The outcome could, of course, be different; they may end up informing the soldier of who told on him. It would be a risk that I would have to take though because I would not want to be an accessory to the theft that was occurring. Situations like this plague people around the world on a daily basis. You have to make the choice of what’s right or wrong and decide what the cost of doing the right thing is. These are decisions that have to be made based on each individual and their virtues, values, and morals.

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