Is doing the right thing worth your job?

[draco664]

Consider this guy.

A soviet army software engineer at the height of the cold war was on duty when the computer system he was monitoring registered a missile launch from the US. Procedure was to launch a counter attack.

He paused, because he was aware of some software problems, and because only one missile launch was registered. It didn't make sense to him that the US would launch only one missile to attack.

Instead of being praised for preventing a computer bug from starting WW3, he got shit-canned, his career and health destroyed.

[Seshat]

Whistleblowers traditionally suffer. Depending on what you're blowing the whistle on, and whom, you can expect never to work in that industry again.

Some people have done this and considered it well worth it. Typically, these are people who knew that if they didn't say anything, people would die.

Some people have managed to blow the metaphorical whistle anonymously.

Some have blown the whistle, suffered, and had nothing good come of it.

Figure out best case, worst case, and most likely scenarios. Figure out the costs and benefits of both - including the costs/benefits to your conscience. And do what you consider best, once you have all that written down.

[Mishi]

Adding to this - Rugz has a new job, he was recently poached by the Parts Department thanks to his integrity and stubborness!

[Slytovhand]

I'm not yet in this situation, but I can see it happening...

I (pretend*) to teach English to ESL students. They need to have an IELTS equivalent score of 6.0 (it's part of the contract with a foreign university, who in turn has been dictated to by their government). FTR - I totally agree with this standard (as, teachers from that university will be coming here to teach them IT - in English!)

Of my current lot of students, I had one class in which about 2/3 failed the mid-semester exam. Over all, I expect to see about a 1/3 fail rate, and maybe all of 5% get a high score... the rest between 60-80% (60% is the pass mark - ie, what equates to that IELTS 6.0).

What I see is going to happen is I'll get told "too many failed", and I should adjust their marks. It will also, no doubt, be my fault - why didn't I get them to that level (in only 4 or so months)? Well, I've got students who don't come to class regularly, who wrote only 1 sentence (incomplete, at that) for their 250 words of writing, or didn't even come to the exam. Not to mention, when I ask them "how much talking do you do in English outside of class?" - the answer is none. How much reading for interest do you do? None. What do you do for listening outside of class - "Oh, we listen to English songs". They'll watch English-language movies - with Chinese sub-titles...

Many of them shouldn't have been allowed into the program in the first place. Nor should have passed 1st year. And, when the last teacher said that 39 of them had failed, she was told it was too many.... (39 is, coincidentally, about 1/3 )

Will I quit? Might not have to... but, I've made it clear that if there's no objective assessment criteria, then I won't work there (certainly, not while ignoring external contractual obligations - nor without a nice pay increase! )

[Lace Neil Singer]

Minor, but reminds me of the everlasting "staff loo" debate; as in, would you let a customer use your staff loo if they were pregnant/had kids/disabled?

The answer is no. I would lose my job if I let them, so no matter how much sympathy I have for a customer, even if I think that they ought to have the right, the answer is still going to be no.

Of course, I could always call up a manager, but if they're really desperate they'd surely prefer to head accross the road rather than wait around ten minutes for a manager.