Business ethics

'As you know sir, transient airborn waste material can be a major performance issue with modern computer hardware, and the electrostatic generated by standard operation can and does draw such material into connectors and sockets which can degrade performance, cause hardware failures and even lead to fires. For just $19.99, one of our highly skilled specialists can perform and expert removal of this material to help ensure the health and performance of your computer. Normally this task is handled by our expert technicians, but we understand just how important this computer is to your business, so we can also offer you a premium business service for just $49.99 we can have one of our most senior technical staff, a systems engineer accredited by both HP and Microsoft perform this maintenance task for you to ensure that there is no possibility of issue or dataloss during the maintenance. You may also be interested in our monthly cleaning subscription service, where you can bring your laptop in for this essential maintenance every month to ensure maximum stability and performance. Subscribers to this service do recieve 15% off and are exclusively seen to a dedicated Systems Engineer. We pride ourselves on having your maintenance complete within 4 business hours of you dropping it in. Will that be Visa or Amex today?

You don't need to lie to bullshit a customer about computers if you have any kind of brand strength or percieved credibility. For god knows what ridiculous reason, consumers and morons almost all believe that some kid 'repairing' PC's for a retail chain is a credible expert if said retail chain has any kind of television advertising.

Alt focus: No you shouldn't stay. But assuming you can verify that you aren't personally liable in any way, keep your head down while you quietly find a new job in the current ecconomy. And I would personally not mention the reasons for leaving to the next employer. Just gloss over it with something generic and inoffensive. There's a limited number of circumstances where it might help your case, a lot of circumstances where it's pointless information and plenty of situations where it will damage your employability to make it an issue - better off to not make an issue of it.

 

I think if you really have a problem with a client being shafted by the company you are working for, figure out who the "biggest" client that is being shafted is and send them an anonymous letter or make an anonymous phonecall letting them know what is going on ..... provided that it would be difficult for your employer to trace it back to you.

If the shenanigans continue , wait another month or two and make another anonymous call or write another letter to another client.

 

I may be in the minority, but as soon as I hear a salesperson come out with this sort of crap... they've lost me. Fair enough, I make my living in words, semantics and nuances, but if someone can't speak plainly to me, or at least not in a long-winded fashion, I immediately think they're up to something. I was taught that any time you're explaining things to people who may not understand, avoid jargon and speak simply until they demonstrate otherwise.

Mind you, I'm also the prick who thoroughly researches major purchases before I go and talk to a salesman. I'll then ask questions about stuff I already know. If the salesperson slips up, I'll keep digging. If I get any sort of inkling that they're being deceitful, I'm fucking gone. Car salespeople hate me. So do real estate agents. I couldn't give a shit. My dad was a salesman for many years. I learned the good stuff, and abandoned the bad.... he was a sharp dealing asshole at times.

I have a ton of respect for a salesperson who says "I don't know, but I'll find out right now."

 

I work in a major chain of pharmacies. I've found that when they say the customer is always right, they mean it. More than once we have had customers call our district manager (the phone numbers are posted in every store) and complain because we wouldn't dispense schedule 2 (narcotic) drugs early. Management stepped in and told our pharmacist to dispense them early. We have had our Pharm-D come into the store and fill these prescriptions early because the RPh at the store refused to. Unbelievable.

 

At my old law firm we had a training meeting for how to fill out time sheets. We were specifically told to disguise time we spent stapling and collating documents and other secretarial work as "preparing documents for blah blah blah."

Then, and this is how you know what you're being asked to do is unethical, we were offered a reason for why this isn't unethical. We were told that clients know sometimes it's up to their attorney to do this stuff because time constraints, admin staff having left for the day, whatever. So, if they know they might get billed $500/hr for this, it's totally cool to call it "preparing documents."

But...if they know we charge for this, why do we need to disguise it? I don't know about you, but "preparing documents" sounds like maybe actually writing them, or editing them, or maybe writing a cover letter, or doing something more important than fixing the copy machine.

 

I think there's something at least a little unethical in peddling a product that you are 100% certain no one would buy if they actually understood what it was.

Focus: I worked in a store in high school that didn't intend to fuck over the customer, but you know how these things go. The owner had terrible business sense, we were undercapitalized, and his business partner had embezzled about $30K that he blew on hookers (or they blew him, whatever). Our business model devolved into: Charge the customer's credit card with no inventory on hand. Order the item from our supplier. Be denied by our supplier because we already owe them $8K. Ignore customer's emails as we get enough new entrants into the ponzi scheme that our business has become so that we can pay off a bit of our debt to the supplier and order the item. Repeat.

 

You mean a law degree?

 

The business of business is staying in business.

While it's wonderful to have a holier-than-though view of things it's not impressive to 99% of other potential employers. Instead of worrying about shit you can't directly effect/fix I'd focus on what you can. If you're dealing directly with customers or have your own group of customers just make sure these shady things don't happen to them. If something does, speak up.

I've become numb to the amount of fuckery my company tries to pull on customers. From simple shit like billing them for shipping of equipment and then having the equipment ship COD just to collect an extra $600-2000, to issuing parts credits instead of cash reimbursement for double pay on invoices, to trying to shaft the sales people out of commissions/bonuses. It's ridiculous.

I literally spend 1/3 of my time keeping track and chasing money they owe me. Granted I get paid across a number of commission and bonus structures but they're always trying to pull a fast one. Sometimes it's taking out $75 on a $900 commission. Sometimes it's "losing" $XX,XXX in quarterly bonus money. I don't think a single pay cycle has gone by where I have to check to see what was paid and what wasn't with the numbers coming up fucked up.

Being good and honest to your customers is something you can manage and something they'll appreciate. Plus they're something you can actually take with you if you leave and go to a competitor. Fuck the company I work for, I work for my customers.

 

On this note, there is no difference between fucking your staff and fucking the customer. I have been in enough places that were out to screw me over, and everyone of those places was out to get the customer as well. Whether it was no bonuses because they had a "bad year" or charging customers for gratuitous amounts of overtime on service calls that did not require the extra time if it was planned right, it all starts to look bad on the company.

 

At the bar I work at we have an inside joke called "Happy Hour", during 'Happy Hour' the deal is buy a drink get nothing. This happens when a customer is absolutely plastered buys a drink, but we give it him unopened and he forgets he ever bought it and so after a while we take it off the counter and put it back in the fridge.

I think we once sold a guy the same Kronenburg three times before he remembered to open and drink it.

 

Why don't you just wait until he's good and plastered, drag him out the back and take his wallet? Then at least you don't have to worry about the stock warming up.

If the management/owners don't know what you're doing; I hope they find out. If they do; I hope the customers find out.

It might seem funny to the staff, but the possible damage that can stem from this is massive.

 

I feel like I should give this some context that I didn't originally include. It was the managers idea, the bars in a tourist resort and we've only done it to people who are drunk/drugged off there face. Granted, it isn't the right thing to do, but when you're behind the bar and some idiots slabbering at you, it's somewhat entertaining.

However you're right, it would never be done to the regular customer or you're average Joe, but some dude making a racket drugged off his face, why not.

 

My loathing for dirty, fleabitten hippies has plunged to an all time low.

Never mess with a mans booze.

 

I can actually see the concept in this though from a managers/owners point of view. Once a drink is cracked it's trash....drank or not it has to be tossed. Technically they should toss the guy thats too drunk to notice he's bought the same drink mor ethan once but why should a bars spillage go higher than they need to, and in this case recover some of the spilt drinks that occur. As a patron, fuck you leave me my beer and open it and make me drink it or ask me to leave, yet business wisae...I can see this.

Bars don't exist to get you drunk or laid (I am but not.....wife always says no to drunk dick) they are there to end the night with more money than they started.
Ain't capitalism great.

(PS - WTD should get this post but this is where it landed. vacation for a week after tommorow....maybe started early. will post mor hung over from office in 8 hours......fuck) (extra side note edit the WTD was sposed to be initials for weekend drunk thread.......drunk = a miss there....left due to well........the fact i fucked it up. end edit






added note, my google search really left me wondering wher eall the Beiber praise is....isn't this the #1 fran site?

 

Seriously? You can't think of a reason why you shouldn't steal from drunk tourists in your establishment?

Hopefully people will catch on enough to spread the word one of these days. Maybe use the internet for some actual good.

 

To be fair, if he's drinking Kronenburg he deserves to be ripped off.

Seriously though, that's pretty low. I don't think I've ever been that wasted that I've forgotten a drink I've ordered, though I am a povo grad student and value my booze like a first born. Aren't you legally obliged to throw these guys out in the street?

 

The law isn't really properly applied where I am and also, if you saw what kind of customers we have to put up with here you might feel differently.

However, ultimately you're right, it is wrong. Shouldn't steal from customers, even if they are a coked up 18 year old Brit who's just pissed themselves.

 

I have zero feelings on this issue; however in the guys defense he said in the Travel thread he is currently working in Kos in Greece. I would absolutely believe in bars there people would piss themselves and be allowed to stay. Think pretty much the seediest bars in Cancun or Pattaya and that is what you are talking.

Context is everything, pulling that shit in a suburban local: the epitomy of shitty. But in a place like that a standard of behaviour is also expected of the client. Given the type of drunken British males that inhabit the bars of Kos to expect a far higher standard of behaviour from the bar staff is quaint but unrealistic.