3 Responses to “Drawing the line”

1. Jeff Mowatt says:

   17 January , 2009 at 16:28

   Richard, I remember a friend posing a similar ethical dilemma as a theoretical question involving two children both claiming harm from each other. What is the first thing to be done? The answer, which I didn’t have ready was that the first action would be to bring them together and simply ask “is this allegation true”.

   If your client is going to make some kind of decision on the basis of anecdote and there’s no mention of evidence of harm being done, then is sounds to me that he’s opting out of dealing with the situation. Perhaps he’s right to if no harm is inn evidence?

   Jeff

2. richardderwentcooke says:

   17 January , 2009 at 16:29

   Thanks Jeff, he is taking steps to gather what data he can, but by the very nature of what has allegedly happened, the activites are covert and unlikely to be admitted to.

3. Amy Jo Garner says:

   21 January , 2009 at 20:12

   I once had two employees who could not seem to find a way to get along. It culminated in them having a screaming match in the office. I simply told them both that I didn’t care what their issues were with one another. They had been hired to do a particular job. They could either find a way to get along and do their jobs or they would be replaced with two people who were more interested in doing their jobs than in picking fights with their coworkers. Never had another problem with them. Both eventually moved away when their spouses took jobs elsewhere.

   Sounds kind of cold-hearted, but really there was no way I was going to be able to get them to “make nice” with one another without letting them know that otherwise it was going to cost them their jobs. I also wasn’t interested in playing a who-said-what game. As far as I was concerned the blame was mutual and so would be the punishment.

   This all reminds me of why I left corporate America!

   Amy Jo Garner aka The Beauty Geek
   http://noevir.amyjogarner.biz