Few things in life are black and white. That’s why we have to learn to Grapple with the Gray.
Here is today’s ethics challenge:
True story:
After eleven years working as office manager for a medium-sized company, Charlene found a position with another company offering a higher salary and improved benefits. Her future employer wanted her to start in two weeks, but her current contract required her to give four weeks’ notice.
She went to her employer, explained the situation, and asked to be released from the four-week notice restriction. Her employer flatly refused. When she explained that the job might not be available to her if she did not start in two weeks, her employer said that if she left her position early she would be placed on a no-rehire list, she would not be paid for her remaining paid-time-off, and that she would receive no end-of-the-year bonus. (It was mid-December).
The next Friday was payday. Charlene waited until her paycheck cleared, then stopped coming to work. She never called in or let anyone know about her absence, leaving her former colleagues scrambling to cover her responsibilities. No one in the office ever heard from her after that.
Where did the problems actually begin, and how might it have been prevented from blossoming to produce this result?
Meet the panel:
Jane Adshead-Grant Adshead Grant is a Master Certified Coach, leadership facilitator, author, speaker, and faculty member of Time to Think, LTD..
Dr. Nora Gold is a prize-winning author, the publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Jewish Fiction .net (an online literary journal), and a former professor of social work.
Dr. Robyn Odegaard is a concierge, high performance psychologist who works with successful individuals who have “hit a bump in the road” in one area of their life. She helps keep the chaos of that bump from spreading to the rest of their life.