Do Your Ethics Correlate to Your Debt + Standard of Living?

Let's say that tomorrow, the company you work for does a legal, but unethical thing. Although it really depends on what the situation is, I'd like to ask this main question for tonight's blog post, "What's the extent that you as a person, are willing to do based on your personal morals and societies' laws?"

If a legal, but unethical situation happens, I would assume that most people would try to fix the issue, say through a manager or their human resources department. Now what if nothing is done about the complaint? Do you bring the issue up again? Maybe. Would you quit or even risk your job? Probably not. People have credit card debt, student loans, car payments, cell phone bills, electric, and rent/mortgage payments.

This got me thinking about what I would personally do. I find that the higher my standard of living and the larger my debt, the higher chances that I have of compromising who I am, what I believe in, and what I do. For example, I know that right now if I ran into an unethical situation at work, I have no qualms about quitting. Its hard to imagine, but if I had a house payment (or was trying to support a wife and 3 kids), that even if something grossly unethical happened at work, I would be a lot less inclined to quit or risk my job. Some would say that given the latter scenario of a dependent household, I would not have the freedom or the luxury.

Now let's take it a step further.  What if an illegal and unethical situation happens? Would we still look the other way? Would you quit? Some people may say to look for another job, but what if taking another job means making less money and not being able to support your current standard of living? We all talk big, but who would really lower their standard of living if the unethical/illegal situation does not affect them directly?

These are just some thoughts going through my head right now. Today I woke up with a sick feeling in my stomach. I was scheduled to help interview 7 people for a new job posting in my company. I had time to glance over all of the resumes and knew that everyone was older and had much more experience than me; some of the people being interviewed were easily twice my age. None of that bothered me in the slightest because I knew my database.

What bothered me was that the job was posted with a vague description and it was designed without consulting the current staff. I'm still not sure who posted it, but with all due respect, they had no idea what they were writing. It pretty much asked for a Technical Program Manager position without stating the actual duties involved.

As a nerd, let me just say that a nerd is not just a nerd. I could break it down thoroughly, but for the most part a hardware nerd is much different than a software nerd. Hardware nerds are knowledgeable about subjects like servers, routers, firewalls, switches, and network infrastructure. The software nerds are knowledgeable about different programs and it also gets really specific; for example, there's a world of difference between high level programming and low level programming. Today we were looking at who could do queries, report design, database migrations, and database merges.

The list can go on for both categories, but needless to say we were looking for a very specific skill set (even though the posting didn't specify it). It'd be the equivalent of hiring for a restaurant at an upscale French restaurant saying "Need good chef" without mentioning whether they're seeking a sous-chef or pastry chef.

It's difficult to explain how this even happened. I heard that the position was posted last week (by an unknown person to me). Interviews were then scheduled immediately by the Executive Director. Since learning about the posting, I've asked for the job description (since I'm helping with the interviews), but did not get any straight answers. Since the ED has only been here for a month, I asked quite frankly if the ED knew what the current staff even did (much less try to hire new staff).

The ED finally responded back to me with a list of the duties that everyone in the team was responsible for. We looked at the list for a few minutes and could tell that the ED didn't even know what we were doing. I got the list yesterday and replied, but have not heard anything about it yet. It gets a lot more complicated with the history of the organization, but let's say that its provoked me to think about the state of affairs here.

I have mixed feelings about this whole situation. For the most part, I laugh at how absurd everything is. What I can tell you about this whole situation is that I am VERY thankful that I do not have anymore debt (including student loans). Without debt, I feel like I have my freedom. I do not need to stay at this company if I disagree with how it is run. I do not create a situation where I need the money in order for me to maintain my standard of living (however low that is). I cannot be happier with how I'm living (even if I am living in my truck). I can't take a shower whenever I want, but I never need to compromise who I am.