the scriptorium

Friday, July 16, 2004

A moral dilemma.
I had a situation yesterday where a co-worker came to me and was telling me that (s)he was having problems with another co-worker who prepares his/her work. Co-worker B (the 2nd person) was shirking in his/her work and not pulling his/her weight, which affects the income of co-worker A because his/her piece rate depends on getting work from B. A then told me that (s)he knew that B used marijuana on the job, saying, "You know how B always looks 'tired'? Well, that's not fatigue--B is high at work. I know because I take B home from work sometimes and B dropped rolling papers in my car the other night. I think I'm not going to take B in my car anymore because B told me that (s)he carries stash on his/her person. If I get pulled over and it's in the car, I'm responsible for that." I advised A to tell his/her supervisor about the situation because it's affecting work flow and is severely against company policy. I also told A that, in the event that this is found out later from another source and it was found that A knew about it and didn't tell, it could affect A's employment. (I'm not certain that's true, but it sounds reasonable in a company that values security as highly as ours does.) So, anyway, now I'm thinking that maybe I'm responsible to go to someone with this, since it's been told to me, but I (a) don't want to break A's confidence, and (b) don't know how relevant 3rd-hand information would be anyway. So I have a dilemma. I hate office gossip anyway, but this is work-related and could affect our business. Maybe I should just trust A to do the right thing and go to his/her supervisor. At that point, it's out of our hands. (Do you know how hard it is to write something like this and try to non-genderize all the pronouns?! Whew!) Feedback is appreciated.

posted by #Debi at 7:20 AM | permalink | 0 comments