Professional workplace dilemmas and ethical considerations

Professional/Workplace Dilemma

Before I embarked upon my study at the University of Phoenix, I found myself embroiled in a rather uncomfortable, albeit unspoken workplace conflict of professional ethics and personalities. A member of my office, who I will call a Ms. X, often used the workspace and place time to conduct her personal business. Frequently, my own nearby work was interrupted by her loud comments, as she discussed her various personal affairs and her out-of-work part time business dealings (she frequently sold products through the Internet, as well as worked in my place of employment, I gathered) and made it very clear, to me, as well as to other members of company staff that often her life outside the office took up a great deal of her paid work time.

As I was not her immediate supervisor, at first I thought this was none of my business. I tried to ignore Ms. X's ethical infringements, although I knew that the highest levels of the company management were extremely vigilant about employee time theft, and frowned upon employees abusing work time for their private life, especially when the positions we held were considered to have the privilege of minimal supervision in exchange for maximum trust. In other words, it was assumed that we would use the time we had for the company's benefit and did not need to be 'baby sat' as employees, regarding the way we spent our time. I knew Ms. X was abusing that trust. I also knew that upper level management was becoming somewhat concerned about the overall levels of productivity in our particular office, on a number of projects. Still, as Ms. X was never overtly unfriendly to me, I did not confront her. As she was well liked by lower level management and most of the office, I also tried not to talk about my concerns in a social fashion to other members of the staff -- one of the few decisions I made, I think, that was wise.

The ethics in question in this dilemma were the use of company time for personal time, and the values in conflict were those of hard work and productivity vs. simply maximizing office resources for one's own personal benefit. Ms. X was clearly taking up space, cashing her paycheck and doing as little as possible until she raced outside of the door to hop to her next social engagement or to hop back online, conducting her far more interesting (to her) and more profitable Internet personal and professional business. She was personable and likeable, and many even purveyed her web-sold products at the office -- yet she was a detriment to the productivity of the company in terms of its business. In short, she was someone whom one might like, but not respect as a fellow worker.

Several potential conflicts, however, were inherent in the situation that I was not fully aware of at the time. Ms. X's own workplace performance affected not simply her performance reviews, but the level of productivity of the entire office. I was uneasy about this detriment to office performance quality, but I was not cognizant of the full effects of the down turn. Now I see it was not enough for me to simply do my job, while she was lagging in her own work, although I hoped that would be enough at the time. But her lax code of workplace ethics and values directly impacted the tone and morale of the office. When other people in the office saw her allowing deadlines to slip by, and saw her surfing the net for various good deals on eBay, rather than working hart, they were more likely to do that themselves, rather than to 'pick up the slack.'

The potential outcomes of the situation, I felt, were that things could continue as they were continuing, or that someone superior to her could confront Ms. X. But her immediate supervisor seemed unwilling to do so. And in terms of continuing as they were, in essence, this could only go so far, for if productivity continued to decline, clearly someone would have to be disciplined. And eventually, this was what happened -- everyone was taken to task on all of the projects affiliated with Ms. X.