A few years ago a workplace dilemma that I was faced with was when I was working at a bank and I observed a teller taking money from her teller drawer. One morning as we were getting ready for the workday I was shocked when I saw the teller take money from her drawer. At first I was hoping that I was wrong.
All day this bothered me because I could not imagine this teller doing anything like this. All through the day we are responsible for making sure our teller drawers are in balance.Well I knew if this teller had taken money from the drawer her drawer should be out of balance. I started trying to observe to see if I could figure out what was going on. One afternoon my supervisor entered the office and wanted to each teller to audit another teller’s drawer I was anxious to know if my co-worker’s drawer was out of balance. I was assigned to audit another teller’s drawer well when the other teller’s drawer was being audited the drawer was $100 short.
The supervisor decided to count the drawer and she discovered the drawer was a $100 short as well.Well the first offense for being out of balance is a write-up in our file the teller told the supervisor that she might have given a customer $100 too much. This bothered me because my conscience was telling me that the teller took the money. Since I was not able to prove it I did not want to report it to the supervisor. Every day before we went to lunch we were responsible for making sure our drawers were in balance. Before lunch the same teller said she was out of balance $25 dollars which really made me suspicious.
I went to lunch and wondered if I should talk to the supervisor about the situation. I do know that people are capable of making mistakes but I took my job serious when dealing with large amounts of cash. As I was coming back from lunch I walked in and overheard the teller on her cell phone telling her boyfriend that he could come by and pick up the money and she would replace it when she got paid on Friday. I then realized the teller had intentionally taken the money from her drawer but I did not know for what reason.I was trying to give her the benefit of the doubt and did not want to start judging her without any facts. As the day was ending I finally figured out how the teller was getting her drawer to balance out she would take a slip of paper and write the amount she was short on the paper and count it as cash in order to make it seem like the drawer was in balance.
. I did not know what to do at this point so I decided to wait until the following morning before I reported it to the supervisor.Well I had never told any other co-worker’s what I had observed until one of the other tellers’s said that she had been observing her taking money from the drawer. I asked this individual if she would be willing to go with me to talk to the supervisor she said she would go with me.
The important points of this dilemma to me would be the rule that as a teller we take an oath not to steal. In a certain circumstance stealing may bring about improved consequences than not stealing when it is in regards to an individual stealing to feed their family.Nevertheless, an individual should pass up stealing for the reason that there are laws and regulations that forbid stealing. The consequences for stealing in a workplace could lead to a major problem for instance prison time; this is a very serious dilemma.
Under this ethic an individual should bear in mind the act in its full context before any choice regarding the morals or rightness of the act can be established (Freeman, 2009). The way that this dilemma interconnected with my personal principles is that I do not believe in taking anything that something that does not belong to me.My parents raised me up with good morals and v stealing is just morally wrong and this ethic is one that makes me look down on individuals that do steal. I work hard for what I have and to have someone to take something away from me is wrong there is no explanation for this. However, there are circumstances that some individuals think can be justified for stealing. I previously stated that stealing to feed an individual’s family some feel this can be justified.
The first step I took to resolve this ethical dilemma was to first try taking time to observe the teller and then the next step would be to examine the consequences the teller would have to face. I had to think about the negative and positive repercussions linked to this dilemma. I had to determine would this teller be mad with me if she found out I was the one that went to the supervisor. At this point I could not keep this a secret I had to tell my supervisor the truth. This teller had violated the law when it came to moral principles.
I had to contemplate how I was going to report the teller to the supervisor. I did not want to get my coworker in trouble because I knew she was a single parent and had a child to feed but I had to do what I felt like was right. I could understand how mad she would be at me but I had to find a way to deal with it. I feel that if I had not said anything this would make me guilty as well.
I talked to the supervisor and she said they were going to start watching her carefully and eventually do an investigation. This way they could have proof and not just based on the words of other.My supervisor felt this would be the best way to handle the situation because with no proof this an individual could sue the company. At this point I felt better because I knew that eventually when an individual does wrong you can’t get by for long. The reason I thought this ethical dilemma had to be resolved is that it is wrong in several ways to steal from anybody but when working in a financial institution these employers have entrusted each teller with large amounts of money and it is up to the individual to take their job serious and not to be unethical.
