It doesn't appear to be "black and white" in the authors PERSONAL OPINION. They are not the arbiters of morality, GOD IS.

Cherished, lets take your principles and apply them to a different situation.

Lets say that I knew that your bookkeeper was embezzling money from you. She stole thousands of dollars and left the country. You found out I KNEW this was going on and confronted me:

Cherished: "why didn't you tell me my bookkeeper was robbing me blind???"

Mel: "well, the bookkeeper told me that I shouldn't "meddle" in your life.

Then I read a book called "The Seven Signs of Ethical Collapse." What was surprising to me is that it doesn't appear to be black and white to people who are involved. It wasn't clear to me that I should expose to theft to you.

These things are just not black and white, after all."

Have you ever heard the saying that "evil thrives when good men stand silent?" You have FIRST HAND knowledge of the truth of this statement, yet you refuse to see it.

I didn't know there was an affair. Had I known, I would have called. As it was, I felt guilty for calling. I called because my husband said he would like to attend a party at his old department. I thought I was making a pre-emptive strike to keep them from reforming what seemed to me to be an inappropriate relationship.

As for the company, I didn't know if there was fraud. I left.

With my husband, my point is that it should not have taken what I went through for me to call the woman's husband. I should have left him long before he even met this woman.

And now? What do I do now? Do I go to authorities about this company when what I have is nothing more than two people saying things that seemed to indicate to me that this company was fraudulent in its practices?

The ethics book talked about a "Yeehaw Culture" and that's what it was. Sooner or later, it will catch up to them. In the few months I was there, the turnover in upper management was incredible -- head of HR, head of IT, head of PMO, head of one of the main operational groups... This is a company in free fall.

The ethics writer talked about the need for companies to set up a systematic way to prevent ethics violations within the company. She cited Boeing. The CEO of Boeing was having an affair, and that was reported through an anonymous compliance line. He was terminated.

When I raised an issue at the company, to three different people (two were direct conversations, and one was by email), it was dismissed (the conversations) and ignored (the email). I have nothing to report.

The author of the ethics book made it clear just how difficult it is for people to get out of business situations in which there appears to be a slippery slope to ethics violations, in part because of groupthink. Were they practicing fraud? Is this standard practice in this industry? I don't know. I just don't know. I didn't know my husband was having an affair, either.

I used to be in the black and white mindset. Now I no longer am. I see that people have different perspectives. I voted with my feet in leaving the company, and I wish I'd voted with my feet in leaving my husband.

I will say, however, I felt uncomfortable about calling to expose what I knew, and I still do. I also feel uncomfortable about having allowed myself to be taunted as I was. The IC who told me not to call told me later she thought he was having an affair but she also thought that his dropping little hints and insisting that I go to IC indicated to her he was just plain cruel, unable to understand the concept of care. Her goal was to get me to remove myself emotioanlly from him so I didn't end up with a nervous breakdown. Honestly, I don't think she was off the mark.

I woke up last night at 4 thinking about this. In the end, I think what I have been missing is self-respect. That lack of self-respect predates my relationship with my husband.

Cherished

PS. As for God and black and white thinking, I think there is indication to just leave. When the disciples are sent out to preach, they are told to preach and, if it is not heard, wipe the dust off their sandals and go on. There is such a thing as free will. I have the benefit, also, of trying to deal with four children who are in each other's business. I want them to be respectful of other people's decisions. For example, my daughter was told by a friend (M) that she could only play with her (M) if my daughter didn't play with two other friends (A and K). I told my daughter to tell her (M) that she would play with her (M) and she would play with the two other friends (A and K), and it was up to the friend (M) to decide what she wanted to do - did she want to play with my daughter or not.

anything fuzzy about your own words here???? Senior VP admits something is illegal... YOU contact the proper authorities and let them sort it out. Anything less than that is unethical.

as for your thoughts about how you used to look at things as black & white and now recognize different perspectives... that logic really sucks...where do you draw the line??? People have different perspectives on child abuse... so let's just let them have their point of view right. That point of view is what gets a million babies quartered and discarded in the trash in this country each year.
What it says to me is you don't have the balls to have the strength of your convictions....the ability to say that YOU will not tolerate something....hey the company wasn't stealing from YOU...so it is not your problem....the other BS..not your problem.

Leave the action up to others...you vote with your feet and bury your head in the sand. Remember when your head is in the sand the part of your anatomy that is sticking straight up.

MEDC,
"Yeehaw Culture" means there is so much chaos you don't know who is in charge of what. This guy had his own office, so he had some seniority. A title of Sr VP in this company may not have meant much. He had at least two direct reports and claimed to have others reporting to him.

Org charts would be nice. The most recent org chart was from September, and half the people were gone. Oh yea, head of marketing as well as head of HR, PMO, IT, and a major operational group. The head of customer service left the week after I did.

Something was unhealthy in that company, and I felt as though I needed to get out. I did find out, along the way in bringing up this issue, that they have instructions to not do something because it had been determined to be illegal. That heartened me. It may be that they were addressing legal issues but still not being ethical. I'm just not sure. It just didn't seem right. At minimum, they were being deceptive.

I did not view OWH as the other BS. I didn't know there was an affair going on. That's the whole point. Had I known, I would have informed him. Instead, he's the one who informed me. I told him what I knew of what I thought was an inappropriate friendship that he had ended months earlier but now wanted to restart by seeing her at a retirement party at his old department, and that's why I called OWH. OWH even brought up the possibility of an affair, and I said my husband would never have an affair. Do a search on MB and you'll see my very first post on MB just a few days before I called OWH:

"I am not getting over it. He is definitely not seeing her again and is committed to not seeing her again, and I am stuck. I don't really want to be around him. We have four small children. What do I do?"

OWH got the truth out of his wife and then told me. You would not believe my reaction. I practically had a nervous breakdown. I ended up spending a week in California with my sister. I was out of my mind for months on end.

My hands are full today. Today I learned my husband had accidentally put money into dependent child care that should have gone to medical care to pay for our daughter's orthodonic care. Now what? How do we pay those bills? That was a $3,500 mistake.

I need to leave that company in my past. Something smelled and I didn't need that in addition to everything else in my life.

As for my husband, I am ambivalent. When I married him, I was smitten. I thought he was the most caring person I had ever met, and I felt as though my love for him was so great that nothing could ever destroy it. That love is now completely gone. It's sad.

So tell me that I was wrong not to call the OWH, but what I was was naive. I never thought my husband would have an affair. What problems were in our marriage I thought were 100% my fault. I went to individual counseling because of being so upset about his relationship with this woman.

As for the company, why would I stay in it and try to figure out what was going on. I felt uncomfortable, almost unwashed. Why would I stay around?

Please appreciate that, just a few weeks ago, my husband yelled "I hate you" at me within earshot of the kids. Our 13 year old we found sobbing.

Cherished

the company...no one said you should stay in it. I said to let the authorities sort out the issue. You were given information about a crime being committed...it is your job to pass it on...I never said you needed to be a mole and gather more information. Just report what you knew and move on.

As far as your family goes... I was responding to you saying that exposure to the other BS is not black & white. It is...

There are ways around the issue of the expense account. They may not be legal but I see no ethical problem with them and since it was nothing more than a mistake, I would not let that $3500 just disappear.

MEDC,
What are the issues around the expense account? We put money in the wrong account. I don't think there is any way to use dependent day care account money to pay for braces.

I did expose to the OWH what I knew but it was because I thought my husband was considering rekindling a friendship. He had told me not to meddle in their marriage, and so had the IC. I regret not having called the OWH, but I was not in my right mind and knew it. I had medical problems which turned out to be severe enough for surgery. I was having severe night sweats, waking up several times per night and changing my nightgown. It turns out I needed a hysterectomy. The medical problems, I was told, affected mental health. I had just had our last baby and, to top it off, she had colic. It was a very confusing time. I'm not excusing my behavior. Looking back, I wish I had called, but what I have tried to say in this thread is that I do not have responsibility for my husband's choice to have an affair because I didn't call. He once said to me, "You knew something was going on, and you didn't do anything." How sad. I bought into that. I felt guilty for not having called, even under the circumstances. I went to an IC who advised against it. I talked to him who said it would be wrong to do so. I talked to a priest who said I needed to move on. And I knew that I was mentally unbalanced at the time. It's very difficult to make a decision when a medical doctor is telling you the condition you have causes hormonal fluctuations, and you are changing your nightgown becaue of the medical condition.

As for the company, I'll see if there is a compliance line for medical care.

Cherished

it is my understanding the money can be paid to ANY person that provides care to your child.

So, a family member can typically be paid for that care. So, your sister, mother, father...etc... can be paid for that care. The only loss you might incur is if there are any taxes due for the "income" provided to the care giver. I would pick the person with the lowest tax bracket to make this happen.

The problem is that we don't need to pay for child care. We need to pay for braces. I see what you mean about us figuring out how to pay for child care by paying a family member, but there is still the problem that we have no funds set aside for braces. It's sticky.

But that's the way that it is.

Cherished