What I Learned From The Crooks And The Cheats!

I have always thought of myself as a pretty ethical person.  The decision to not cheat on a test isn’t one I have to think about for very long. For me, ethics has always meant doing what makes the most sense.  If someone acts ethically, he or she is also acting out of common sense. Before my ethics class started, I was very aware of the people in this world who don’t have any sort of internal ethics. When looking at different case studies, to me, it’s extremely clear to see if someone is acting ethically or not.  Unfortunately, many people in this world are crooks who don’t possess any sort of moral compass.  I’m not sure if I would consider this an ‘oh wow” moment but it certainly is depressing.  This ethics class discussed case, after case, after case, of people being idiots. I’m not going to lie, the existence of some of these idiots has made the job of a public relations professional pretty interesting and, at times, exciting.  Cleaning up people’s mess is simply the nature of the beast, but someone’s got to do it.  What I got out of talking about all these cheaters and crooks was anyone could be one.

Without a doubt, I’m going to walk away from this class with a different perspective of the leadership I work under in the professional world.  Just because someone is my boss doesn’t mean he or she knows how to act ethically. The issue that I have to tackle with as I start my professional career is to not be so trusting.  I say that I have a lot of personal ethics and can see what is right or wrong easily, however, if my boss is telling me to do something, it’s hard for me to even consider it as unethical.  I justify it by saying to myself, “Why would someone ask me to do something unethical?” 

This class has helped me put things into perspective and encourage me to use my own personal ethics rather than trusting in the ethics of my superiors.