“Never bite the hand that feeds you” is a wise and old saying. However, it’s easy to get caught in complacency, and taking your work for granted. You start a new job full of vigor and then get comfortable. After a while, you think, “Why ain’t I getting what my boss is getting?” That’s when you fall into the trap of biting back against your perceived slights.
Now you may ask yourself, what does the saying mean? Sometimes it’s as simple as complaining about your boss and co-workers. Or their bosses and other supervisors. This can cause a negative workplace culture. But you can also go into petty theft. After all, no one’s going to notice a stapler gone missing. Then maybe you take off early. Frequently. Like every Tuesday… because you can.
Now I’ve never done this… no, nay, never, but let’s just say this happened to a friend of mine. Once upon a time, my friend was a glorified secretary. He was productive, got his work done ahead of time, and was a good worker. However, he was a little too efficient. He had nothing to do by the end of the week. Then he noticed that because he worked with a lot of consultants, no one was there on Friday. He worked for several different bosses, so none of them knew where he was supposed to be at any given time. So he started leaving on Friday afternoons. After a year, he stopped showing up on Friday altogether.
Let’s take another friend of mine. She was a travelling consultant and one of the cool things about travelling for work is that you get reimbursed for your expenses, as long as you have receipts. Then after the second report, where she got rejected for several minor details, she had to pay out of pocket for things she did while on the job. So it didn’t take much to manipulate a screenshot of a receipt, change the numbers so they all looked correct, and no one was the wiser. Then she added more to that number than she actually spent; still under the limit, but way more than was purchased.
The most outrageous example was go-live week. When you work on a software project, my friend would say that all hands needed to be on deck for a couple weeks after it goes live, so that you can help the poor souls who have to use the software you developed. Except there was one project where there were too many people on deck; my friend was just standing there in a sea of support people and couldn’t do a thing to help. So he left. The boss was too busy to notice he wasn’t there so he spent the next week doing whatever he wanted, and got paid for it. The following week, instead of showing up for work, he spent the week in New Orleans… and got paid for it.
Now, are these good things? No. Was anyone harmed? No. However, they did exploit the system and cost the company money, even though they didn’t notice. Now my friends justified their moves by saying, “they’re making double what they pay me” or “they get paid the full limit for reimbursement whether I use it or not.” But these are just excuses. You are defrauding your employer and breaking their trust. On one hand, I can admire their audacity, on the other, I am appalled at their lack of insight. Because sooner or later, biting the hand that feeds you also bites you, even if no one catches you. It instills a bad behavior pattern that affects all parts of your life, not just work.
What do we owe our employer? But more importantly, what do we owe ourselves? These are issues that I certainly cover in my books, and I’d encourage you to read them. I’ve written in a variety of genres. The beauty of fiction is that it allows to explore issues that we may be too close to in order to appreciate the complexities that come with day-to-day life. It’s only when we see it through a friend’s eyes that we’re able to appreciate the morality behind it.
Albigensia Press 