Employee ethics
Tom blogs it right on the head:
Before anything else made in the USA, this power to block things out is our most important product.
Yep. Chuck your ethics at the office door; no need for them inside. So say those who typically consider “professionalism” some sort of substitute.
Here I am in the pink-collar ghetto once again, despite emerging from it briefly. I bloody well hate the pink-collar ghetto. Inhumanly boring place. Still, it was my decision to come back, and Tom just reminded me why it was the right decision. What I do is boring, low-paid, and hard on my hands and eyes, but it’s useful, honest work that harms no one and compromises none of my ethical and professional principles.
Unintentionally I am sure, Tom also reminds me of one reason I refuse to have children. “Gotta take care of the fam-lee” is an all-too-common reason given for accepting unethical employment. I can imagine some wrenching decisions arising from this, and I sympathize with the dilemma even as I have taken pains to avoid it. I also have plenty of scorn reserved for slimy employers who exploit necessity.
Most times, though, I don’t see wrenching decisions being made, just facile excuses from people who could make better choices but refuse to. Whose phrase is “the banality of evil”? This is a living example.