cyberjosh
Member
Morals without atleast a little good theology aren't the best morals, so I would like to appeal a few of my thoughts and questions to you here.
I have something in specific that I had a question on now, but I plan to put forth other moral questions later, so this will not be a limited scope topic.
As for my current (though looking at it in retrospect) moral debacle/question:
I have significantly eased my conscience about this issue but the the tantalizing question is "was it enough?" crops up.
Ok here was my situation:
At work I was asked to go pick up some labels for our company at a business in town. Now I'm not old enough to drive the company car, so I use my own car. The company (IMC, where I work) always gives gas money to the people it sends out. So I asked Gail, who handles our expenses for some gas money before I left and she handed me a $20 bill. I looked at it kind of wide eyed because the town I was going to was only 20-25 miles away and that was way too much money for compensation. I looked at her and said, "Are you sure, that's alot of money for gas." She said to just take it, so I did. On the way back from town I got into a philosophical/moral mood and started debating if I should give the money back, because it still made me uncomfortable. It's just like if a cashier gives you too much money for change, the honest thing to do is to tell them about it and give it back. I'm not a greedy person and I don't like exploiting even things offered to me, so I started wondering on this. I resolved at the end of it all that I would take only $6 for gas and give the other $14 back. Now in all truth I'll bet I only burned $4 worth of gas. Although I know I did the right thing in giving most of the money back, what about the other $2?
Is it good business ethics to pay only dime-for-dime an expense, or is it acceptable to give people a little more than they spent in compensation? I kinda look at the last one as a "money for your trouble" type of compensation, and I know typically that IMC would do this, and has done it. Is it common among other businesses to give a slightly larger sum in return for a personal expense (my car's gas in this instance) while conducting business?
And I also think another key player in my thought process was amount of money. To most people, a couple dollars, $5 or less, isn't alot (some people could care less about a few bucks), and then around ten its a little more valueable, at twenty even more so. etc etc. I tend (and most people also) to look at this along an exponential curve. So at what point (in dollar amount or proportion) would you be accepting more than is reasonable or fair compensation? Say I had only taken $5 instead, say I had taken $7.
Am I taking this out of proportion or.....? Just a interesting moral question. Please tell me your thoughts...
I have something in specific that I had a question on now, but I plan to put forth other moral questions later, so this will not be a limited scope topic.
As for my current (though looking at it in retrospect) moral debacle/question:
I have significantly eased my conscience about this issue but the the tantalizing question is "was it enough?" crops up.
Ok here was my situation:
At work I was asked to go pick up some labels for our company at a business in town. Now I'm not old enough to drive the company car, so I use my own car. The company (IMC, where I work) always gives gas money to the people it sends out. So I asked Gail, who handles our expenses for some gas money before I left and she handed me a $20 bill. I looked at it kind of wide eyed because the town I was going to was only 20-25 miles away and that was way too much money for compensation. I looked at her and said, "Are you sure, that's alot of money for gas." She said to just take it, so I did. On the way back from town I got into a philosophical/moral mood and started debating if I should give the money back, because it still made me uncomfortable. It's just like if a cashier gives you too much money for change, the honest thing to do is to tell them about it and give it back. I'm not a greedy person and I don't like exploiting even things offered to me, so I started wondering on this. I resolved at the end of it all that I would take only $6 for gas and give the other $14 back. Now in all truth I'll bet I only burned $4 worth of gas. Although I know I did the right thing in giving most of the money back, what about the other $2?
Is it good business ethics to pay only dime-for-dime an expense, or is it acceptable to give people a little more than they spent in compensation? I kinda look at the last one as a "money for your trouble" type of compensation, and I know typically that IMC would do this, and has done it. Is it common among other businesses to give a slightly larger sum in return for a personal expense (my car's gas in this instance) while conducting business?
And I also think another key player in my thought process was amount of money. To most people, a couple dollars, $5 or less, isn't alot (some people could care less about a few bucks), and then around ten its a little more valueable, at twenty even more so. etc etc. I tend (and most people also) to look at this along an exponential curve. So at what point (in dollar amount or proportion) would you be accepting more than is reasonable or fair compensation? Say I had only taken $5 instead, say I had taken $7.
Am I taking this out of proportion or.....? Just a interesting moral question. Please tell me your thoughts...
