Personal Narrave
Personal Narrative
Shana Lawson
BUSI 309 Business Ethics
Strayer University
Professor: Molaski
07/17/2023
Personal Narrave
Personal Narrative
"To tell or not to tell" that was the question? When unethical situations happen what does
one do? Do we look the other way, or do we call it out? well I feel like if the unethical and it
keeps happening and if it affects me or affects anyone for that matter than it is my responsibility
to take proper action. In this story I will explain how I managed the situation that left me
pondering for years on whether I did the right thing or not and my battle with my feelings toward
the other person.
In my early twenties I took a job at a local hotel as a front desk clerk and my boss
happens to be an old high school friend of mine that I highly respected and looked up to in
school. This job was supposed to be my dream job. as I was enjoying learning the ropes and
getting the feel of how a hotel works I kind of let my guard down since my boss and I were good
friends I assumed I could so after about 2 months I started noticing that something was not right
about the paper work and the room changes on my shift rooms being dirty that was never rented
out and paper work that was missing deposits so that when I started paying more attention to
what was going on around me. one day a housekeeper had taken a sick day and my friend had
asked me if I could come in and help her out since she was shorthanded so I went into work and
as I was clocking in I had heard my boss tell one of the other employees to go inspect a room and
to let her know if it had been smoked in and she told the girl to make sure she smelled smoke and
the employee came back and said yes the room smelled like someone had smoked in a
nonsmoking room. later I went to that same room and smelled no smoke the room almost looked
like no one had even slept on it, so what had happen was my boss refused the guest his cash
Personal Narrave
deposit back for the room since it smelled like smoke that meant he must have smoked in a non-
smoking room so she held his deposit for the cleanup fee. after a few weeks I had noticed that
she had kept a lot of room deposits from the customers due to the same smoke smell in their
rooms as I was doing my paper work at the end of my shift one night I noticed that a customer’s
room deposit sheet was in a envelop but the money was there so I call my friend and asked her
where the deposit was she stated I don’t know. what was I to say she was my boss. After that
night money was still missing and innocent employees started losing their jobs for stealing or as
she would call it misplaced money. that when I noticed that money was getting gone from my
shift as well. I confronted my boss about all the deposits that had not been given back to
customers for a lie that were made up and that she even had her employees lying about what the
rooms smelled like. My boss was stealing money right in front of me. My feelings were very
hurt, and my emotions were everywhere. This is a person that I had always looked up to. The
person I most respected sitting here stealing money from innocent customers and from the very
own company that I worked for. So that is when I had to dig deep inside of my own feelings and
thoughts to do the right thing. I felt as if I was being pulled in many different directions. When
she realized that I could not just stand by and watch her take away innocent employees’ jobs that
did no wrong just to cover her own bad decisions, that is when she thought that she needed to get
rid of me before I acted. Well, it was too late. I had already seen and heard all that I could as I
clocked out a couple of nights before I had already been in contact with the owners of the hotel
and told them everything that I had seen and heard and gave them all the paperwork for proof.
They had no clue that she had been charging a cash room deposit. She had been working for this
company for five years before I was hired and charged $80.00 cash deposits for each room
Personal Narrave
rented and half of those deposits were never refunded back to the guest. They were refunded to
her own pocket.
My reasons to why this is unethical to me well stealing is very unethical, having other
employees lie and state that the room smelled like something it didn’t just so that she could keep
the money un unethical so you have stealing and lying all wrapped in one and intimidating others
isn’t very ethical either, she intimidate her employees to state something that was untrue. So, in
my eyes my boss was being very unethical when she was commenting on this thing. inconclusion
stealing and lying is unethical a person that has no feelings of how their actions will hurt another
person is unethical. So, my boss stealing and lying not only cost her career she also cost other
employees their jobs by her poor judgement. She also lost the respect that she had by many. Now
sometimes I even second guess my judgement of others even before I know their own story.
Taking something that does not belong to you and telling a lie to cover it is very unethical and
the fact that she hurt so many people in the process is why I asked myself that question on that
day "To tell or not to tell? That is the question and I have a simple answer yes do tell because if
you cover for someone that is doing unethical things then that makes you just as guilty as the
person doing the unethical thing.
