Say you are walking through life, sort of minding your own business, but along the way you hear things. Not voices in your head, mind you, but you find out things about your fellow man that aren't...right.
What do you do?
I think the two most popular responses would be A.) Ignore it/don't get involved or B.) Depends on what it is.
So, if you knew that someone's spouse was cheating, would you tell them? If a doctor was writing prescriptions for pain pills to people who he had not examined, would you report him? What if someone's boyfriend was a drug dealer? Would you call the cops? If someone was stealing from their job or performing "other jobs" out of their place of business, would you tell the boss? Or how about if you found out that someone you knew had had sex with an underage person, would you confront them or call the police? Or lastly, if someone was lying in a court case, would you tell the courts?
See, THESE are real problems. These are the sort of things that SHOULD be reported to someone or people should be confronted about but 9 times out of 10, no one says a word. So many of us go about and want to gossip or complain about the petty stuff like "So and so doesn't like you" or "This one's kids are out of control" but the real stuff, the major stuff, then no one wants to say a word. It's okay to confront or hurt someone's feelings over things that are meaningless but when someone is really offensive and their behavior is morally wrong, then we choose to stay silent. Why is that? I mean, I am totally guilty of that and I think of the things that I KNOW, things that I was told about other people, and yet, I say nothing to the offensive people. I think that that makes me almost as bad as they are. At what point do you stand up and say enough?
What would you speak up about?
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3 comments:
I would speak up. And I have. My sister and I worked at the same place when we were in our 20's. I was the office manager. She was stealing company money to fund her wedding and honeymoon. I handed over all proof to my boss, he got the police involved, but wanted the guilty party to step forward and confess. All the staff knew it was her, yet she wouldn't confess. They all made her so uncomfortable she quit.
When it comes to underaged children I will speak up. Would I go automatically to the authorities? Not until I heard all their sides, simply because one thing these days is certain, there are two sides to every story.
Same with company theft. The minimum I can do and would, is go to the offender him/herself and see if it makes a difference. After that, it is hard to say. Depending on the situation.
It depends on the situation. If it is a safety issue or it involves children--yes, I say something. Otherwise, if it doesn't affect me, I don't worry about it. It is not my job to police the world and I don't want to get tangled up in someone else's mess. I don't need to add problems to my life.
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