Most large corporations are built on a ‘leadership’ model that borrows heavily from the military idea of Chain of Command.
The top gives orders, which are followed with increasing levels of detail the further down the chain one goes.
The trouble is that the orders aren’t always proper – or even, in some cases, legal.
Non-disclosure agreements and general embarrassment often keep people from telling these stories but Redditor SethmAR15 decided to use the anonymity of Reddit to ask:
“What’s the most unethical thing a boss has ever asked you to do?”
Someone needed a break.
“Many, many years ago I was working as a part-time mechanic for a guy selling ‘restored cars’.”
“He called me in for an emergency brake repair on a TR-4.”
“One of the rear wheel cylinders had failed and he needed it fixed ASAP.”
“He had a buyer lined up with cash.”
“Instead of having me hone and rebuild the cylinder properly (I had the tools and the kit to do so) he wanted me to cut the pipe to the rear brakes and just crimp it over onto itself, enough to stop the leak.”
“He was in a hurry and wanted it fixed before the customer saw anything.”
“I fixed it properly anyway, so that no one would die, and then rolled my toolbox out of there that very night.” ~ limeycars
The benefit of the doubt.
“Also at Dollar Tree, most of my cashiers were teenagers or dipshits that never showed up for work so this older Korean woman kept getting called in to work the register.”
“She was pretty much getting 40+ hours every week and open season for benefits was getting ready to start.”
“My district manager called me and told me I had to convince her to not get any benefits or else.”
“I told him that else better be him doing that shit himself because I’m not about to do his dirty work.” ~Sol-Blackguy
An executive decision.
“Not me but my dad’s story.”
“1980’s.”
“My dad worked at a small mid-western bank as an executive.”
“One day a fellow executive comes in with several loan applications and says he needs them all approved.”
“My dad looks over them quickly and immediately realizes none of the applicants qualified.”
“If they approved them the loans would go into default within three months and these people would lose their farms.”
“My dad said it wasn’t possible.”
“The other exec says ‘well if you just fudge the numbers it is.’ My father tells him that’s impossible because other exec never walked into his office and they never had this conversation.”
“The other exec nods and takes the papers back.”
“Six months later the FBI raids the bank.”
“My father was the only exec who didn’t go to prison for fraud.” ~ BlackStarCorona
We’re trying to contact you about your car’s extended warranty.
“Similar but different.”
“As a teen, I worked at a car dealership in the service department.”
“At the time, there was a major recall for transmission repairs.”
“They would do fake warranty repair orders on cars that did not need it and came in for other reasons, and bill the manufacturer accordingly.”
“They had to order replacement parts to continue the fraud, and would tell me to take them to a storage room above the parts department.”
“It so happened on my last day there, an auditor was on site for routine audit stuff.”
“In the break room I told him what I knew and left.”
“Fast forward 3 months and the dealership was closed.”
“I probably wouldn’t have said anything if my boss hadn’t been such a dick when I asked for time off to attend my grandfather’s funeral.”
“He thought I was lying and I had to bring in the obit (pre-internet) to keep my job.” ~ RunMelba
Dollar Tree doesn’t play around!
“My old boss at dollar tree would make me drive her to the bank in my car every night.”
“And she would have me park like 10 feet back from the ATM while she walked up to it.”
“She told me that if someone ever tried to run up on her while she was depositing the money I had to run them over.”
“She said if they were too close to her to just hit her as well.”
“She was incredibly adamant that I absolutely HAD to do this and very serious.” ~ durkinbrowns
Expiration dates are suggestions, right?
“Back in a butcher shop portion of a grocery store I worked at.”
“The supervisor asked me to change the date on some burger that wasn’t selling.”
“The day she asked me to do this was the sell-by-date.”
“I even asked her if that was safe/legal.”
“She just tapped her name tag that said supervisor on it and said that was the only thing I needed to worry about.”
“I put new tags on all of the packages while she was there but I didn’t put them on the shelves.”
“After she left for the night I found the store manager and showed him.”
“I showed him the old tags, which were just under the new tags so it was easy to pull them back and prove it. He had me toss the burger down the trash chute and my supervisor was gone from the store by the end of the week.” ~ Nerdfatha
There are always more workers.
“Keep people at work when there was a chemical leak from the car painting shop next door, and people were getting sick.”
“The boss wasn’t on-site (almost never was), I tried calling him and got no answer, and I was the most senior worker on-site so I sent everyone home.”
“When I was almost home (1h+ commute) he called me back.”
“He had gotten my voicemail where I explained the situation and he was not happy.”
“Apparently we should have waited it out or I should have arranged for everyone to work from home (not possible).”
“The guy was a dickhead but this one still makes me angry when I think about it.” ~ipakookapi
Seeing is believing?
“Branch Manager (Banking) asked me to pose in a picture, showing a lot of cleavage, to use on his construction loan website for his builders.”
“He wanted them to ‘see’ who they would be working with in a daily basis so he could get more business.” ~ Hchel25
This sounds like an episode of the Sopranos.
“I had a boss ask to me take a bunch of stock from the warehouse to his personal storage unit, and not to ask any questions …” ~ TJDigital_
What’s a little illegal dumping between coworkers?
“Loaded unknown chemicals into the nose of tractor trailers for out of state transport.”
“I’m sure it was all illegally dumped. Just out of HS I had no idea the scope of what was happening.”
“Nothing was labeled, containers, trailers and manifests all claimed empty containers.” ~ Reddit
It can be very easy to just do what you’re told, to just follow the orders.
Remember though that actions have consequences and to be wary of anyone trying to slide those consequences off their shoulders—and on to yours.