Currently I’m in a bit of a pickle at work, and I am unsure of what to do about it. I am caught in, what I see as anyway, a question of moral integrity and my desperation to please other people. Allow me to explain in detail the circumstances of my situation: Late Monday night/early Tuesday morning (I work the night shift at a local grocery store, for those otherwise unaware) I stumbled upon two of my fellow employees selling and smoking pot at work. Now it’s no secret they are both hardcore druggies, with one even having served time in jail on drug charges. Both of them hardly ever contribute to the workplace anymore, as they are often making trips to the bathroom to conduct business that apparently pays more than we make doing what the store pays us to do. However this is the first time I have found solid proof of these activities. And neither of them care much for me, as we have absolutely nothing in common. My lack of interest in drugs, partying, and using women for sex vastly differentiate me from them (as well as my ability to use words like that, when I do they just look at me like I have two heads). So since we are so different they like to pick on me, bully might be a more fitting word for the situation at times. Herein lies my conundrum: Do I report them for something I know is wrong and in doing so risk making my job that much harder by solidifying my reputation as a buzz-killing tattletale and possibly amplifying the bullying I already endure? Or should I overlook the situation and accept that it is something I will inevitably encounter in my life, and just look the other way (which I am hoping may improve my chances of them liking me a little more). Now I am not totally stupid in thinking that not reporting this will make them my friends, but I also don’t want them to have it out for me because I got them in trouble. I know what I saw was wrong. I know I should report it. I did alert a fellow employee who comes in every morning to do the receiving of shipments. He knows both of these people, and he knows they are both good-for-nothing drug addicts, he just laughed it off. I also called and spoke with our interim manager for the day, but he doesn’t work at our location regularly so no one really knows about it. So what do you all think I should do about this? I need advice, insight, stories of experience, or anything else that may offer me some guidance on the subject. Please…
Well I think you should do what feels right to you but I understand that doing so may cause more friction. It's not fun going to work and feeling like you're an outcast so you sort of have to decide what you can live with... going against what you feel is right or making life at work easier. I also feel like you've already done your part by alerting the manager and another employee so in reality you have done you part and what they choose to do with the information is u to them now. If you feel like you need to do more, maybe you could suggest a surprise visit when maybe they could be caught in the act my someone who has the authority to ask on what they see. Hope this helps.
Depends on the scenario: Reporting to Manager/Owner of the Store To be practical, whether or not you should do this depends on the 'tone at the top', in my opinion. If you know that the people you're going to report to (managers or owners of the grocery store) are people who won't care much and would just give them a simple warning, I would advise against it. This is because, they'd probably let them go easy, and they might figure out it is you who reported them which would make your life a lot harder and you would have accomplished nothing. However, if you know that the managers/owners are have a zero-tolerance policy on this and would take this seriously which would result in a police investigation and get them fired, then I suppose you should do it out of your conscience. Reporting to the Police If they are doing something illegal (drug trafficking), and you have strong evidence of it, then you can also report to the police. But again, if the managers/owners do not care much about ethics and integrity, they might blame you for reporting to the police which would make your job a lot harder. So in the end, yeah, tough decision... I would say the biggest factor is to see if you would have support from other co-workers, managers or owners.
If you care about your *employer* (i.e, the company you work for) and want to keep your workplace the sort of place where customers (the kind of customers your business likely wants) coming to shop there, and thus keep you employed... you owe it to yourself and your employer to tell the manager what's going on. It may also help to solidify you as someone who cares about the company which, if you want to get promoted within the company, can only help you. People who are screwing around at work and not doing their jobs are making more work for everyone else who *is* doing their job, having a negative effect on morale, and also impacting the bottom line of the store. In other words, they are takers, not givers, who care only about themselves and earning a paycheck. I absolutely believe you should report them. If you explain it to the store manager in a way similar to the above (in the context of how it affects the store, the other employees, etc.), you will set yourself out as someone who cares, and hopefully also make it clear this isn't anything personal against the employees, but that you feel like it's the right thing to do.
