Workplace Ethics Paper

Workplace Ethics

Working for a large corporation can have a lot of pros and cons and one of the negative things that works against the company is workplace ethics. Who determines what is right and wrong in a business? Who determines the course of action to take should there be an unethical situation?

I recently was laid off from a large bank that I was a full-time employee at for over five years. I started working for Merrill Lynch in August 2009 in a position that I was over-qualified for. I was looking to get out of retail banking and start a career in an office setting on the operations side of lending and mortgage servicing. I didn't realize the ethical issues there were within the company. I was always a top performer and my resume was

The position was for the Loss Mitigation team; however, my mother also worked as a manager of the Collections Division for the same company, within the same building. I was unable to use her as a reference so I used some of her colleagues that were well known to me like any other applicant would do when being referred for a position. My intentions were never to obtain a position based on who I knew but apparently it happened. I was offered a competitive salary for a job that I was over-qualified to do. It didn't seem like a bad choice as it was what I was looking for, a shoe in. During all interviews I did not mention my mother working for the company as I would not work within the same department as her; however, I did disclose this information on my application. I wanted to obtain the job based on my qualifications, education, and experience. Luckily for me I was well qualified to handle the job because word spread quickly that I applied for the position. After a ten minute phone interview I was offered the job. It all seemed too good to be true. I was later told that my application and resume was pulled for

This was rewarding for me since I already put the nepotistic pieces of the puzzle together. Three months later I was selected to become a member of the traveling Loss Mitigation team based on my performance with negotiating loan modifications. After a year of traveling and the bank being acquired by Bank of America, I applied for another position within the company. I was interviewed by the Unit Manager of the department and was offered the job for the Downtown Pittsburgh location on the spot. He mentioned that the management team under him were either out of the office or busy and he didn't want to take a chance of me taking another position. It turns out that this was the best thing that could have happened because one of the managers that reported to him did not like my mother because of the competitiveness this particular manager and my mother had when the previously worked together. Again, this was listed on my application and I know if it was seen that I would have been intentionally overlooked rather than being hired based on my qualifications and meritocracy. It turned out that the manager and I worked exceptionally well with each other because my work ethics, professional approach to business operations, my wealth of knowledge and my team-leading