Honesty

This thought is about a time in my life on the job when I tried to do what I thought was right. I was working on what we called Ship Side Support. We had jobs come to us from the factory workers to try and make the processes of building our product better or improve our drawings. There was a team of about 5 or 6 engineers. I realized my team members would hold jobs open after they were completed to make the work load look bigger than it was. This way our team leader would justify working the weekend for overtime. Then they would come in on the weekend and close out out these finished jobs. As I was looking thru the computer and I'd see a job was done, I'd close it out. To me to hold the jobs open to justify overtime was dishonest and I wouldn't do it. I would close out every job I found that was completed and I messed up the overtime other members on the team were expecting. I didn't last on this team. The team lead lied about me and said I wasn't doing what I was suppose to do. I was sent back to the main group in the office towers to what we called project. It upset me at the time because I knew why and I knew I was trying to do what my supervisor asked me to do. The supervisor asked me to work the freighter jobs first unless there were none. The other team members were grabbing the freighter jobs first and all I had left were the other jobs. I told the lead what the boss wanted me to do, but the lead told the boss that I was refusing to work freighter jobs. I was upset at the time because I knew what it was about. I was closing out jobs that were finished and messing up their overtime justification. I really was trying to be honest and ethical on the job, but sometimes that doesn't set well with others that feel it is OK to lie and cheat to justify their overtime. I got over it and realized some time later that while I was still working for the company, the lead was no longer employed by them. I don't know what happened but I suspect his lies eventually caught up with him.
Sometimes doing the right thing can cause us trouble in the short term but I believe in the long haul it pays off. I worked with a lot of others that took the high road as we used to call it, and it was a pleasure working with them. This ethics training that the company would give us every year was pretty much the same stuff I was taught in Sunday School as a child and on up. I found it interesting to see a company spend so much time and money on ethics training. On the other hand, I found even Church people sometimes felt it OK to fudge on taxes or other things. Other times I would try to find work when things were slow and I did what we would call a look ahead. It proved to be very beneficial to the company later on and at one time I received a $500 award. I was just trying to keep busy. One time on a salary job, I was in an office on Second shift by myself and when my work was finished I would find stacks of drawings that needed to be stamped. It was a job that was normally done by the office clerk. I was just trying to keep busy. The office clerks husband was an engineering supervisor, and she had told her husband about this Planner that was doing her work on Second shift. Sometime later this engineering supervisor needed more people and I was offered a job on his team.
Honesty has paid off for me more than once. Let your yea be yea and your nay a nay.  God bless, LVZ.