The feeling of filling an application form is good enough to dampen my spirits as it reminds me of all the legendary forms that I have filled in my not so short life span. It is quite a boring title to write a review upon as well. This review of mine is not exactly realted to the topic listed above, so here’s what brought me here:
Let me begin with a recent experience of mine.
I senior guy in my team had interviewed a software developer couple of months ago, shortlisted him on his theoritical background, with some reservations, and we went on to hire him in our team. The intent was that we will coach him on his gap areas and allocate his duties to a client project. The gentleman joined us last month and once the joining formalities were done with(mind you the poor guy had to fill a dozen forms here too), we started executing what we had planned for.
His performance over the last months was inconsistent and at times pathetic. We often found him not able to solve normal code issues, something every developer with 1-2 years of experience would do. Slightly perturbed with his progress, I decided, along with my manager decided to investigate his background, although our HR department had already done the needful and given him clean chit. On some grilling he confessed that he had "fudged" his CV, citing 3.5 years of experience in the relevant tools / technology, where as the actual figure was 7 months. The rest of the time was spent in a different role in IT, irrelevant to our needs. He went on to disclose that the company that covers the difference of 3 years, as shown in his resume, is a shop in Hyderabad called "Proxy Techlonogies"(what an apt name!). They were the ones who had "doctored" his CV, provided him fake salary slips and answered all calls by our HR team for reference checks. What and organised crime!
While my organisation decides what to do about the fraud and how to avoid such cases in future, I have definately become wiser. This brought the bigger issue of Professional Ethics in my mind.
This is just one of the many ethics related instances that I have come across in the last few years of my experience. I am sure I am one of the many who have had similar(or worse) experience.
Ethics: What does it mean?
I understand it as the part of one’s personality that deals with our moral philosophy i.e. what is right in a situation keeping the interests of all those possibly affected in mind, without any bias towards one’s own self. Tough to apply, as it may sound, I have been closely associated with people who treat ethics as the most important aspect of their character. It is something that can come out of one’s own self.
Why is it important?
Consider this first.There are rules and regulations governing almost everything that we do or can do. The need for defining these rules and regulations arose because it was necessary to ensure that no one misuses any power he / she gets. Misuse of power would lead to compromising the valid interests of those affected by the misuse. There are regulations to check such misuse, and those found guilty are penalised in appropriate manner.
We can not possibly have rules and regualtions defined for each and every action that each and every human can conduct. There can only be general guidelines, and one has to decide the best(and ethical) course of action for himself. Thaat is where ethics comes in, and nothing but one’s conscience can regulate it. **If one has a weak conscience, he/she would be low on ethics as well.
If all of us were to become unethical, we would make the world an extension of hell, and the devil would rejoice with the addition of some real estate to his property.
*How would one be sure that he/she is ethical in his mannerisms?
The simple rule is - one must ensure that every action by him/her is fair to the overall community, to humanity and even to all life forms. In other words one should never try to bend rules to favor himself or someone else whom he wants, at the expense of others, and deviate from fairness. Its a thin line but one’s conscience recognises it.
*Is that all? What if one finds a someone else breaching the thin line?
Watching the thin line being breached is tantamount to breaching it by ownself. At least that’s what I live with. In such circumstances, one must still act. Inform those affected if one can not get the offender to mend his / her ways. This is one way to regulate violation of ethics. Unfortunately, few people bother to take up a cause as long as it does not rub them on the wrong side.
No one bothers, so why should I?
Those who want to stand out of the crowd would. And as I said earlier, the stronger your conscience is, the more you would bother about it. This review is not for anyone who does not employ his / her conscience well, as none of this would make sense to him/her.
I am not citing more examples where people tend to be low on ethics. All of us, I am sure, have a good idea of them.
PS.
1.If Anu Malik reads this, he would comment saying that his works are pure "inspiration" and he has always abided by rules of ethics.
2.If Parvez Musharraf reads this he would say that all fair in love and war hence he is entitled to keep the prisoners of war with him. Bin Laden may say similar things.
.you see ethics are there for those who realise, others are hell bent on spoiling our habitat.