Chris and Allison Weston

The case Chris and Allison is a perfect example of how ones actions and ones
intentions can have a substantial gap. Here Chris and Allison misused the power
given in their hands to gain monetarily and paid the price for the same.
Chris was an ambitious man who wanted to climb the corporate ladder as fast as
could. He was ambitious. His wife Allison, was a very simple person who was very
family oriented. Allison, so that Chris could pursue his careers dream did not
consider working even though she had a professional experience. The case starts
by telling us about the new job opportunity that Chris had bagged in Phoenix. It
was a great job with great salary and even though the working hours used to extend
sometimes, but Chris loved this job. At his new firm, Chris had a role of human
relations and labor relations manager. He had to take care of the new openings and
the skill requirements of the firm. It is written in the case study that Chris was
given a lot of power by the company so that he can make things happen and that
too at a very fast pace. His firm had a lot of openings in many different sectors due
to which Chris was constantly in talks with many human resource procurement
agencies. And this is the time when he got the idea, the idea which eventually
landed him and his wife, Allison, in jail. The idea was to open a firm of their own
which would provide research analysis to Chriss firm for hiring new people.
Given Allisons background it was not a problem for her to manager and run such a
firm. So they started a firm named Staffing Resources. The extra money was
good and also by running this firm Allison was able to take control of her corporate
life. Its not like she had regrets for not doing it, but it was something that she
wanted to do. The work was normal at first, and Allison used to get paid quarterly
by Chriss firm by Chris signing off her invoices. But after sometime the work that
Allisons firm used to do became less and less even though they were billed for
much larger quantities work. Chris and Allison both knew what was happening but
both of them let it happen as both of them had convinced themselves of what they
were doing was not wrong. But as the case tells us, they could not have been more
wrong. This actions of theirs, i.e. billing for more than what they were doing which

was technically fraud, landed them in prison. This changes their lives and the lives
of the people attached to them.

This case poses a lot ethical and moral dilemmas for the reader. Some may say
what Chris and Alisson did was not wrong, but what they did was also definitely
not right. As per the case, these two billed for over million dollars for which they
might had not worked. When Chris and Allison started Staffing Resources they
didnt do it with an intention to commit fraud. Their intentions at the start were to
earn more for the family and at the same time while doing so create job or a sense
of involvement for Allison. It was only in due time that the two got side tracked
and started billing for more than what they had actually done. Chris, being the
person in charge of all such transactions at his firm, was drunk in power and
thought that everything will be fine. And even if anything were to happen in future
he would take care of it as he was in such a position to do so. Here the couple were
faced with ethical, social and moral dilemmas, but they chose the wrong way out
of them by justifying their actions with even more bad examples from Chriss firm.
One such example that Chris mentioned was of a deceased worker whose life
worth was reduced jokingly by a top executive from $100,000 to $50,000 when
Chris had to give the claim to the deceased wife and daughter. Chris thought that
he was working in a culture where wrong doings and crossing-the-line were just
a part of the job. And hence he justified to himself and his wife that if they are
doing anything wrong it were definitely less wrong as compared to what was
already happening in the firm. One of the other factors that made the couple to
continue what they were doing was that they thought they had actually earned the
extra income because of the extra working hours that they had actually put in.
During the initial days of their own business they had put in a lot of effort and
extra hours which was directly affecting their personal and professional lives,
hence they justified the extra money as the reimbursement of the same.

Conclusion:
Chris and Alisson, although initially are described as good people in the case study,
but the fraud which they committed instantly changed their status in the society.

They were termed as criminals. What Chris and Alisson had done, was not hurting
anyone but what they had done was wrong ethically, morally and professionally.
And for that the court found them guilty and for that Chris and Alisson were given
30 months and 24 months respectively in prison. Chris involving his wife in the
firms business was not wrong, but he hiding that she was his wife was. Chris in
his greed to earn more, committed fraud and his wife Alisson did not stop him,
which made her equally involved. Chris should have been strict in following the
laws from the start. Although he had a sense that what he was doing was wrong but
he anyways went forward and did what he wanted to do because he was blinded by
his greed and the power of the position that he held in his firm. This case study also
shows loopholes in the processes of the company. All the power related to the
particular project was given to Chris without any check, this should not have been
the case. Maybe if there were checks, Chris would have been more careful and he
along with his wife would not have suffered the consequences.