Ryan Capistrano

AC181

Personal Experience on Unethical Business Practices

We live in an age when many of us stick on our own principles and live base on what
we believe is right. Actually, we can’t deny that each of us has different perspectives in
life maybe because of different reasons like how our parents raised us or maybe
because of our environment. Just like us, companies and other small businesses have
their own principles and goals that they follow. It may be ethical for them and not for
others. Reasons might be of their own definition of what ethical is. Some of those ethical
principles might be consider as legal as it is acceptable for everyone and some are not
legal in many ways. There are businesses that create their own set of principles which
is cost saving for them and to have a good reputation.

To give examples of those I considered as unethical beliefs that exist in a business

setting, I would like to share some of my personal job experience. When I worked in a
Food Avenue as part of my OJT(On the Job Training), I saw how their employees do
their work. I saw one of them killing the cockroaches that already crawled on the bread.
The customer saw that disgusting sight and told the employee to throw the bread. The
employee threw the bread but still bring it back when the customer left already. On the
other day, I saw some of the merchandise that is already expired as what I can see in
its expiration date. I told my buddy(employee) about it but he told me that just let it be.
He said it is just a part of a decoration so the store will look like have many goods to
sell. When they transferred me to the back office, I overheard the conversation of the
managers. The talk is all about not to let other branches to borrow their equipment as
others don’t let them borrow when they need it the most.

There are those people who argue that sales are more important than their reputation
as they think that reputation is not presentable in their financial statements. Acts like
selling an expired goods and dirty bread will make the company to fail as the customers
might get sick of eating it. From my point of view, good reputation is more important
than the revenue. We all know that revenue is just a nominal account that will be close
at the end of the year but I consider good reputation as an asset that will last forever.
Also, being prudent in decision making is another plus for a company by not letting
emotions or personal grudges affect their decision making.