Grandpa,
I suspect one of the salespeople in our company is stealing (merchandise) by giving false replacements to customers. (This salesperson) has more product failures than anyone else. Yet, I rarely hear from the customer directly. The warranty request comes to me through (this salesperson). Although that is not uncommon, most warranty complaints come directly through my office. (Grandpa is editing out specifics for obvious reasons.) I want to gather proof before taking this to a higher level. I do not care to embarrass myself or the salesperson.
Grandpa says: How embarrassing would it be to have an internal investigation find you complicit with the suspected thief? The longer you hold out with sharing the information, the more suspicion you will draw to yourself. If you suspect fraud and theft, make your suspicions in writing with times, dates, and customer names. Discuss with the person responsible for loss-prevention, or what ever your company calls it, your concerns. Bring your documentation to the meeting. A simple follow-up on all warranty claims will reveal a great deal. Call your customers about a week after the claim has been settled to inquire about how well the process went. Should the customer tell you that he or she never filed a claim, or had an issue with the product, you have your evidence. Let me stress this point: Do not go this alone. Let the security experts direct your activities. You do not want to have your actions be misunderstood by the administration. No good deed ever goes unpunished.
Grandpa,
Are morals universal or relative to the beliefs, traditions, and practices of individuals or groups?
Grandpa says: That is a short perplexing question. First, we have to decide what we define as morals. There are individual morals and social morals. Individual beliefs and social expectations. Our code of ethics is learned from the social surroundings. One good example: Many, years ago our church was taking up truckloads of food to send to poor nations in Africa. One thing we were told not to include was any sort of egg product. A moral standard of the recipients was to never eat anything that was unborn. Children may be starving, but they would not eat eggs. I cannot say that morals are globally universal. Let us say that social morals are regionally universal.
Individual morals are based on the individual’s thoughts, beliefs, and personal desires. I met a man when I was doing active prison visitations who was doing a life stretch for killing a merchant. He totally despised another man who had killed his own wife. In his moral code, it was okay to kill a stranger, but not a spouse. Wars have been fought over differing moral codes. Many have learned to preach that their moral codes are given by God in order to justify hatred, cruelty, insensitivity, and a host of other actions. Others have learned to ignore the existence of any higher intelligence so as to justify their moral codes. It all boils down to one fact: A person is going to do whatever he or she chooses to do.
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Aurora, IL 60507 or send an E-mail to askgrandpa@thevoice.us.