BACKGROUND

Workplace relationships and interactions always provide unanticipated challenges. But when supervisors abuse your trust in ways that are difficult to forgive, you must choose between maintaining peer friendships or preserving your own sense of honor. To consider how you might deal with such a situation, read the case study and work through the five steps under Your Turn.

CASE STUDY

You take a job delivering pizzas to help pay for school. The restaurant has a supportive climate—workers are friendly and open. The delivery drivers in particular have a tight clique that they welcome you into, and you quickly become friends with several of them.

The only exception to the warmth of your new workplace is the manager, Elizabeth. She is controlling, manipulative, and dogmatic, and tries to run the restaurant “by the book.” The drivers warn you to watch out for her, telling you, “She’s really screwed people over before.” But you get along with her pretty well because of your exemplary work performance and positive attitude.

The most important workplace rule for drivers is to never leave your money pouch unattended. The money pouch is the zippered bag into which you put all cash from sales. For safety’s sake, drivers are supposed to deposit cash after every delivery run, but when things get hectic, drivers often forget—resulting in accumulated cash in the pouches.

One night you’re on a run, but when a customer pays you, you discover you’re missing your pouch. You hadn’t deposited your money all night, and there was over $300 in it. Arriving back at the store, you tell Elizabeth, and she says, “If it’s lost, company policy requires that you cover the missing money from your next paycheck!” This means you’re not going to be able to afford next month’s rent, much less food and gas! You tear your car and the restaurant apart looking for the pouch, and soon the other drivers are helping you search, offering their support and sympathies. But to no avail: after an hour, the pouch is still missing. Sitting in despair, you begin to cry. Just then, Elizabeth walks up, and with a smirk, hands you your pouch. “You left it unattended on the delivery table earlier, so I hid it, to teach you a lesson!” You’re stunned, humiliated, and furious! After months of exemplary work performance, why would she abuse you like that? Your first instinct is to quit in protest, even though you can’t afford it. But quitting would hurt the other drivers—who would have to scramble to cover your shifts—and jeopardize your friendships with them. Should you stay, but confront Elizabeth? Or just suck it up and say nothing? As you’re pondering these options, Elizabeth says, “So, what lessons have you learned from this experience?”