Could you work at a job that went against your beliefs?

[Gothic Sponge]

I just turned down a job with a company (that i wont name) because i didn't like their environmental record. I sold myself out once when i was in my early twenties by working for a military contractor. In my head i justified it, but i knew in my heart it was not right for me. I was making a great salary, but i eventualy listened to my heart and quit. I have made it a policy to never work for a company that goes against my beliefs. Do you think i'm crazy? Could you do it?

[7th_Sephiroth]

1. yes

i might be doing some security installation for prisons

[Nikia]

2. I've been thinkimg about that lately

I am looking for a different job and have thought about that a couple times. I probably wouldn't work for a company that goes against my beliefs. With my mentality, when I am doing a job, I am doing my job for the purpose of a job (if that makes any sense). For example, I am a quality specialist. While I am at work, my goal is to make sure that we are sending out a quality product and I will do anything to accomplish my goal. It would mess me up if my goal at work was something that I disagreed with. I don't know if I'd be tempted though if I were really desperate or they did offer me a lot more money.

[guitar man]

3. I've had to hold my nose a couple times

....until something better came along. The one thing I will absoultely NOT do is cross a picket line. Never have, never will.

[bigwillq]

4. I agree with you about the picket line

I'm not even in a union here at my work.

[guitar man]

7. I'm not either now

I've worked both union and non-union, prefer union when I can get it. Dad and Grandad were both die-hard union men. I have done a lot of things to make a dollar, but I have to draw the line somewhere.

[Gothic Sponge]

17. I also would NEVER cross a picket line!

[Khephra]

5. Did it...so I guess the answer is "yes"

Sometimes you have to eat.

[Don_G]

6. I Would

But I'd also make a few million on the side too.

As an aside, I was working as a Temp in GE's Appliance Park in Louisville to catalog their computers, and ran across only one "odd" situation.

Everything was open to "us" except the discussion of CFC's.

I suppose I'm going to learn everyting I need to, but not here, not soon and not if GE has anything to do with crafting Dimbo's political answers.

[ucmike]

8. been thinking about this lately....

i used to work for a big housing developer. it sucked, i worked my ass off and got yelled at all day by ingrate home buyers who expected instant housing and threatened to call the company president if anything wasn't how they thought it should be (although they knew nothing about construction or how difficult my job was). eventually i realized that i was working for "the man" who was destroying the enviroment in the name of selling overpriced retirement communities. i would go to parties and hear people talking about the awful developments going up in their neighborhoods, or on the way to work, or "over where we used to take the kids fishing before they cut down all the trees". they would bash the developers and complain and i would sit there nodding, not wanting to admit that i was responsible for the sprawl. i quit and will not do it again. it sucks because i want to change jobs again and there are still plenty of those jobs available. i could make really decent money, but i won't.

i work in nyc now. i'm waiting to hear about a job for the RNC at the convention site. when i got the email and realized who the job was for i cringed. i debated telling my company i wanted nothing to do with it, i thought about doing it and doing it poorly, i thought about going and declaring the job "unbuildable" and hoping people would accept that. the more i thought about it, the more i realized that i owe it to my company to have some integrity and to suck it up. most of the ideas i came up really lacked honesty and integrity, and i refuse to sink to their level. i despise the underhanded way they handle things and i won't play tit for tat as much as i'd like to. so if the job happens, i'll do it, and i'll do it as best i can. hopefully, they drag their feet until i go on vacation next week, and it becomes someone elses problem. not to mention that my contact at the RNC isn't great at getting anything done and is even worse at returning phone calls and by the time he gets organized the convention will be over.

in the mean time my job search goes on....looking for a enviromentally sensitive construction job, with regular hours, limited travel, and a high salary. if i don't need a cell phone, pager or email thats even better.

[Solly Mack]

9. I never have and you're not crazy

it means being paid less though

[curse10]

10. Right now, as a young single person I'd have that liberty

but if I had mouths to feed and the market was bad I'd take the moral hit.

Somethings are worth selling out for.

[worksux]

11. read The Ethicist column in SuNYTimes, they had a question just like that

two days ago.

[POed_Ex_Repub]

12. Depends on how far against my beliefs.. but to some extent yes. n/t

[oustemnow]

13. Absolutely!

But only as an experiment. I'm a recently displaced editor, and in searching the job boards I saw recently that NewsMax was looking for editors. I sent them a cover letter that declared, "The thought that Bill and Hillary Klintoon could influence future generations makes my scrotum boil with rage!" I totally would have taken the job if they offered it, because it would be a great opportunity to screw with the opposition from within. (Surprise surprise, they didn't reply.)

But yeah, under certain circumstances, definitely.

[pagerbear]

14. My dad quit a job when I was a kid

...because they wanted him to falsify a report and he wouldn't do it. (Maybe they fired him instead.) My dad is honest as the day is long.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

15. I worked for an insurance company once

as a defense attorney. I know that insurance is a necessity and have nothing against the idea of insurance. But at least in this company (to remain unnamed) the adjusters wanted to deny absolutely everything even when they knew they were dead wrong. The idea was to force everything to trial and hope the plaintiff got discouraged or ran out of money and grabbed the first lowball settlement offer. I guess I don't enjoy the adversarial system when playing the game involves real people's lives that are being shattered by an accident or a death. I quit after less than one year even though I was making good money, never to return to that insurance defense field. I hope there are no insurance adjusters out there who think I'm ragging on them. I'm not. They have a VERY HARD job with a lot of stress and pressure and there's a high job turnover rate in insurance claims departments. I think the problem is the way the system works.

[ForrestGump]

16. I turned down a Federal position because, in the DC interview,

I was asked if I could defend and stick to the Feds' environmental line, even if I knew it was wrong, in discussion with my peers, or otherwise. That sounded not only like selling out most egregiously, but like outright lying. And me support the environmental policies of the Bush junta? No way. So I turned it down in favor of another prestigious gig that, as fate would have it, led me to a place where my life fell completely apart...

Still, I think I made the right choice.

[Philostopher]

18. Not sure, so I turned one down, once.

Not that the salary was any better than I could have gotten doing the same work for other companies (and did, eventually). Company made triggers for 'smart bombs' -- and the temp agency didn't tell me this.

When they explained it to me, they insinuated that there were people who didn't want to work for them because of what the company did. I agreed, and said I was one of them -- and I was sorry. I was, a little -- I suspected there were probably people working for the company who'd have nightmares if there was another war (and I kind of suspected there'd be another one).

If I'd taken the job and held it all the way through spring of 2003, I'd probably either have quit it then or contemplated suicide. I have mildly obsessive/compulsive tendencies, especially about social/emotional issues, and I know what doing a job like that would have amounted to, for me. It would have amounted to a nervous breakdown and possibly a major clinical depression. The Mr. was working, we were able to say, 'okay -- as much as I'd like to work, I don't see this coming out well at all, no matter what happens.' I've said before -- I have great sympathy for people who wind up not having a choice.

It took me a while to find another permanent job, but I was in a position where I could wait. I've never had to make that decision when I was in a position where I couldn't, so I don't know what I'd do -- most of the jobs I've held have been neutral ethically, when measured against my own ethics. I guess if I had to, I'd take a job that wasn't a zero sum for me ethically -- but only if it was that or the street.