Greentea wrote:
The topic may seem unrelated to Asperger's, but it's actually very related to it for me. Because it was my big boss's assistant who said this and I, having discovered the pecking order and social politics finally at age 40+, knew better than contradict her. I just smiled (and cringed inside).
Good move Greentea, It is all in the context. It was one of those word secrets that aspies don't get.
This is lunch in a business context, the woman is a grandmother, and the assistant to the big boss.
Big boss=father, assistant=daughter, she is saying she does things she knows are wrong, Which can range from cooking the books, most companies do, cheating on taxes, most companies do, selling defective products, most are, but the alternative, exposure, would bring down the company=family.
It is common in business that there are dirty little secrets. The upper levels are a world apart, there are test questions before anyone can enter, and you answered right. Another would be your reaction to GAAP, if it makes you smile, you are top floor material. For you unemployed, Gennerally Accepted Accounting Practices. "Does the electric bill get filed under sales, or investment?" To some of us that is a joke.
You may think both are wrong, it is an expense, but filing it otherwise, it is still paid, and shows up as part of Net Worth. Net Worth is a theory, meaningless in some ways. No company sells for net worth, the stock price is not based on it, but it does come up when seeking loans, and the less you need money, the cheaper and easier it is to get.
You do your hair, makeup, wear nice clothes, and you are not perfect, should a company do any different?
You wear a bra, perhaps other foundation garments, are you lying about your shape or just trying to look the best you can?
You have been to the edge of insanity, did what everyone told you, and it lead to madness-bankruptcy.
Not wanting to be locked up in the nut house=bankruptcy proceedings, and ruined for life, you lied to your family, friends, doctor, therapist, about how much better you felt, and quit asking about the Imp sitting on their shoulder. You still see it, you just do not talk about it, and everyone is now happy that you are better.
You feel strange, telling the truth caused nothing but problems. You lie, everyone loves you, you discover they are all living a lie. You can feel bad, but showing it brings back the bad stuff, or you can feel good, it is not just you, the whole universe is insane.
It is true. No company could withstand a true audit. The family has dirty secrets.
Being promoted is easy at some levels, moving past the Chinese Wall, a business term where all company secrets are kept from the rest of operations, by a total wall, is harder. Not to say we lack ethics, they just differ from the common view of ethics.
The anology is about right. It was meant to shock deeply. Not everyone is cut out for management.
Government is the same. We started a dumb war, America in Somalia, got a bloody nose, look like idiots, what shall we do? Declare victory, and hold a ceremony for our fallen heros. They brought freedom to the world. Everyone involved gets a medal, and a warning that if they ever speak about what really went on, they will be called back into the service and spend their life in the brig.
Business has their own ways, which I am not at liberty to discuss.
What is being asked is situational ethics. Yes, it is totally wrong. It could not be made clearer.
Even the choice of words, rape, and repeated rape, were a measured question. Do not mistake it for I will play dirty sometimes, but just when I want to. You will do what the father of the company makes you, you will do it evey time, you will never speak of it, and you will play the sweet and loving daughter at social gatherings a half hour after or before.
The father of the company provides you with food, shelter, clothing, education, health care. He has proven that he can be depended on. You discover he has dark secrets, he has been spending the family income on hookers. Accountants, he is trying to quit, for those whores will tell their next customer how he plays kink.
He is who he is, he has needs, and it is wrong to play the dangerous game he does to support the family. A family meeting is held. A grandmother speaks about the good of the family, it is not a perfect world, some things happen, and should stay family secrets. She tells a "Daughter" that her father is risking more than he should, spending more than the family can afford, because he cannot stop, or all will come crashing down.
The "Daughter" is carefully picked. She does not make friends, she is withdrawn, socially isolated, and she really depends on her family. She needs this job. She is not like the other girls, she lives in her own world, and she questions the values of others. She does not share them. She has her own ethics of sexual behavior. Not socializing well did not mean she had any less of a sexual drive, she's maybe a technical virgin, no one else involved, but grandmas count the cucumbers in the fridge, and has watched the small, then larger and larger vanish over the years. The girl is good at problem solving, and never speaks of it.
The girl does not have much of a future, on her own she would have a hard time surviving, and it would hurt a lot. She is told father is spending a fortune on hookers and hotel rooms, besides the expense he is risking the family fortune. It is the girl's life, she can ignore it, and when the crash comes find another family, another job, but she is old for being adopted.
Besides the cucumbers grandma knows the girl has gotten into a few bad situations, been raped, and did not report it. She still considers herself a virgin because she did not agree. She has a stubbornness about her thinking. She can ignore things well.
It is a bad situation, and grandma is concerned about her college fund=retirement, if the whores get it all, she will have nothing, and she deserves better. The girl seems willing, but lacks the greater understanding of the world, she tries, but needs help. She knows her life is not working out, that she is totally dependant on others, and the other girls she works with treat her badly, make her unhappy. She is frustrated.
If only there was a way to save the family, says grandmother, he will never change his ways, but if we could only redirect him, we would all be much safer. The girl agrees, his lusts threaten them all. She knows she is not perfect, or even near, she still tries hard. She wishes she got as much attention as is lavished on strangers. They are a danger, and she is trying to keep the family together. She knows he does wrong, but still, he is her father. She does not agree or disagree with his actions, only how they affect her.
She will never tell anyone about him, he is her family secret, but grandmother is right, something should be done. Grandmother is kindly and understanding, everything is riding on a few hours a week of his behavior, and it is a wrong the family shares. It is the worst possible situation.
Grandmother is also understanding of his plight. He cannot stop. The girl agrees. He has his needs, just like everyone. He has no choice, he has to be him. He has anonomus sex with strangers in the dark. It is not like a mistresss, someone who entertains, he could have that, a consultant. He is not seeking friendship or communication, only to fill his need.
Any other solution would be better, says the grandmother, the girl agrees. She likes that she is being treated like a big girl, and family problems are being discussed with her. She is a good girl, she can be depended on, and grandmother is right. She knew what he was doing, she has just ignored it. She did not want to make trouble, she has enough of that. She is old enough to know life is not perfect, and her life is a fine example.
She tells grandmother that she would not talk about family problems with anyone else, and she is glad the subject has been brought up. Not knowing anyway to deal with it she just does not think about some things.
When she was young and dumb she got herself raped by a friend of the family. She invited herself to his house, just to learn to shoot pool in the cellar, she asked for lessons, then showed up in a tight top and short skirt. She picked a time they would be alone. She giggled about how bad she was, and as he showed her how to hold the cue and stroke, he stood behind her. Her wiggling had nothing to do with what happened next. She never mentioned it, and he still came over for dinner, and she was the perfect little hostess. She would never tell, his wife and children would suffer.
She said she would do anything for the family, she was old enough to deal with problems, not just react like a kid. Some of life was not right, but it still had to be dealt with. Her future was at stake, the whole family, and she was glad grandma confided in her. She would do her part for family unity, she would support whatever grandma thought best. The next question threw her into confusion, she paused long before answering. Grandmother, do you lock your bedroom door? Girl, no I don't.
Welcome to the fun world of business. If my books were truely audited, after prison I would be taken out and hung slowly, and revived several times, before being shot, starting in the hands and feet. While still alive I would be slowly dismembered and flushed part at a time, while I watched. My family would be reduced to eturnal slavery, and all of my suppliers would suffer the same. We are in luck, universal guilt makes it impossible to go after one of us, for it would bring out that govenrment contract, and the vacation the company gave the Congressman's family.
We all do it. Our point of view is we are forced to. The tax code would fill a box car, no one understands it, and each year Congress re-writes sections. There is no way anyone could keep up. Anyone who obeys all rules does not last long. Business is a means of creating employment, then skimming worker paychecks for the government. That has to be right, we are sub tax collectors.
In return for taxing the workers, we are given some latitude in company taxes. It is an unspoken payoff from the government. I employ a hundred, you get their money every quarter. I figured a way to hire ten more, your take is going up 10%, do you really want to ask a lot of questions? It is all the government's money, we are just allowed to play with it.
Nobody is going to shut down a hundred tax paying jobs over some paperwork that would cost much more than it is worth to go to court over for ten years. Business is not just for making money in good times, any one can do that, try surviving three bad years. It had better be built in, for money will be tight when the crunch comes. It always comes. Those who survive planned to survive.
Greentea, you are perfect for the job they have in mind. You are a loner, secretive, no one can read you, and you are loyal and hard working. I know the world is divided between fiction and non-fiction, but I am a writer, and I made up the non-fiction. It was based on an actual event, but that was only the starting point. The point we are all stuck with is the happy ending.
"All's well that ends well."
Business is a mess, keeping up with a true idea where we are is impossible, filing quartly reports far beyond impossible. You start with the happy ending, and work backwards.
Is it ethical to lie to the Government? About what? Taxes? We have been paying the same amount for ten years. Things not on the books, well they came in late, they will appear on a future report, if we remember. Surviving the next business downturn is what is important. Do you want to see retirement with this company? Well, it has to stay in business.
You are being asked about what ethics means to you. Your country is not it's tax code, once you see what business has to do you will understand. Company father is not an easy job. Paying whores is not cheap, and grandmother is right, if you leave your ethics unlocked, never speak of what happened, you were in the dark, then all that money can go in your college=retirement account, and you get a car, better clothes, a better place to live.
I think they are in luck, you are a good choice. You deal with non-fiction well, looking deep for answers. You seek realities. Better to deal with the truth than Fairy Tale Tax Codes. So Daddy wants to play dirty with your ethics? Tell him you do not have any, only loyality to those who treat you right, and he has, and if there is anything you can do for him, your ethical bedroom door is always open to him.
"A girl has to do what a girl has to do."
So far they talk of standard industry practice. Dirty happens, someone has to deal with it, you can claim short term memory problems and AS. You are not in any legal danger. In public you can be the innocent, the family supporter, you more than others because you can seperate the fiction we live in from anything with meaning. My rise in management fits my lack of empathy and ethics. I have some of each, they just do not come up often.
Now if it is a Biotech company, those applying for jobs are asked if they are organ doners, and if the are are processed for parts, that might be a bit different. It would depend on my pay package, and deniability.
If it is just running sloppy paperwork, that might be questionable, the fact that building inspecters, fire inspecters, the police, are paid off, that is standard business pratice, pay or get put out of business. The cash has to come from somewhere to pay bribes to petty government officals.
Kickbacks on contracts, bribes paid to get business, the gifts needed to get goods delivered on time, the list goes on and on. It is all standard. The door may not say, bribes paid here, but every company has that door. Politicians get their skim, and campaign donations go to both sides, never can tell, and you need depth to get the vote you need.
I am not corrupt, I am a realist. This is the world I live in.
You are new, and everybody likes the new girl. They enjoy educating her in the ways big people play. It is your chance to learn what real life is like. Most are not suitable for management or insider information because they are too social. They gossip, and will run their mouths about anything. You are a natural.
When some studly guy just happens to run into the plain Jane who writes up the contract proposals, wines her, dines her, beds her in a great hotel, and is really interested in her, her work, thier company bid on the $5 millin dollar contract, then vanishes from her life, you cannot prove I had anything to do with it. She had a good time, that's all.
Welcome to my world Greentea, would you like to slip your ethics into something black and lacy? Daddy has a rough life, but he can always depend on his little girl to make him feel better.
Take the job.
13 Dec 2007, 4:11 am
