Ethics in America

[puppetmaker]

Recently a friend of mine who teaches ethics, among other subjects, at a local college had to grade the final papers for her class. They have really good web skills and do check for papers off the Internet. This year they had a couple of doozies in the pile including someone who cribbed their paper off of one that the dean of one of the departments had on the website of the college itself and another individual who took part of Machiavelli's the Prince in Italian and ran it through a translator then slightly cleaned up the grammar if that. This is in an ethics class.

Recently a dean at MIT had to resign when she finally told the administration that she had falsified parts of her resume including degrees she did not earn. Interestingly this dean was one that was very critical of the pressure put on students to build impressive resumes. Considering how hard high school students work to have the right kind of credits and activities to get into the college of their choice, this does not surprise me. From the time we are young we are told that we need to do this or that so we can get ahead. Well many of us, I was fortunate to have two parents who did not live through me or my achievements so the pressure to build up my college admission form was not really there. I did stuff on my own that did look good on my application but these were things of my choosing and I didn't have to pad it at all to have a decent amount of stuff both for my undergraduate and graduate applications.

It is easy these days to check out what is on ones resume or application. I never really thought about padding my resume because that would be wrong. Sure I have a lot of cool stuff on my resume but each I got based on the items I had previously on my resume. My stage management and puppetry resumes also reflect my career and I would never add stuff to them that I could not prove. I know people do it all the time and for many it is no big deal but I can't do it. For me it is just wrong.

I have been on the hiring side of the table and dropped a person into the "no" pile due to false information on their resume. I think my personal favorite was the claim to have worked on a show that I stage managed so you would think that I would have remember working with you for 3 months. I would not only call the references given, I would see if they had worked on anything that I know one of my buddies worked on and get in touch with them too. People don't seem to remember that the theatrical community in a town is rather small all things considered and we do talk to each other.

There is this mentality of getting ahead and darn the consequences that is prevalent in America. Sort of a left over from the "greed is good" era of the 80s and early 90s. For many it seems that lying or as they call it "stretching the truth a bit" is the norm. You only get looked at with a harsh light when you are caught out but getting caught seems to be happening more and more leading to resignations, firings for cause, and flunking out of school. Which really looks good on your resume.

I am grateful I have always been honest on my resume.

Comments

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

In her book SPEEDBUMPS, Teri Garr mentions how she put a variety of credits on one of her early resumes and marked them with asterisks. At the bottom of her resume was a footnote that read "* L I E." If anyone asked, she planned to explain that that part of her resume was a lie.

No one ever asked...

[puppetmaker40.livejournal.com]

See she was honest about it but this sort of thing happens all the time on actors resumes especially the younger ones. The good ones continue and eventually these things drop off the resume. I ran the auditions for the actors for the Drama School for two of the three years I was there. (I also cleaned the Yale Cabaret for work study) and I had to sort through all the resumes that were handed off to the teachers. Believe me it was rather obvious who was coming up with stuff and who was being truthful. I know a couple that really screwed up because they claimed to be in productions that friends of the teachers had directed. That was an automatic strike.

[wolfsavard.livejournal.com]

Man... plagarism in an ethics class. That takes balls.

[cielamara.livejournal.com]

It really does. Do you ever wonder how these people manage to think it's a good idea? Kinda like how people who never go to class are pissed when they fail said class. How do ya work that one out?

[querldox.livejournal.com]

I have to confess that my resumes usually contain two things that aren't strictly true, but are simplifications of what the full truth is. I state that my Bachelor's is Computer Science, rather than the strictly truthful Mathematical Sciences with a Concentration in Computer Science; until a few years ago, that university's CS department didn't offer an undergrad degree per se, but ran it through the Math Sci catchall (as I recall, there were five different concentrations, none of the other four having anything to do with CS). But for all effects and purposes, it was a CS major.

I also slightly fudge things by listing the years I was in residence at said undergrad school and that I have a Bachelor's from it. Since my official graduation year is two years after that, and is after one year of grad school elsewhere (Yale in fact) and a year working at another university, and involves about 10 minutes of explanation as to how that's the case, leaving off the official year and letting people assume it matches up with my last year in residence again simplifies things.

I'm more than happy to tell people the full truth and explain it, but don't see the point in doing so until later in the process; the full truth just complicates things with unnecessary at the point where someone's reviewing the resume info.

[readinggeek451]

Sounds similar to what I do. The professional degree for a librarian is an MLS (Master of Library Science). I don't *technically* have an MLS, what I have is an MSLS (Master of Science in Library Science). But I never mention that unless I have the time to explain it. Because it doesn't really matter; it's the same degree with a different name.

[billritch.livejournal.com]

Part of the problem with the lack of ethics is that many people have no morality.

Nowadays most people think that morality is solely concerned with sex. Sex is the least important part of morality. Morality is the philosophy which governs your life -- in particular how you treat other people. A good philosophy is comprehensive and consistent.

I have always had a problem with the modern concept of ethics. I don't really know what someone means when they say "ethics." It seems that they means some set of rules that have been delivered unto you from a superior -- such as a governing body.

Maybe that is why many people don't get it. They just see the rules and never understand the reasons. They don't see why you should or should not do a thing.

Thank you, end of sermon.