Value Conflict

Value Conflict

The value conflict that I experienced was on a former job that I held at a back office governmental position. I worked as payroll clerk. One of my duties was to total up the time cards from the employees and get them ready for processing so we could send out paychecks. The division consisted of maybe 40 employees who were working at any given time. Most the employees didn’t really know each other much and kept to themselves. This caused a lot of employees to not really interact much with one another. However, one incident forced me into a value conflict.

I came upon an incident that caught my attention. One of my co-workers, Jason, who worked in the payroll department, was clocking in for himself and his co-worker, Kevin at the same time. They were both supposed to be into work by 7:00 AM in the morning. My shift always started at 6:30 AM in the morning. One morning, I happened to walk by Jason coming into work. I observed Jason taking out both his time card and Kevin’s and punching both of them in together. I knew what Jason was doing was very much against company policy. The division had very strict attendance rules. Anyone who had excessive absences was to be given verbal warnings. If done again, the person would receive a written letter that stated that their job was in danger if it happened again. I noticed that briefly after Jason had punched Kevin’s time card in, Kevin came in and went straight to work. I noticed that he did not go to the time clock to punch in. This led me to believe that Kevin knew what Jason had done. I chose not to say anything at that moment because I was not their manager and I did not want to cause a problem for anyone. I knew that if an employee was caught clocking in for someone, it was grounds for dismissal. I had wondered if they knew that they were endangering their jobs. They were in the clear because the division manager didn’t start his shift until 8:30 AM in the morning, so they were never caught.

I kept to myself over the course of the next few months, I witnessed Jason clocking in for Kevin each day. One afternoon, Jason and Kevin invited me to go for a walk around the building during our break. I hesitantly accepted the invitation due to awkward circumstances. Over the course of the walk, Jason brought up the subject of the time cards. He had asked me if I was going to report Kevin and him to their supervisor. I told them that I was aware of what had been going on but had not said anything to anyone. I illuminated to Jason and Kevin that I felt uncomfortable knowing about their situation but that it was not something that I wanted to get involved in, since I was not their immediate manager. I had asked them whether they were aware that