Ethical Issues that Reflects on Me...

Ethical Issues that Reflects on Me...

For the past weekend, I had to go to my hometown cause nearly for a month I never met my parents and my relatives. So I took a bus about 10am at Pudu bus station and reach Cameron Highlands at 2pm. Before I take my ticket to Cameron Highlands, I asked the counter staff about the price of the bus ticket because government have imposed regulation in the increasing of the ticket fair. She told me that they haven’t imposed the regulation and the price remains the same at RM35. The lady shows a weird look at me to show the stupidity of government on the new regulation. Malaysia is a tourist welcome country and I don’t agree to raise fair on bus fares to increase the revenue. Impose strict regulation on bribing can create better government and decrease the bribe culture in government sector.

    Once I have reached there, my cousin fetch me from the bus stop to home. On the way I saw a lot of development by the government and private company. New housing development, extension of farms for agriculture purpose and some government building that are going on. Cameron Highlands is an attraction for many people from foreigners and locals to enjoy the local crops and activities at the jungle. Government knows the potential of Cameron Highlands but they giving permission for these activities. The government also don’t welcome the weekend tourist, they know the weekend will be very crowed but there are no action taken by them to recover from this situation. People complain about that, as a people who are in charge no action have been taken. Three years ago, a landslide occurred in Cameron Highlands which takes 8 tribal people’s life. The landslide happen in a tribal village, near the village a huge government development area was clearing up the forest. The cause of this landslide is the new development project, but the government change the report from the land surveyor company and say that the accident has no relation on the new development to the media.

For the past two years, these type of activities were going on and some non government organisation such as Leo Club, Regional Environmental Awareness Cameron Highlands REACH and Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM) members are fighting their rights for the environment. They walked all day long from Ringlet to Tanah Rata to give a petition on the activities that harming the environment to the District Officer. There are no improving activities have been taken by the District Officer but it clearly can be say that the District Officer have taken some bribe to cover the media. They are selling government property without the knowing of government, and recently Dato Sri Palanivel give a speech on this matter in the media. Dato Sri Palanivel in the government parti who won the current general election for representing Cameron Highlands but he cheated his opponent with nearly 300 fake votes during the blackout. This type of characteristic man are talking behalf of the community of Cameron Highlands about the illegal activities which he knows the real cause and problem but just for the money sake they are acting in front of media. From their acts, we know that they are giving importance to their current life but not their grandchildren future. Uneducated mentality of people has been given unlimited power on the environment.

People of Cameron Highland want the government to do something about this matter but no reaction from the government sector. This shows that Malaysia is a 2^nd world country which they think needs more development on their land but they are not making efforts to protect the environment and conserve the natural flora and fauna.  From ethical perspective, these people are acting unethical toward the environment and their religious belief.

By this peoples business are affecting because most business in Cameron highland is depend on tourist. These activities will cause fewer customers to come to Cameron Highlands. Businesses in Cameron Highland are unable to do CSR because their revenue is smaller and they can’t afford to spend money on conserving the natural environment. What is the future of Cameron highlands and many predicts that this would be less attractive in the coming future. All the developments are doing by people who are not originated from Cameron Highlands. This issue strike my future working environment where unethical issues will arise where I can’t do anything. But to keep our mouth shut, just like whistle blowing that cause our self in trouble but our intention is to avoid our situation on going trouble. This harden my heart to keep quiet because there is nothing can be done against God. He let these issues comes into our life for a purpose and we as His child must go with the flow. That is the only thought I came across where God controls the human mind and all these incident happen is for a better purpose. So put the weight to God to proceed in life same goes to everyone. 

Ethics in Real Life

Ethics in Real Life...

For the past few weeks, I have been thinking about people who start up their own business along the way they face difficulties to open up their business. They are highly passionate and have desire to achieve their goal but with suffering and struggle encounter their life during opening of their establishment. How would they feel when they can’t goes smoothly as they planned? Why is that so? Questions after question arise but I can’t find any answer to comfort myself. From my experience of talking to business man and women, problems will come from people who are around us. Problem from government sector are one of the severe problem but cause by people whom we know. And now days, the current generation mentality is totally different than previous. Managers and owners are trying very hard to retail their staff by solving their staff’s problem. Even with proper planning and budgeting will cause problem. And what can be done to prevent this from happening. On the other hand, we have our family and friends to support us but there are some people where I met they own family and friend are not supportive because of jealous.  If young entrepreneurs want to start up their business with proper ethical behavior  will they succeed in their business? There are also some government supports by conducting exhibition under Small Medium Enterprise Corporation. But business needs financial support as their back bone for the operation. Through strong capital, the entire problem can be cover either ethically or unethically. Government should give generous loan to young entrepreneurs for them to start up business. Even though proper planning was our main priority, we can’t predict anything that will happen in the future. It will be a new business to the world and a new product for customers. It’s a risk for them to take because they never experience. This reminds me of Manchester United Football Club because they change their manager and their coaches after 26 years. Football fans around the world are waiting what will the new manager David Moyes will do for this Club which has enormous history of winning games all around the world. With 10% of the world population are supporting Manchester United and they are waiting for Moyes to perform. The changes of management happened was a student incident, where the manager chooses to retire from the club as he also chooses another manager which is suitable for the Club. Their revivals are expecting Manchester United to stumble for the coming season such as Liverpool Football Club, Manchester City Football Club, Chelsea Football Club and Arsenal Football Club. This show that they are very competitive in their league and their expectation for down perform are very desireful. Even from the Manchester United organisation, they are taking several steps for them to keep their winning spirit even though their manager Sir Alex Ferguson left the club with some fitness coaches left as were mention.

It’s just an assumption that Moyes will continue the winning spirit among club, because he manages Everton Football Club well. There are many managers in the football industry where they under perform compare to the previous season. This can be related to real life business where it can’t predict what will happen and all the prediction are assumption. For entrepreneurs to act ethically, support from government and their relatives including friend are very important. These are the people who motivate young entrepreneurs to act ethically. If problems arise where they can’t control, they take the unethical step for their work to progress. These are people who create problems for them to force entrepreneurs to bribe or to involve them in other unethical activity.

The factors that were discussed above are the cause entrepreneurs to take unethical decision to run their business. One of the best ways is to get the government to involve by providing loans but that is not making any sense. It’s should starts from the very basic of human life where they starts their life which is the family. Children in family are their learning stage where they learn everything from their parents, uncles and aunties. They will behave just them because they are exposing to their family members. Same goes with their decision making skills. If they are treated as they suppose to treat, they behavior will change accordingly. In some families, parents abuse their children that cause negative thinking develops in their mind. These are some families give freedom to their children by not giving rules and regulations thus their behavior toward the world will change.

Wrong teaching and too much of freedom lead to children to go astray from the way that public wants them to follow. When these people get into the real world, the decision making style will not be favorable to the community, thus the blame goes to their parents. This is just my point of view from speeches of leaders and experienced people. Some may think I just generalizing from thoughts and experience of small number of peoples opinion. But I feel that ethical decision making skill it just not an easy task to handle because in an organisation, the leader should consider all their stakeholders to satisfy from the decision. For this the leaders must have guts to handle the situation and the consequences from that situation.

Generation Gap

                        After going through these days, I can see the difference of ethical practicing between generation X and generation Y. There are many discussion are going nowadays about the generation gap. I’m sure every industry experience generation gap where it leads to arguments and disagreement between two generations. It seems nothing for me to hear those incident but if feel angry if happens to our self. In that exact situation, I don’t know how to react when elderly people provide service unethically. Recently I went to Kuala Lumpur Convention Center to attend an exhibition conducted by Small Medium Enterprise Corporation (SME). The reason for me to attend for this exhibition is for my assignment purpose. It was huge exhibition and need to walk from the entrance to the exit takes about 10 minutes. After my visitation, I wanted to exit from the exhibition through the entrance door because my colleague was waiting at the entrance. The security guard stops me from using the entrance door, but I insist to listen to him. Then he calls his superior who was just standing at the entrance door to stop me. My colleague is just about 5 feet from me and I asked the “where is the exit then?” They told me that visitors need to use the exit which is in the 5^th hall but I’m in the 1^st hall. Then I ask them “Why is that so?” then the superior replied to me that it’s the company procedure. It does make any sense for me to go all the way to the 5^th hall to exit from the hall. This incident tells me that these people are working for their employer and do according what they say but they don’t think for their customers. To satisfy their customers, they wouldn't take any risk because that is their standard operating procedure. If they let me use the entrance door for me to exit, they would have satisfied me but not their company. This is where the gap is between the generations. After this incident, I’m afraid of going to the real industry for the rest of my life stuck in this type of environment. I really get confused where they though empowerment is ethical or unethical, or they have a certain level to categories as ethical or unethical.

This reminds me where I use to argue with my sister on my family member where most of them are elderly people which are about 35 of us including kids. They usually demand us to live according to their expectation. As for me is not fair because they live their own life and they want us to live according to their way of life. Although they are caring for us but we need freedom and we need to expose to different type of situation for us to be stable in our future. They want us to be in their umbrella and when the time comes, we should act it out perfectly. But now day’s people like us need to learn by experience compare by learning by visual. This also applicable in our working life where we talks about the quality of work that our employer are expecting from us Before the work matters, our type of life that we went through is matters because this will determine our decision making process. These also ensure us to think rationally and act ethically when we face certain problems in our daily life. Ethical practicing should be trained from younger children and let them see the consequences and this will change their characters. As we know, our characters are mold when we are younger. Once we are grown up, these characters remain in us. These characters will determine to act ethically or to act unethically.

During my argument with my sister, the elder sister never had agree with me but the time goes by my second sister will agree with me. This is not about agreeing or supporting the argument but the age matters. My elder sister is 5 year elder that me but my second sister is 1 year elder than me. These shows that people with small age different can communicate better that big age different. But in the real industry as a fresh graduate, it’s impossible for us to get a small age difference superior above me. At the end of the day, I can’t generalize all the people as the same category. There are people who think in a more modern way which suits current generation. For examples our lecturers in the 14^th floor, even Chef Joken are very friendly with students but when it comes to working ethics he become serious. Ethical behavior can be developed with proper training and proper exposure to the need. Ethical decision cannot be making in all type of situation because when it comes to customer and employee, there is no way for a company to satisfy both stakeholders. There might have some incident where they satisfy both of their internal and external customers. Maybe one at a time satisfying them is possible, but there are minimal chances to satisfy them at the same time. Same goes to customers, its impossible for an organisation to satisfy all the customers in one time. The place where I used to work, the manager always told me the same sentences. But it will motivating us in the way that we are not wrong.

                                                  

                               Ethics in Daily Life 

After my 3^rd week, I went to attend my class with guest lecturer professor Jay Kandampully from United States. I have heard about him since I was in Foundation which was 4 years ago where my lecturer keep on mentioning about him. During these 4 years, I read his books and use those books for my reference. It was very exciting for me when I heard he is coming for our lectures. During the lecture, he gives a lot of examples from different angle that entertain us. The entire lecture for 7 days weren't like class; it was like a motivation seminar especially for me. I’m not sure about the rest of my classmate which is about 60 of them, but I know that they are 1^st year or 2^nd year. It was very humiliating class for me because our students were not behaving properly. They don’t think ethically and this causes them to behave like this in the class. Once the class starts, students will be going in and out, in just minutes nearly 15 to 17 students will be going out and in using the back door. The professor once gets uncomfortable with this, and he just said stop moving around the hall. Not only that, students were talking when lecture was going on, then he stops his teaching and call the students in front. As bachelor students, he might not expect this from us but this is my opinion. For the past one week before my class with Professor Jay, in our Ethics class we discuss about Relativism. I have learned these before when I took moral studies in Foundation. It’s hard to recall back that I have learned, but I remember like relativism. People give all kind of funky reason to be or act unethical and cause others problem which reflect to egoism. The opposite side of egoism is the utilitarianism which is maximize happiness and reduce suffering. This reminds me of the goal line technology recommended by the FIFA officials after the 2010 World Cup in South Africa when Germany won 4-1 to England.      

               

The shot took by Frank Lampard, attacking midfield from the England football team. The goal was disallowed by the official and they assume the ball touches the line. The game was very energetic where Germany was winning by two goal and England was one, then there was a sudden volley by Lampard and the ball hit the bar and went inside the line and bounce back out of the line. The whole environment would have change when the goal by Lampard is counted. Since now, the goal line technology is not implementing by the FIFA officials because there is some disagreement between them. The purpose of this goal line technology was proposed is because to satisfy the supporters and the football team, which reflect the theory of utilitarianism. One of the disagreement is because its expensive where the company which implement this technology will charge those football clubs with expensive maintenance. The UEFA president said he would rather spend the money for the youth team where they can produce better football players in future. While comparing the reasoning of these two presidents of UEFA and FIFA, I would prefer to choose what UEFA president Michel Platini said. In ethical context, spending big money on technology is not what we thought for. Technology is just an enhancement for human but it’s not substitute human for service. This applicable for hospitality industry where people are the most important asset for an establishment. By this approach, Southwest Airlines hit their biggest revenue in 2001 where all the other airline company lost their customers. Even disaster strike in United States, people prefer to fly using this airline.

            Not only that, after my long break for my class I still remember that I learned about psychological egoism which can be divided into: self centered and self interest. The self interest is actually about motivating us by giving something to our self. The self centered is egoism by subconsciously for our self. These are not wrong but in the eyes of other are very wrong and they translate the action to their own meaning. This usually happens when we are in the big family where people will be watching you and interfering in all your personal matters. That their perception on this but in that similar situation, our parents might be supportive .The family members might against and just for respect on our family; our parents change their mind against us. This has happen to me mostly all the time because I’m living among my 40 members of my family. Although they are in different places Facebook make it small. I’m not accusing them although I don’t like it but each person’s perception on me are different. They might be correct or wrong because they are assuming based on some factors d or incident. Not only that, the family background of every people will make bigger impact in their life. The situation that I’m facing is the peer pressures that mold my future in a better way I guess. Same goes to ethics, its the rule of life where its optional to choose but the choices that we choose will reflect our true image to the world.