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So...
I work in a very wealthy area, although I myself am a classic poor college student. The work is simple, usually sanding, scraping, painting, stripping various doors, walls, entire homes, gates, etc etc. It's a crappy job in terms of working conditions, but it pays fairly well so it's great for a college kid off for the summer. We're talking 10 hour days, 110+ degree heat, hard manual labor, all that jazz. But it's cool, because money is cool.
The area itself is a highly exclusive club. By highly exclusive, we're talking Bill Gates-exclusive (as in, he actually owns a big ass house on the property along with Lee Iacocca, some lady who owns most of Foster Farms, Warren Buffet, and other super big rich people who are all universally old white men). As usual, contract work on the homes is done in a very simple way. The manager(s) of a particular area of the club (think different housing developments inside a larger property) are responsible for the hiring of various companies to perform manual labor. Naturally, it's too tedious a task for a manager at that level to actually call a local company, so instead they go through a general contractor, someone whose entire career is simply hobknobbing with rich folk and club managers and directors and what-not in order to achieve the coveted position of "the guy" and, upon receiving word that X contract is available to do Y work, will then contact Z company to do the work (and rakes in a hefty percentage of the profit for his services).
The lucky general contractor who becomes "the guy" is...a lucky man. You see, he's the go-to guy anytime a major job needs doing. Usually, the general contractor will have the same company do the same jobs every year...keeps things simple, and even with the high turnover of employees you get a lot of returning experienced men who know the job and have worked it before. But by being "the guy", you get to hold a lot of power. You get put in charge of doing...say, a hundred garage door sets...that is a solid $400,000 contract at a minimum. And since you are the general contractor...you decide who gets the job. It goes without saying that a lot of subcontractors (subcontractors being the actual painters, or the guys who come in and replace the plumbing, wiring, etc...I work for a sub contractor) would kill to get a half million dollar contract, of which ~$200,000 would be clear profit, probably more.
This is where it gets interesting.
See, the general contractor knows a lot of guys, and these guys all know the GC has got jobs. A few words, a few lunches, a few phone calls, and all of a sudden you've got my boss taking on a very expensive cabinet and floor job for the personal home of the GC ($35,000 worth of work without breaking a sweat...double that to be safe)...free of charge. Now usually that is just "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" and no one is the wiser. But it gets a bit shadier when you find out that this particular GC, when dealing with the managers of the club (remember the rich white dudes from the beginning? These dudes aspire to be them) has done something in excess of $100,000 work on the personal homes of these managers...free of charge.
And it gets more interesting when you realize that this $400,000 contract, the one for the garage doors...well, it went to my boss, the man who did the free work for the GC, who in turn did a great deal of free work for the managers of the club. It also bears mentioning to wonder what happened to the previous GC, a man who did an incredible job without any complaints, yet gets replaced as "the guy" by a considerably less qualified and far less competent individual...though apparently competent enough to commit a $100,000 project for free.
Favors exist in every industry, but when a GC gets to be "the guy" because he pimps out the personal homes of the club managers, and when my boss gets a contract because he did a great deal of very expensive labor intensive work for the guy in charge of deciding who should get the contract...and here I am, with full knowledge of what went on and will continue to occur, sweating and bleeding and peeling acid-burned skin off my arms every day for a paycheck that I get as a result of someone else's dishonor.
Makes me wonder if there is any point trying to fix a broken system...and I have to ask myself if I value my paycheck more than the anger and disgust I feel towards my employer.
...
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That sucks, sounds pretty crooked. Not sure what you can do though really.
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United States1004 Posts
I think that tells you more about the people accepting the bribes than your own manager.
The people on the accepting end are saying-- yeah I will just throw out someone doing a good job because I want something for free. (Meaning they only care about themselves-- and since they don't actually need any of that money or stuff are also greedy) For people offering to work for free in hopes of getting a better job in the future.. I'd say it's hard to fault someone for that unless you know more details. With the economy (and in particular housing market) being the way it's been for a few years now a lot of people are walking a fine line between surviving and financial disaster.
That said, even if your boss is just a greedy bastard, you will probably be able to do all of jack-shit about it. If you are actually a poor college student with nothing to fall back on, don't throw your paycheck out the window for something you feel is poor judgement. It better cross some serious moral principles of yours.
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Stuff like this has been going on since the dawn of civilization, its just human nature.
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It would be absurdly hard to get something like this (bribery) to stick to a general contractor. However, the club manager could be more easily pinned for some kind of ethical fault (conflict of interest) in his administration of the properties...
There will always be whistle blowers and ethically deficient robber barons out there- but if you're going to try, you have to have more than hearsay... It's sad, but that's the way the system is =0\
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You're going to feel a lot better if you try to do something even if it means losing your job. I've been there and to me personally, money just doesn't make me too much happier.
If you need the money and can't find another job then you're in a much different situation.
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Do you have a means of communication with anybody higher up than your direct manager? Oftentimes, you can talk about the ethical quandary with someone higher up, and they will instruct you how to proceed. Nobody is expecting you to be a hero here, but one would presume that taking bribes is generally bad for business. Maybe it's not as simple as either doing nothing and feeling shitty about it or being a whistleblower and losing your job. There may be some middle ground where at the very minimum you can feel better about what you're working your ass off for.
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Welcome to contracting. My brother worked on houses prior to finally getting his dream job of a firefighter and I heard all kinds of stories. He didn't know many honest guys in the trade higher up. :/
Then again, his girlfriend's father is pretty high up lmao.
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A word of advice, know how deep the dirt goes before you try to whistleblow, my uncle found out the hard way when he found evidence of embezzlement and reported to the higherups, only to realize the higherups was also in on it as well...he didnt stay with the company for long.
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What exactly is unethical about this really normal practice between private companies?? It's not like a Mayor taking cash to ensure that a contractor gets the votes he needs when a city puts contracts to bid for work. People barter work all the time to keep clients happy
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Its called corruption and it happens everywhere. From corner shops to the biggest companies the world. Its a bitch to deal with if you are in any way ethical, because you either stoop to their level or get passed over. Unfortunately thats life.
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Damn "ethical" people like the OP still exist?
Oh wait, nvm he's just sour since he's right there to witness it all at the bottom tier.
Don't call me harsh and you can pretend all you want, but I'm 100% certain you'd feel differently if you were anywhere up the ladder.
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Well the OP would probably do the same things as the property manager or the general contractor. It's pretty funny actually. When you're poor you want the rich to be taxed. When you're rich you don't want to be taxed.
I guess the moral of the story is to not be the guy getting screwed over, and try to be the guy who's getting the advantages.
Or... the OP can gather evidence, records, take pictures, etc and tell the FBI or something.
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On July 28 2011 00:55 vnlegend wrote:
Well the OP would probably do the same things as the property manager or the general contractor. It's pretty funny actually. When you're poor you want the rich to be taxed. When you're rich you don't want to be taxed.
I guess the moral of the story is to not be the guy getting screwed over, and try to be the guy who's getting the advantages.
or maybe not everyone thinks the same way you do
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I understand you OP all to well.Corruption is a way of life here in Croatia.
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EPT
