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One day, if there was anybody questions me: “Have you ever made mistake to your parents?”, I would say: “Yes”. It’s even a lot. Since the time I was given a birth, I did a huge mistake to my mother. I did hurt her at the beginning. In order to born a baby, the mothers carry out with the pregnant in nine months ten days and give birth in physical painful condition. Year over the year, I grew up under my parents’ protection. They give me a greatest love which I could never have in others. They always forgive me for every single mistake I did even the very much serious one. I understood their mental painful through every time I was guilty. I was very sorry to them, but yet, such feeling of sorry was not as intensive as this moment.

Three years and a half since I’ve been in Malaysia for my degree, my parents are trying their best to provide me the most comfortable financial condition for me to concentrate on study. I am certain with my family economic situation. It’s not as high class as the worthies, but also not as low class as poorer. It’s in the middle. Therefore, in order to do so, they must discipline in their financial control. That’s a reason why I always speak to myself that I must make my parents proud of me. After three years, I almost reach to my current goal which is completion of studying and at the same time, my parents are almost exhausted as well. Nevertheless, they did never make a complaint. During that time, when I faced to any problems not only in study but also in my personal life, I called them and made a lot of complaints. With the greatest love to me, they always encourage me and give me motivation to move on. But I never knew that how much worry they were when listening to such complaints. Until now, at this moment, I’m experiencing on the financial burden, I’m scare, I worry because I’ve never experienced it before. I realized that those feelings are in my parents for so many years and they are even more than what I feel.

Last two months, my parents faced to major financial problems.  They did share that information to me and tried to reassure me by saying: “don’t worry, it will be ok”. They still banked in for me every month but the amount was lesser than last time. Therefore, I was trying to look for a permanent job during this semester to certain that I’ll get job immediately after completing my study. I sent number of resumes to the organizations which I desire to join. Until last week, I received an appointment for interview. I was happy about that well in preparation for that interview. After the discussion, the employer said something such an implication that I’m hired and asked me to wait for the email. I was quite happy about that even though the job was not confirmed yet. I wanted to bring this good news to my mom. From the inner, I knew that she would be disappointed if the news is turn to the other way. In other words, she would be disappointed if I could not get that job. However, I could not control myself. I just wanted to bring happy moment to her. One week later, I still do not receive any confirmed email from the company. I don’t know how to explain to her. I don’t want my worry comes truth. I know that it will unethical if I say the lie her. However, is it ethic for me to notice her with the bad news? She would be sad because of that.

On the other hand, I found that the ordinary life has become unusual. I scare, I’m afraid of living in uncomfortable financial situation. The date of studying completion is almost coming. I need to be financial independent after that. Although I told my mother that I can be able to care for myself after graduating and tell her that she not need to bank in for me once I complete my study. I was a bit disappointed when she agrees to do so. Human being is quite complicated. The disappointed feeling goes on together with happiness. I was happy because my mom was happy. I was disappointed because I didn’t know that I really able to do as what I promised. Currently, the job is still not be secured. I am waiting. And the waiting is such a punishment for me at this time. Number of negative things keeps coming in my mind. If there is unexpected thing is going to happen, should I tell her the truth which would disappoint her? Or should I go through it without any supported and see it as the truth challenge which I need to overcome. It’s hard. it’s really hard for me to step out the real world without financial support from family. From the inner, I also don’t want to ask for help because I don’t want to worry my parents anymore. That’s enough for them.

I scare. . . . I really scare now. . . . .  

How to practice ethical business?

As I mentioned in the previous blog, ethics nowadays is an emerged topic. Every organization despite how large or how small it is, ethic practices are the most concerned in the way it is doing business. The most obvious reason is that it doesn’t want to be boycotted by the consumers. However, it is hard to balance between ethical practices and standing profitable. It is because on the way to approach ethical conduct, it might cost some of the revenue which gained by organization. Some of the aviation organizations in US are examples.

According to Patterson, 2012, standard coach seat for low cost airlines widths range from 17 to 19 inches between the armrests. Due to the reason of “the seat is a revenue generator”, those organizations are trying to maximize their revenue by designing 3 seats in each side on the aircraft. Besides that, a vice president of seat manufacturer stated that the seats are closer together and researcher of human body measurement, Kathleen Robinette, said that the Americans are getting bigger for the three decades. Meanwhile the customer’s comfort is being compromised when purchasing low fare flight.

On the other hand, one of the aviation companies, Southwest Airlines, in US was faced to an issue of discrimination. According to Chang and Stuart et al, 2012, Southwest questioned two passengers about their weight in the presence of more than 100 others, and they were requested the two passengers to step out the flight because of the reason: ”too fat to fly”. Besides that, in 2013, a passenger name Matthew Harper who weighs 154 kg was asked to step off the flight from Chicago with a reason of overbooking. In fact, the main reason was that this gentleman is over size.  Besides that, Mr. Harper reported that there were two people who even bigger than him but they were not refused to board in. It made him “felt like a criminal” (Kim, 2013). Those actions were criticized. Currently, it has “Customer of size” policy and those oversized passengers have to pay 2 seats per one ticket. The reason for that policy is that oversized customer will disturb the neighbor passengers by encroach the armrests.

As discussed earlier, passengers who purchase cheap flights compromise their comfort on the air. It means that the bigger body size, the lesser comfortable on the flight for the customers. The discussion can be started from those issues. Due to the positioning of low fare airline, Southwest has to minimize the cost and maximize the revenue in order for it to survive sustainability. Therefore, tightening seat space compare to other full service airlines is acceptable and it is nothing wrong for doing that because the “seat is the revenue generator”. However, Southwest charge double seat for those who oversize because the reason of disturbing from them to neighbor passengers by encroach the armrests. It might lead to dissatisfy for both oversize customer and the neighbor. Is it ethic for the airline to do so? If this aviation company double charge for “too fat to fly” customers, it will be claimed as a discrimination action. If the airline doesn’t take any action on this problem, it might bring dissatisfaction to those neighbors. It’s a dilemma for the Southwest on this ethical issue.

As an individual who figures out and understands the situation, I found out that there always has a solution for any dilemmas. It’s just only how people choose the way to deal with them. Agree that in order to pursue low cost positioning, Southwest must have strategy to minimize the cost and maximize the revenue; nevertheless, double charge is not the only way to keep satisfaction for the neighbor guests and bring comfortable for overweight customers. Due to the Americans are getting bigger in those three decades, it means that number of overweight people are increased. Therefore, Southwest can redesign by adding the additional inserted part on the two line seats which next to the walkway on the aircraft. When there is any oversize customer board in, the flight attendants assist them by inserting the additional part of seat for them without any charges. Although it mays cost the airline, it can help to enhance the service as well as improve the low cost airline image for the company. Besides that, this brings ethical image for the company as well.

Sometimes, simple method can help to solve the problem which may be hard to solve. In this situation, just adding the inserted space for the seat, Southwest can deal with the problem which considers as the dilemma. This innovation enables the organization doing business in this situation in the most ethical practice. 

References

Patterson, T. 2012. Airline squeeze: It's not you, 'it's the seat'. [online] Available at: http://edition.cnn.com/2012/05/30/travel/airline-seats [Accessed: 28 Jun 2013].

CHANG, J., STUART, E., EFFRON, L. and HAWKINS, S. 2012. 'Too Fat To Fly' Passenger Sues Southwest Airlines For 'Discriminatory Actions'. abcnews, [online] May 3, 2012. Available at: abcnews.go,com [Accessed: 18 June, 2013].

Kim, S. 2013. Man Claims He Was Kicked Off A Southwest Airlines Flight For Being Too Fat Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/man-kicked-off-flight-for-being-too-fat-2013-4#ixzz2WSzACqUH. [online] Available at: http://www.businessinsider.com/man-kicked-off-flight-for-being-too-fat-2013-4 [Accessed: 17 Jun 2013].

The love of mother

As I mentioned earlier in the previous blog, ethic is everywhere. It is in our daily activity, it is in our behavior towards a problem or situation, it is in business etiquette, etc. And we can even see it in the sagas which we had read during our childhood life. In the sagas, it always has the existence of two forces, moral and immoral. At the end of the sagas, the moral force will be the winner and most of the immoral sides are received punishment. We all believe that those immoral forces deserve to be punished. However, in some situations, have you ever thought that why the immoral characters choose to act unethically? Later, I would like to share a ethical dilemma which is in the famous and popular saga: Cinderella.

We all know that Cinderella is the unlucky young girl. She lives with her step-mother who has two daughters before married with Cinderella’s father. The step-mother gives all her love to the two naughty daughters. In contrast, Cinderella is given the enmity from the step-mother and the two step-sisters. One day, there is an announcement that the king invites all the beauties in town come to the party in order to choose the princess for the prince. The step-mother provides the most beautiful dress for her daughters to join the party and doesn’t give a chance for Cinderella to attend the party. She gives all the house works for Cinderella to do and ask her to finish it before she comes back from the party. Why is it so? It all comes from the love of the mother for her children. The step-mother thinks that Cinderella will be her daughters’ rival in the princess election party. From here, we can see that the step-mother is choosing unethical ways to treat Cinderella. You may think that this is not an ethical dilemma at all. This is just one of the details in the sagas. But yet, in real life, there also have similar situations. We also know that real life is different from sagas. Somehow, the saga is a reflection of the real society.

From this story, I would like to share true similar situation which I read from a newspaper few months ago in Vietnamese online newspaper. There is widow who had 2 sons. One of them is fosterling named Tung. The other is named Tien. Tung is orphan since he was 6 years old and he is her nephew. Later, the widow brought Tung back home and took-care him as her son. Even though Tung was just her fosterling, she loved him as Tien. Over the time, Tung and Tien grew up together, had a good job and implemented a son’s responsibility to the widow. They are good children in the thought of everybody. Unfortunately, Tung and Tien love the same girl. At first, both of them don’t know about that. Later, when they share their feeling to each other, they realized that and decided to have a fair competition. As a result, Tung has the girl with her heart. Tien was disappointed. He found that it’s hard to survive without the girl. Tung didn’t know that at all. However, their mother realized the case and consulted Tien to forget the girl. Despite his mother’s advice, he still gave her a tragedy love. Tien could not focus on work because of that reason. It leads to he became unemployment. The mother got hurt because of that. She tried her best to introduce another girlfriend for him. However, it doesn’t work. Besides that, she could not tell this situation to Tung as well because she didn’t want Tung faced to a dilemma situation. The ethical dilemma occurred from this moment. The mother was thinking that she should take back the girl from Tung for Tien or she just ignored Tien with the broken heart. If she helped Tien to get the girl, it would be unethical for her standard of behavior. But yet, she really could not stand when seeing Tien downed day by day. It’s hard for her to choose either Tung or Tien because both of them are her children. Nevertheless, she chose to act unethically, she tried to create the misunderstanding between Tung and his girlfriend in order for them to break up. All of her bad acts came from the love for her son. Although she took-care of Tung since he was child, he’s just her fosterling. It’s hard her to love Tung as much as Tien.

From the situation above, it can be said that if everyone of us do act unethically, it musts have a reason. We cannot simply give a judgment on what they are doing and how they do that. It is because we were not them, we cannot understand them as they understand themselves. Sometimes, we think that it’s hard for us to tolerate a person. But yet, when we are facing the same situation, will we do the same thing? It’s a tough answer. Ethic is an abstract, we cannot touch it, just can feel it.

who should we choose to save?

Ethics is an emerged topic which is excess in number of articles. It is all about the judgment, defending and even recommendation on the concept of right or wrong conduct. We can see ethics is everywhere. It is widely in social life, working world and even in business context. Somehow, it’s tough for us to give comment of ethical or unethical in an issue. It is because that issue is right in some aspects but it is wrong in the others. Today, I would like to share an ethical dilemma which I’d learned from a Hong Kong drama. Although it’s just a drama, it mays happen in the real world. And this dilemma is necessary for us to look at it as an ethical lesson.

The story which I’m sharing now is about a surgery doctor who holds in hand the survival of 2 patients. One is a good student and virtuous child in a normal family; he contributed to the society by volunteering in social activities and has a good future. The other is a dissipated dude, playboy as well as drug addict in a rich and famous family. In an unusual day, a horrible accident occurs in front of the hospital. There were few dozen people are in injury. Among of them, several are in serious cases. Therefore, at that moment, the hospital is extremely in demanding. All of the doctors, nurses are very busy. It can be said that no one is available for extra patients at that time. Unfortunately, there is found that two patients are in serious injury as well. They are the ones I mentioned earlier. Additionally, the rich child is the one who cause the accident. Two of them need to be implemented brain surgery immediately. Otherwise, they will die. However, there is just only one doctor available at that minute. The ethical dilemma is from here. Who should he choose to save? He will save the pious child or the rich immoral man who cause the incident? Before the time he comes out with the decision, there is a nurse against him and suggests him to save the pious child. It is because the rich guy is the one who cause the accident. He does not deserve to be saved. Eventually, he decides to save the rich man. Unfortunately, the brain surgery is fail due to there is not enough blood to supply, that guy dies. The pious child dies as well.

Before the ethical class, I thought that the problem could be end there. The drama just wants to convey how good the doctor is in his decision making. However, after taking the class, I remembered about this case and realized that there is an ethical issue in this part of the drama. The doctor reasons that he decided to save the rich immoral guy because of the higher survival percentage. In his point of view, this may be the right decision. Meanwhile, the difference of survival proportion is low. It means that if the doctor chooses to save the moral boy first, the saving percentage will be almost the same. People question that the rich guy is not deserved to be saved, why he saved him. As a conscience doctor, he supposes to save the virtuous boy. Therefore, in other perspective, his decision is unethical because he intends to catch the attention from the rich man family in order to support his future career.

Let’s assume that this is a true situation, we are as a doctor. Should we choose to save the rich person who caused the accident is in higher percentage of survival but the differences of that proportion is low; or we make a choice to save the moral boy? If we choose to save the moral boy, after the surgery, we have nothing, no reward and even are sued by the rich family. If the rich guy is to be saved and survive after surgery, we will get reward and have good development in the future career but we will receive negative comment from other people.  How should we make the decision? For me, I will do what I think it is the right thing to do. For my decision, I will choose to save the guy who causes the accident. It is because he has higher survival percentage; even though it’s just a little bit. Higher is higher, we cannot negate it. In the context of saving people, we should not see who is good, who is bad. The most important object is to save the one who has most ability to survive rather than react according to emotion. If we put too much emotion at work in saving people, it mays not be efficient at all.

In conclusion, I would like to say that ethic is just black and while, right and wrong. It’s not maybe right or maybe wrong. Besides that, the concept of ethical of unethical is depend on the person who defining the problem. 

Ethical dilemma

 The weather today is better than those previous days. It's cooler, as room temperature, around 23 degree. I'm more comfortable and relaxing in this weather. I'm sitting in front of my laptop, listening to music, staring at window. My mind is going somewhere. I'm thinking about my future; then come back to current. Suddenly, I remember that there still has Ethics assignment which needed to submit by this week. Ethics, ethics. . .  This word is running into my mind. I realized that there have number of ethical dilemmas are around me but I rarely pay attention on them.

            I would like to share a story which I experienced a few months ago. This is a true story and it happened with my friend. She was in relationship with her boyfriend around 1 year and several months. Their happy ending was in last 3 months by a wedding. Before they were going to marry three months, her husbands’ parents announced to her that their son is in drug addict condition for almost 7 years. As we know that when people become drug addicts, it's hard for them to give up on that poison. Besides that, the drug addicts’ family is very suffered due to number of problems and heartbreaking issues such as in-house petty theft, etc. Although his parents sent him to detox center for few times within those years, there had no improvement when he was back to normal life. They really love my friend and see her as their daughter. That’s why they gave her this announcement in order for her to decide whether staying or leaving their son. During that time, she was almost ruined because this was extremely shock news to her. It took almost one month for her to be calm after this fluttered news. However, despite number of advice as well as warning from her closed-friends, she decided to be with her boyfriend who is her husband now.

            This story seems like can be end here. However, when we look at this situation in ethical perspective, we can see that there is about ethical conduct of the son, the parents and even my friend. In my opinion, the parents told their daughter in-law about their son situation is ethic. It is right because they don’t want to cheat her; they don’t want her to regret after married; they give her chance to have her own decision on her life. My friend decided to be with her boyfriend is both ethical and unethical. It is ethical because she didn’t abandon the one she loves even though she knew the horrible truth. However, she is unethical to herself. The reason is that the remaining of her life will be suffered when staying with him. For the son, he is totally wrong from the beginning of this relationship. He supposed to know that in his condition, he couldn’t bring happiness to the girl he loves as well as hurt her.

On the other hand, other people give opinion that the parents encourage their son to marry the girl and held the wedding for them is wrong. As mentioned earlier, in their son condition, staying alone is better because there will be no more people who love him get hurt, except his family. The parents are doing so because they’re selfish, they love their son and cannot give up on him. They may want to have someone to help them control their son. And it is maybe because they want to have somebody share the burden which they carry along with them for a long time. Psychological pain of parents hurts their daughter in-law accidentally. They should interfere the relationship of their son and the girl by telling her the truth at the beginning, not at the time they’re almost going to marry. Or they can discourage or deny to held the wedding. By doing so, the tragedy marriage will be prevented. Unfortunately, things happened without anybody control. They are wrong; however, what they’re doing all come from the love of parents for their son.

Right or wrong, ethical or unethical, all depend on people. Different people have different perspective. From the story above, an objective judgement for the parents is not right but it is not wrong as well. Right or wrong is just for people who are in this situation decide. If the girl think that what the parents are doing is right, it is ethical. It is because they didn’t force her to marry the son. They tell her the truth and respect her decision. If she think that they are wrong, it is unethical. It is because they hide the truth that their son is in drug addict condition from the beginning; and they just announce her about that horrible news once she is in deep love, make her fall in the situation that she can’t get out from this relationship. Once again, in this dilemma, it’s hard for us to give the judgement of ethical or unethical. This is not the only one ethical dilemma. In life, we may see and even face to number of similar situations. Whatever happens to us, we should solve the problem in the way that we believe it is right and don’t go against our ethical conduct. So, when everything is done, we look at it and not regret with what we did. It is ethics.