One late afternoon, in 2009, Abel was ready to make a
tough decision between his responsibility towards his family and his
responsibility towards his country, his employees and his beliefs.
A few years before, he had entrusted his company to
Silvia, a very likeable woman, with vast experience in the industry. She
over-performed during her first year as a general manager, significantly
improving revenues and customer service. Abel had Silvia run the whole company
because he trusted her. But Silvia’s second year in charge changed Abel’s
perspective. Sales declined month after month. During meetings, Silvia would
blame the decline on the global financial crisis of 2008. Things started
getting odd from then on. First, Silvia gave up part of her salary to help the
business during months with little income. Second, she brought in a family
member to replace a current employee. Third, Abel received a call from a client
trying to reach Silvia. The company provided services to this client during the
week but Silvia had failed to report the income. Through an audit Abel found
that there were major discrepancies between the reports, the money in the bank
and cash collections. Abel warned Silvia to fix the problem immediately if she
wanted to keep her job.
Silvia was given another opportunity during November and
December but these months finished up having terrible revenues, plus, Silvia
laid-off an employee without Abel’s consent. This employee reported some of
Silvia’s unethical behavior. First, she didn’t report sales in order to steal
the money. Second, she started her own rival company with the stolen money.
Third, she grew her company by using Abel’s company resources and stealing
clients. The news was devastating. Without further consideration, he fired
Silvia along with her relative.
The company would now go bankrupt, leaving more than a
couple of families jobless, including Abel’s, unless Silvia agreed to give the
money back, close her business and apologize to Abel’s customers. Of course,
she declined and Abel told her that he would start a lawsuit.
After a few days, Abel received calls from an anonymous
person who life threatened his life and his family’s. This person was very well
aware of Abel’s life and businesses. Abel knew, without a doubt, that Silvia
had hired this person to make the call as a scare tactic to prevent him from
suing her. These situations were very common in the country. 95% of the time,
the threats would not materialize. On the other hand, the other 5% could put
Abel and his family at risk. The only way to stop the threats was to not go
through with the lawsuit. But Abel had always considered people “cowards” when
they failed to testify against the crimes they had seen. This, he believed,
contributed to the fact that murderers, kidnappers, drug dealers, violators and
thieves could walk down the streets with no resistance and justice. This was
his chance to stand up for his convictions. Plus, if the theft was reported,
Abel was not required to pay a termination package to Silvia, thus recovering
some of the money stolen.
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