Professional Workplace Dilemma
GEN/480

Professional Workplace Dilemma
While working in private care I became the supervising caregiver of the other caregivers. It was my responsibility to hire, fire, train, set schedules, and purchases for the needs for the house. A friend of mine, best friend at the time, came to me with a need for a job just as I had a need for a caregiver in the private care home. Since she had given me my start in caregiving I gave her the job. She did a great job of caring for the person and the home and I didn’t have any problems with how she did her job. She came to work 5 minutes late one shift and was given a warning that she needed to give herself more time to get to her job for her shift. She came in 15 minutes late and was given the same warning. She thought it was okay because we were friends. I asked her to be respectful of our friendship and not to do it again. She came in three and a half hours late the next shift and apologized stating she had overslept, but I knew it was a hangover she slept off because she had told me she was having family over for a big family gathering and that meant there would be drinking involved. When I was relieving her of her shift later, she was walking out a bunch of expensive dishes fell out of her stuff she was carrying out. I was faced with a dilemma of do I let her continue to abuse our friendship and take advantage of this person or do I do the right thing and let her go from her position because she has definitely crossed the line. Thelma and Cec were mother and daughter, and Betty and I were their employees. At the time, Betty and I had been friends for over ten years. Thelma was incapable of defensing herself, so it was up to the employees and the daughter of Thelma to defend Thelma and her home, along with the possessions within the home.
I was placed in a professional ethical dilemma as well as a personal ethical dilemma at the time that Betty tried to remove possessions from the home that were not her possessions, but were the possessions of the home owner, Thelma. When Betty was choosing to come into work late, it was a personal ethical dilemma between her and me as well as a professional ethical dilemma. Betty felt that she was taking advantage of our friendship and that I could just turn around and do it to her at a later time and there would be no harm done. I saw the situation as taking advantage of our friendship and having no respect for the job position she had been given. I had already let her know though that when we were working our friendship was second place, and our professional positions were first and with that being stated, I would ensure that she would have a cut in pay over the time lost. When it came to the removing items from the home, Betty placed our friendship and her job on the line, and the situation left me with no choice but to remove her from her job position at the home. It was the morally correct method of handling the situation whether it was personal or professional. Betty lost a good job and a good friend that day.
I personally think the difference between power and authority was blurred to Betty as she was my supervisor at our other job and when she came to work with me at this job she had a hard time with me being her supervisor. Betty tried to do the things she had done when we worked together before but there was nothing I could do about it because she was the supervisor and she also happened to live there. At the job we had the dilemma at I was the