Hey guys!!! I'm super excited this week becauseeee ...Before, I really was struggling with my reading. My book has a lot of different characters, complex financial concepts, and an enormous amount of pages, BUT... I've talked to Mrs. House this week and she's told me I only need to read up to the 200 page mark because my book is so long!!! Ahhhhh thank you Mrs. House!!!
So now I'm getting to the portion of my book where Enron's employees start making botched deals and taking shortcuts, in order to look like they're doing a good job without really doing the proper work. The problem was that these shortcuts only held things together for a brief period of time. Then later, they fell apart, and revealed the huge losses Enron had really been taking over time. One of these shortcutters was Fastow, the company's chief financial officer. Fastow originally did a good job with his work, and was promoted to a higher department, but then shortly afterwards was demoted because he couldn't do the higher-up job well. To try to save face and still look macho, Fastow went into a frenzy focused on regaining his reputation. He cut lots of corners, and then took it personally when other people tried to correct his actions. This led to him being really irritable to be around, and to most Enron employees giving him a lot of space, unfortunately also giving him the chance to really bungle things up:
"Baxter raised a few feeble arguments but ultimately gave up. He didn't have much interest in battling Fastow either. He hated the guy, but the tiny wind deal just wasn't worth the fight. He stepped aside. Fastow's rages had worked. Now nothing could keep him from doing the deal the way he wanted" (Conspiracy of Fools)
"Baxter raised a few feeble arguments but ultimately gave up. He didn't have much interest in battling Fastow either. He hated the guy, but the tiny wind deal just wasn't worth the fight. He stepped aside. Fastow's rages had worked. Now nothing could keep him from doing the deal the way he wanted" (Conspiracy of Fools)
When I read this, I wondered what type of person I am. Am I the type of person that likes to avoid conflict? Or do I prefer to have a face-to-face confrontation? I think I'm actually a mix of both kinds of people. I believe I generally would prefer to avoid conflict if I think the problem will resolve itself, but I also believe that serious issues sometimes need to be somewhat forcefully resolved, especially in cases where I think what the people involved are doing is wrong. Obviously Baxter shied away from the conflict in his situation, but it ended up being really detrimental for Enron in the long run. In these cases, is it better to do what is right for the company and get a fellow employee in trouble for his wrongdoing? Or should you sit back, let him do his thing, and hope he realizes he needs to change something? And this brings me to my next question: If something is going wrong that wasn't originally your fault, does it become your fault if you do nothing to help the situation?
A while back, a friend asked me a hypothetical question: "If there was a train headed straight towards a group of 50 people, about to kill them all, and you had the ability to pull a lever that could change the train's course, would you pull the lever? If you pull the lever, the train will instead kill one person standing to the side. Would you kill one person or 50?" When I heard the question, I answered that I would pull the lever, because I thought it would be better to save many instead of just the one person. The friend that asked me the question replied that she would not pull the lever, because if she did, then she effectively caused that one person's death, and would bear the weight of knowing she chose to kill someone. But if she didn't pull the lever, then, because she wasn't the one who set the train on course towards those 50 people, it wouldn't really be her fault the other 50 people died.
A while back, a friend asked me a hypothetical question: "If there was a train headed straight towards a group of 50 people, about to kill them all, and you had the ability to pull a lever that could change the train's course, would you pull the lever? If you pull the lever, the train will instead kill one person standing to the side. Would you kill one person or 50?" When I heard the question, I answered that I would pull the lever, because I thought it would be better to save many instead of just the one person. The friend that asked me the question replied that she would not pull the lever, because if she did, then she effectively caused that one person's death, and would bear the weight of knowing she chose to kill someone. But if she didn't pull the lever, then, because she wasn't the one who set the train on course towards those 50 people, it wouldn't really be her fault the other 50 people died.
I understood what my friend was thinking, but in my opinion, if you see something like that about to happen and you don't help those 50 people, then their deaths are your fault, because you had the power to save them and you did nothing. "With great power comes great responsibility" (Benjamin Parker). I thought part of that responsibility would be using your power to save the 50 people because you had the power to do that, even if you didn't have the power to save that one last person...Nonetheless, the "correct" course of action is open to interpretation. There aren't any wrong answers.
So, tell me! Are you a lover or a fighter? What would you do if you witnessed something wrong? Would you pull the lever? And lastly, if you didn't pull that lever, would it be your fault those people died?
So, tell me! Are you a lover or a fighter? What would you do if you witnessed something wrong? Would you pull the lever? And lastly, if you didn't pull that lever, would it be your fault those people died?