Hi Shinken
A lie is a lie. Whether fake degree or faking sick with MC. Worse still, faking death of next of kin or relative to avoid projects/reservists. In army its called "kheng," and that alone still question integrity.
I think my perception differs slightly from yours. I am talking about integrity, and is beyond faking a degree one-off. Or, you will be surprised, there are continual integrity problems in our society, just that there is no end to it.
How about this. Fake accident? A police officer "in a certain country" was speeding on his scooter, made an illegal left turn at red light, skided and fell behind my car. Another police officer on the road witnessed the scene and helped me with the report. But the report was nullified by the HQ as they needed to rewrite another report without giving me a copy of it.
There was no impact in the scooter accident, but he wrecked his bike on the floor with minor injuries. He faked the scenario and scapegoated me. The IO (investigating officer f me and told me to not to fight cos his man is on the right side of the law). I was fined $200 and was told not to pursue the matter as I won't win. The IO said in his eaact words, "its only $200 what, just pay for it and I will close the case. BTW, the officer is on MC for several months and he still cant report for work." Integrity at its peak. Police officer, faking report with IO help and scapegoating the public. Isn't this integrity as well? How do we entrust men in blue then?
This is the world. Integrity is only a cherished value. It means nothing actually, not even to law makers sometimes.
I am slowly learning how the world evolve. Do enlighten if you think the above incident does not irk you.
Way at the beginning, when I expressed my stance, I had made it clear that my stance is a personal one. My stance is that I value honesty over competency. And I fully understand that there are people in the world who value competence over honesty.
Now having different values is one thing. Trying to justify by making it 'right' is why I engage in this discussion.
You can say committing one sin is no different from committing seven sins. I can't argue with that. But we're not talking about sins here. We're talking about different degrees of dishonesty. Some degrees of honesty are of graver concerns than others. If you must, and want to engage me in your judgement, using your examples, I would say:
Lying about sickness to get a day off work, compared to someone who faked a degree to enter my corporation,
my personal decision, would be to think that faking a degree is a graver issue than lying about sickness. If it is an ok thing to do, I'm encouraging the climate of the subordinates to:
1) Lie about work they had done
2) Lie about accomplishments (fake them, steal credits etc)
3) Lie to clients about the company's credentials to get the deal
4) Lie about the products just to close the sale
5) Fill in the blanks as you please. Insert anything that's tied to lying about your worth.
After all, one lie doesn't matter, why should more lies? It does, depending on how severe it would affect the organisation.
That's very personal, and very tiring for me to explain here in forums. But I have far less to fear from a person who lies about his sickness, than a person who lies about what he has achieved.
To a person who sees that dishonesty is an issue, as enlightened by Major Tom, I see this person deserves another chance. To a person who sees dishonesty as a thing for losers, or something that's essential to be 'competent', I find them counter-productive in the long run. If anyone can adopt a more macro perspective than immediate returns.
To each his/her own ya?