What is Right, What is Wrong

Assalamualaikum / Peace be Upon You 

It is occurred to me that lately a lot of people had been doing a lot of own business. Most of it might involve event management and staffing management. I have nothing against people who are trying to make a living but I have a thing against people who are willing to do anything necessary (In which I meant is by actually doing something shady), just to earn an extra amount of cash.

I might not know a lot about doing business or any of it's moral conduct but I do know a little about Event Management since I am a part of Hospitality and Tourism department (Which in my real area would be Culinary Arts). But I do learned about all of those in Event Management and Entrepreneurship studies during my university period. But what I don't understand is how people are willingly stoop so low in doing business just to earn extra cash.

This is somewhat what I've learned in my Business studies which is; Having a good ethics meaning that you are actually doing a good business. What are business ethics you might ask? Ethics are moral guidelines which govern good behavior. So behaving ethically is doing what is morally right. Behaving ethically in business is widely regarded as good business practice.  If you accuse someone of being unethical, it is equivalent of calling them unprofessional and may well be taken as a significant insult and perceived more personally than if you called them immoral (Which of course they may also not like). Sure, everyone want for their business to gain a lot of profit, but what is the use of the profit if you can't maintain it? You screwed your workers and sometimes you cheated on your customers. That's bad business alright.

 

What I've heard lately is there are a lot of the people that I known are actually taking this so called 'management fees' from their staffs. Called it what you want, it's actually considered ethically wrong. Yes, it is wrong to promised your staffs a deal and didn't even fulfilled the end of the bargain which in this case took some amount of the payment that they deserved. Like of an example; You were promised to get RM300.00 for a two days job but suddenly you only got RM260.00 because the person that offered you the job took 20% for your payment as their 'management fees'.

I've asked some of the people that I know whose into business and some who works inside government office, all of them told me doing this is indeed ethically wrong is so many levels. A friend of mine (Christopher Tock), told me that the wrong part of it is to promised the staffs one amount, and then giving them another amount which isn't what had been promised with. This is actually lies and misinformation that were given by the person. 

Well, they way I sees it, it is similar to bribery. Hey I mean c'mon, the person asked you to give him some money just because he introduced you to a job that made you earned money. It's kinda like bribery don't you think? I think this is how corruption starts. First you start on taking some small amount fees from other people, then you start taking favors then it will become a huge problem in society and so on.

My other friend also told me that this sort of thing is a common thing to be done lately whereby the agents would ask for commission for the job that they had done. Legally we can't do anything to them since most of it are not in black and white but only done verbally. What we can do is only to avoid this sort of thing so that it won't happen to us again in the future. 

 

Most of them would probably say these when they are being confronted; "Don't worry. It's just small money" "This how people are doing business nowadays". Most the people that I know that had done this are most probably doing this because a lot of the people are doing this. Like they say; Monkey see, monkey do. They see nothing wrong in taking 10%, 20% or even up to 50% out of your payment because to them it is the right way of doing business because everyone else is doing 

It really made me sad seeing that people would easily used trickery and unethical ways like this when doing business. Not to mentioned using any means necessary in order to gain extra cash. Honesty and good will is no longer the virtues in doing good business, it's just petty words and actions for those that will not strive in doing business. They cheated, they lied to other people, and not to mention embezzled the money that they received just so that they can have more. 

And yet these people frequently ask why there is corruption inside our society. You might say it is only business, but apparently other people are saying what you are doing is indeed unethical and wrong. I guess there are some people values wealth more than their friends and families. And the worst part is that some of these people that are doing this are Muslims. I know I'm no saint but for me this is wrong, unethical and downright degrading. Unfortunately we can't do anything about them because there always will be naive people that will fall for this kind of trick.

Most people wish to lead honorable lives but failed to do so. We should tell this phrase to ourselves; It's not how good you are, it's how good you want to be. I'm actually sick and tired of hearing that some of the people that I know were tricked by this kind of thing and some of them even did this to other people. You can call me too naive for this concrete jungle and inexperience in doing business but I still know what is right and what is wrong. Hopefully I won't do this kind of thing in the future. I could only pray to God.

Salam