Do the right thing, even if it’s against the rules

I always wondered how I would handle a situation in which my sense of right and wrong came into conflict with my duty. Then I found out just what I was made of.
Over the years, I had convinced myself and others that I was strong, unwavering and solid as the Rock of Gibraltar when it came to my moral standards. I was willing to stand in there and take the punches for what I believed in. But talk is cheap. Words only matter when we have the guts to back them up.
And over the years, I have discovered and had to admit to many self-contradictions of character. I guess that’s a nice way of admitting that I am human after all.
One way many of us end up eating humble pie is when our words back us into a corner and we find ourselves unwilling to fight our way out. So, we swallow a mouthful of humiliation instead.
Well, I have eaten my share of humble pie. In fact, I eat a steady diet of it.
There have been times in my life when I failed to stand up and be counted for my beliefs; when I chose to fall silent instead of speak up and be heard. I have let the world bully me into submission. But not this time.
Not this time. Not when my values, beliefs and morals were at stake. Somehow, I knew the day would come when I’d be forced to choose between doing my job and doing what I believed was right. It is not a position any of us wish to find ourselves in. I did not relish having to jeopardize my job because of my convictions.
This fall I was hired by a state agency, which shall remain nameless only as a courtesy. I will state on the record that I was hired to work in a group home for troubled teens.
One day, I was compelled to act in response to a physical altercation. One teen assaulted and hit another. I responded by placing the aggressor in a therapeutic physical restraint that prevented him from hitting the other teen again. It also diffused the situation by denying the other youth an opportunity to retaliate and escalate the altercation further into a bloody fist-fight.
I thought I was doing the right thing by putting a stop to the assault and battery, and preventing further violence between the two youth. It turned out that I was not; at least not according to the agency I worked for.
What followed was a series of interviews (or perhaps interrogations) between me, my supervisor and upper management. In them, I was asked repeatedly if there was anything I could have or would have done differently. I said no, because I believed that stopping the physical aggression before it could get worse was the right thing to do.
Apparently, my actions went against agency policy, which forbids staff from using physical intervention of any kind on youth—even those who have a history of violence against peers and adults.
So, if I wasn’t allowed to put my hands on a kid to stop him from hurting someone else, then what was I supposed to do? The correct answer is nothing. I was supposed to do nothing; just let them fight it out and not get involved. The extent of my involvement was to call the police. Now, what if a violent youth was to come after me? The correct answer is to run and call police. Meanwhile, I’ve got an out-of-control kid chasing after me and thinking he’s got the upper hand.
See, I posed questions like these to my supervisor and the upper management. Their answers were predictably scripted in agency policy. They could not give me an honest answer of what they would personally do, or what they believed to be the right thing to do. That is because doing what policy says is more important that doing what one thinks is right. Understandably, they were covering their backsides and the agency for the sake of their jobs. When I asked what would happen if we did nothing to stop a fight and somebody got badly hurt, I was told that we could not be sued for following policy.
Well, since I felt unsafe being able to do nothing to stop a violent situation from happening and raised this concern with management, I was eventually fired. Of course, they did so two weeks before Christmas—truly in the spirit of the holiday season.
Nevertheless, I was only disappointed that I could no longer make a difference in the lives of the youth I worked with. But neither was I ashamed, nor did I regret drawing a line in the sand between right and wrong. I chose to stand on the side of right and I did not budge, in spite of the efforts of management to help me see the errors of my ways.
While it may seem that the agency had the upper hand in this matter—I was a problem, I was fired, problem solved—the truth is that I left with a clear conscience, because I believed in what I stood for, and I showed no fear in standing up for my beliefs. Neither did I let bureaucrats intimidate me, nor did I place policy above my values and morals.
I am hardly a rebel. I respect authority and do my job to the best of my ability, because that is what I would expect if the tables were turned and I had others working under me. Besides, it is just the right thing to do. I am not one of these wreckless anti-authority types who feels compelled to question and challenge everything about “the Man,” because life is full of conspiracies against us little people.
However, I will choose my battles…wisely, of course. I only fight when fighting is needed. I only challenge when challenging is necessary. And I resist rules, policies and, yes, even laws that require me to say or do something I do not believe is moral or right.
So, after having said all of this, you may be wondering why I chose to share my story with you. Because I want you to know that it’s okay to stand up for what you believe in. It’s okay to take risks to defend your values and morals. And it’s okay to place morality above the law. When we do, others come to respect us for that. But when we don’t, we lose even our own self-respect.
I lost my job because I stood up for what I believed was right; but it was just a job. I can always find another one. But when a person compromises his values and beliefs, he loses what takes a lifetime to attain: character, integrity and the respect of self and others. I'd do it all over again before giving up these virtues. Besides, at least now I can better sleep at night.
How well do you sleep?