Dilemma: Right vs. Right
What to Say to the Man Let Go?
Mary worked as a secretary in a department within a branch of a large corporation. The branch director had decided that the job of her department director, Jim, would soon be discontinued. Although Mary and a few others in her department had this knowledge, Jim did not.
For a few weeks, Jim was directed to work on an array of special projects at his home office. In the meantime, an employee from a different department was told to move in to Jim's office.
The branch director instructed Mary and other support staff to change Jim's voice mail, move his files out of the office, and erase his name from his assigned parking spot. Mary was told that the human resources department would call Jim to let him know what had taken place.
That week Jim called Mary because he could not get into his voice mail. He wanted to know if there were any technical problems. Mary felt torn: should she tell him the truth now or should she rely on human resources staff to tell him?
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