Should I Quit My Job if it Harms Society?

00:00:00.000 | [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:00:03.360 | All right.

00:00:05.320 | Let's keep rolling here.

00:00:06.320 | We got a question from Pythicus.

00:00:10.800 | Pythicus says, is it rational to quit your job

00:00:14.600 | if it implies a potential harm to society?

00:00:19.520 | And some pretty hairy details here.

00:00:21.960 | This is actually a structural engineer.

00:00:25.800 | Let me see here.

00:00:27.440 | Or whatever.

00:00:28.760 | He's working-- he's supervising a project

00:00:31.000 | on building apartment towers.

00:00:34.520 | And he thinks there's a problem, a design flaw,

00:00:37.720 | in the towers that under very rare circumstances

00:00:39.840 | could be catastrophic.

00:00:40.920 | And he's being ignored within his company

00:00:43.360 | when he brings this up.

00:00:45.000 | All right.

00:00:45.560 | So let me give you a general and a specific response

00:00:48.720 | to this issue.

00:00:49.560 | In general, in my book, So Good They Can't Ignore You,

00:00:53.000 | I talk about disqualifiers for a job, things

00:00:59.440 | that if they are true is a perfectly valid reason to say,

00:01:02.840 | I'm going to go to a new job.

00:01:04.080 | And the reason why I have those disqualifiers in the book

00:01:06.400 | is that a big idea in that book is

00:01:10.120 | that we're too quick to switch jobs and to quit.

00:01:13.240 | We care too much about, does this job match my passion?

00:01:18.960 | Do I love the work every day?

00:01:21.120 | And it's an unrealistic and naive view

00:01:23.160 | of how people actually craft real meaning in their work.

00:01:25.480 | And so the book, in general, discourages very quick job

00:01:30.840 | switching.

00:01:31.360 | But I was like, look, there's some clear disqualifiers.

00:01:33.920 | That means you got to get out of there.

00:01:34.920 | And one of those disqualifiers is

00:01:36.300 | that the work actively goes against your values.

00:01:39.000 | Do not stay in a job if it is actually

00:01:42.000 | corroding your own values.

00:01:44.920 | If you think there is something that's

00:01:47.560 | happening that's illegal, for sure get out of there.

00:01:49.480 | If you think there's something that happens

00:01:51.360 | that's perfectly legal but is bad for society,

00:01:54.480 | you got to get out of there.

00:01:56.360 | Because that will corrode at your soul

00:01:58.320 | if you're doing work that goes against what

00:02:00.880 | you think is important.

00:02:03.000 | Now let's get really specific here.

00:02:06.320 | Formally registering your complaint all the way up

00:02:08.720 | the ladder at the company you really need to do,

00:02:10.720 | this is important.

00:02:11.560 | If that's not working to formally register

00:02:16.280 | that complaint outside the company,

00:02:17.720 | you're probably ethically obligated to do that as well.

00:02:20.080 | Basically some whistleblowing behavior.

00:02:21.840 | Now I get the hesitation because you're not quite sure

00:02:24.120 | that this is an issue.

00:02:25.640 | You're actually not the head engineer,

00:02:28.120 | but you see this could be an issue

00:02:29.680 | and you think they're not paying enough attention to it.

00:02:32.000 | There's probably an ethical obligation here

00:02:33.720 | to make sure that the right people who do not

00:02:36.160 | have conflicts of interest have all the information you've

00:02:39.040 | given them.

00:02:40.360 | And if even after all of that, people are like,

00:02:42.320 | I think it's fine, then maybe this issue is not

00:02:44.280 | what you think it is.

00:02:46.360 | But you do, I think in your specific case,

00:02:48.120 | have an obligation to not just think about whether or not

00:02:51.440 | you want to leave this company, but make sure that this issue

00:02:55.960 | is something that the right people have seen.

00:02:57.880 | So that's not the easiest thing, Pythicus,

00:02:59.640 | but do the hard thing here.

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00:03:05.440 | (upbeat music)

00:03:08.020 | (upbeat music)

Should I Quit My Job if it Harms Society?

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