All right. Let's keep rolling here. We got a question from Pythicus. Pythicus says, is it rational to quit your job if it implies a potential harm to society? And some pretty hairy details here. This is actually a structural engineer. Let me see here. Or whatever. He's working-- he's supervising a project on building apartment towers.

And he thinks there's a problem, a design flaw, in the towers that under very rare circumstances could be catastrophic. And he's being ignored within his company when he brings this up. All right. So let me give you a general and a specific response to this issue. In general, in my book, So Good They Can't Ignore You, I talk about disqualifiers for a job, things that if they are true is a perfectly valid reason to say, I'm going to go to a new job.

And the reason why I have those disqualifiers in the book is that a big idea in that book is that we're too quick to switch jobs and to quit. We care too much about, does this job match my passion? Do I love the work every day? And it's an unrealistic and naive view of how people actually craft real meaning in their work.

And so the book, in general, discourages very quick job switching. But I was like, look, there's some clear disqualifiers. That means you got to get out of there. And one of those disqualifiers is that the work actively goes against your values. Do not stay in a job if it is actually corroding your own values.

If you think there is something that's happening that's illegal, for sure get out of there. If you think there's something that happens that's perfectly legal but is bad for society, you got to get out of there. Because that will corrode at your soul if you're doing work that goes against what you think is important.

Now let's get really specific here. Formally registering your complaint all the way up the ladder at the company you really need to do, this is important. If that's not working to formally register that complaint outside the company, you're probably ethically obligated to do that as well. Basically some whistleblowing behavior.

Now I get the hesitation because you're not quite sure that this is an issue. You're actually not the head engineer, but you see this could be an issue and you think they're not paying enough attention to it. There's probably an ethical obligation here to make sure that the right people who do not have conflicts of interest have all the information you've given them.

And if even after all of that, people are like, I think it's fine, then maybe this issue is not what you think it is. But you do, I think in your specific case, have an obligation to not just think about whether or not you want to leave this company, but make sure that this issue is something that the right people have seen.

So that's not the easiest thing, Pythicus, but do the hard thing here. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)