When a vendor crossed the line with a secret deal

He promised a hidden bonus if I kept ordering from his company. Saying no was easy, but now I'm second-guessing if I hurt my bottom line. Do you ever compromise ethics for cash flow?

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3 Comments

the_piper7mo ago

My buddy in supply chain says he sees this all the time, especially around quarterly targets. It's wild how those little compromises just become normal after a while, and then suddenly the whole culture is off.

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uma6857mo ago

At a plant my cousin worked at, they started using cheaper components to cut costs every quarter. After a while, quality control just rubber-stamped everything to keep up with demand. By the time customers complained about failures, the entire team believed corner-cutting was standard practice. It took a major recall to reset their culture, but the damage was done.

7

annanguyen7mo ago

Reacting to how fast that normalization happens, like @the_piper mentioned. It's shocking to think a whole team could forget what quality even looks like in just a few quarters. Once you stop seeing a problem as a problem, you're already in deep trouble.

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