What would you do?I got a message one night from a woman I chat with on forums. I don't know this woman personally and actually, when I say I chat with her I really had only seen her nickname on the forum. I had never actually chatted directly to her.
She was quite distressed this night. Her son was stranded in Darwin with no money and no where to stay that night, she said to me that she knew I owned a restaurant up here and could I possibly help him out?
I was happy to. I am a mother of 3 boys and went through a horrendous adolescence myself. I made a promise to her from one mother to another that I would be fair and kind to her son and that I'd look out for him.
So I gave her the address and phone number and told her to send him down at 6pm that night and we'd give him 4 hours work in the kitchen then possibly a full time job if he worked out.
He did a great job, we paid him in cash and drove him around to the backpackers where he got a room for the night. Stopping on the way to get him some cigarettes.
After that he came to work for us full time.
He kept saying that he didn't have his tax file number but he'd get it to us as soon as he could.
Moral dilemma number 1:What the LAW says is right in this situation is that we are required to tax his wages at a rate of 50% as he has not submitted his tax file number or completed a tax file declaration form.
What my HEART said was the right way to treat the situation was to take him on his word that he would get the tax file declaration to us and to simply tax him at the normal rate in anticipation of the required documentation being eventually supplied.
What would you do here? What is legally right or what is a fair compromise?So after a few weeks, I contacted his mother and she gave me his tax file number. I went to him and again asked him to fill in a tax file declaration form.
In the mean time I had spoken to the kids mother a few times and she told me some really sad stuff about what the kid had been through in life. He'd had quite a few hard knocks and the whole family was financially battling. I really wanted to help these people out.
The next time I spoke with the kid he told me that he wanted to claim centrelink unemployment benefits for 6 weeks because this would make him elligible for a centrelink bond loan and he would then be able to get himself a unit to live in and for once in his life get on his feet.
Here I was, looking at a kid who had been abused and neglected in his life and had never got a break from anyone. I felt that he had a chance to break his cycle of poverty and crime if he just got that head start with the bond loan.
Moral dilemma number 2:What the law says is right in this situation is that I was required here to report him to centrelink for fraud as he'd falsely claimed that he was unemployed, he would have probably gone to jail as he had prior convictions.
What my stupid heart said was that it was a crime yes, but a victimless one and this kid had a chance to get his bond loan and attempt to have a life where he could be free from centlelink welfare dependence. I felt that this would ultimately benefit centrelink because he'd then not need to claim benefits ever again (hopefully). As well it was only a few hundred dollars really, hardly a drop compared to the ridiculous expenses politicians claim anyway.
What would you do here? What is legally right or what would possibly save the government money in the long run and give a kid a chance in life?I agreed to let it go for 6 weeks. I also told him that as well, I'd take $100 per week out of his pay to help him get his new start in life with the flat.
Then, he turned up at the restaurant with a pushbike he stole and asked us if he could hide it at the restaurant for a couple of weeks.
Moral dilemma number 3:What the law says here is that I was required to call the police and report him for theft. This would result in him going back to jail where I felt he would only learn more criminal talents.
What my heart said was to show him that what he'd done was WRONG as well as illegal and make him return the bike to where he got it from without him having to go to jail .
What would you do here? What is legally right or try to fix the situation with a win/win compromise?I didn't call the police but I did get VERY stern with him and told him it was WRONG and I would not put up with it ever again. I made him take the bike back and I told him to never bother bringing stolen goods onto our premises ever again.
I never trusted him after that always watching to make sure he wasn't near the till or touching anything of ours.
I was starting to stress right out about this kid but his mother was so far away and being a mother myself I had made a promise to the woman that I would look after her son. I was caught between my own promise and what my head was saying, what my heart was saying and what the law says.
Well, things went steadily downhill from there. He started just not coming to work then ringing up 3 hours later saying that he'd slept in.
He only had to start at 11am! Not like it's the crack of dawn or anything.
My husband wanted to sack him but again, my promise to his mother haunted me and my emotional motherly instincts kept clouding my judgement.
Moral dilemma number 4:What my husband says is right is that the guy is not doing his job properly by just coming in when he feels like it and worse, coming in high on drugs sometimes. This was affecting the whole team because when he either didn't come in at all or came in not fully capable of working then the rest of the team have to work extra hard to carry him. He had to be sacked.
What my stupid heart said was that the kid was trying the best he could with the skills that life had given him and up until now, no one had given him a chance as he'd always been thrown out or sacked or sent to jail with every mistake he'd ever made. I wanted to be the one person who didn't just give up on him. I wanted to be the one person in his life who believed in him enough that he would eventually believe in himself. So instead of sacking him, I kept giving him chance after chance.
What would you have done? What was right by the team or what you felt would make a difference in this world by helping a kid believe in himself and break his habit of always losing in life?Obviously I didn't sack him because this story continues..
I will have to summarise the next part because there were too many moral dilemmas popping up to discect each one here. I began to stay away from the restaurant with the excuse that I had to stay home to finish renovations we were doing on our flat but really it was because I was out of my league and could no longer cope with the weight of the promise I'd made to the kids mum or the agony of trying to decide what is wrong or right in the situations he put us in.
Once we heard from another employee that he'd been dealing pot in the bar! Now posession of pot is decriminalised here so you only get a fine, not a drug conviction but DEALING pot is quite a different story and it was unfair of him to put us in that situation. However, when I confronted him about it he completely denied it so with no evidence or confession I could not go to the police so there was no moral dilemma this time, just a bitter taste in my mouth.
Also, he once came in bragging about stealing some guy's wallet in a bar and spending the money on drugs. I just wanted the kid to get his flat then snap out of it.
The 6 weeks ended and I gave him his $600 for his flat but he decided that he didn't feel ready to take on the responsibility of paying rent weekly or keeping up with electricity bills. Instead he took the $600 and went on a drug binge.
I really felt duped then because the only reason I had accepted him ripping off centrelink was to give him a chance to get a bond loan for that flat. Now he was just straight out stealing from centrelink, it had to stop.
He was still coming in stoned, even took extacy twice in front of the staff and my 16 year old son (but I actually only found out about that after we had decided to sack him otherwise I would have called the police straight up. There is no moral dilemma when faced with protecting my own son or protecting someone else).
The last straw was when FOR THE 7th TIME he just did not show up for work at 11am leaving my husband and son to do the shift without a kitchenhand. That was his last chance.
We have an overdraft cheque account where we are able to write cheques that overdraw our account but we're not able to draw cash out of an ATM on that account unless it is in credit.
We bought a house that week and with solicitors fees and stamp duty we'd left our account depleted thinking we'd be okay with takings through the restaurant. We didn't do it intentionally, we had just underestimated what the stamp duty was going to cost ($8000 actually) so we were left hoping we'd take lots of cash that week by payday as we are sole traders, not a company and what money we have in that account is all we have in the world.
We had a very quiet week though and oddly, most customers paid by credit card, this money going straight into the trading account which, as I explained, could not be drawn out in cash until the overdraft came back into credit.
So then on payday that week we were a little short of cash, we only had enough cash to pay 3 staff wages (1 wage short) so knowing that this kid got his centrelink payment that week and would be fine to support himself for 3 days we wrote him a cheque for his wages to be deposited to his account. This would clear in 2 or 3 days.
However, he had gone out and spent all his centrelink on drugs and was desperate for money(I know, I know, you're saying "well you are the one who accepted him being on centrelink in the first place" but if you understand it was with the intention of helping him get his bond loan, not to provide him with extra DRUG money) .
He tried to cash the cheque but because it was crossed, he had to put it into his account to have the funds cleared. He didn't want to do that because centrelink would then see income in his bank account so he threw a tantrum and the next thing I knew, I got an abusive email from his mother telling me that because I'd given him a crossed cheque he could not meet his obligations and could not live and I was to ring her urgently and rectify the situation! THE NERVE!
That he "could not meet his obligations" was just a lie because I even offered to make part of the cheque out to his landlord at the backpackers so that he COULD meet his obligations but in truth, he owed money to drug dealers (who would not accept a cheque) and this was why he was going so ballistic about the cheque.
We ended up taking back the cheque 2 days later and giving him cash because by then, more cash had come in through the restaurant.
So finally, after he'd taken us for a ride for those months we decided to sack him but he came down to the restaurant and resigned anyway. I'd written his mother a reply email basically outlining all the shit we'd put up with from her son and I guess she'd rung him because he was shitty with us for "dobbing on him to his mum" !!
He also got quite violent, threatening my husband and threatening to smash up the restaurant if we didn't give him more cash. He also then threatened to report us to the tax office for not deducting tax from his wages! I was STUNNED. He obviously faced no moral dilemmas!
When he no longer worked for us, the staff then came out with other things he'd done that they didn't want to tell us about while he was there because they didn't want to cause trouble.
This included taking ecstacy in front of my teen (which I've already mentioned) but also selling stolen goods through the kitchen such as camera and phones.
Then the most disgusting revelation came from the kitchenhand who told us that one night while we were not in the kitchen, a customer had complained that his pizza was taking too long so when the kid sent it out he spat on it first to "teach them a lesson" for complaining!
It was a slap in the face for me to find that all my intentions of helping him start a new life or make something of himself had amounted to NOTHING. This kid was gong to lie, steal and take drugs no matter who tried to help him out.
Now we still owe him 3 days pay which he worked after we paid him last week and before he resigned but I am again faced with a dilemma.
Moral dilemma number 5:The law says that during his time working, he was required to pay tax. This amounts to MUCH more than the 3 days pay that we owe him but if he were to go to the tax department and report that we had not deducted tax from his wages we would be fined and probably get into quite a bit of trouble. He has threatened to do this but I have a feeling it was the drugs makng him so irrational.
My still bloody stupid heart says well the kid has no money and will probably resort to crime if he is not able to find some cash. I should just give him his 3 days pay and be done with him.
What would you do here? What is legally right (which you should have done in the first place) or what will help the theiving lying little drug addict out?I am leaning more toward protecting ourselves from prosecution and paying his tax - this will only cost us a few hundred dollars cash, but in the process, will alert centrelink to the fact that he's committed fraud and he will then have to pay centrelink back, causing him more hardship and possibly pushing him further to crime. I feel the weight of this responsibility still
I don't know what to do.
What would you do?
