Greg And The Utility Cabinet

Greg was very excited to land a job as an electrician in charge of maintenance. It was a dream come true having been interested in electrical matters from his childhood. His dream was to go back to school so that one day he would be promoted to chief electrician in charge of a number of business units. His current job was going very well. He was kept busy replacing old and worn out switches and also fixing power extensions whenever a new workstation was set up. All that changed when his immediate supervisor sent him to the switching system in the basement to find out why a certain power line for lights was dimming every now and then. When he got there, Greg was completely shocked by what he saw. The utility cabinet of the switching system was old and worn out and had exposed cables. He could not understand how such a large company could be so negligent. He called his supervisor to try and explain how dangerous the situation was. Greg was really surprised when his supervisor told him to take care of what he had been sent to fix and to leave other things as they were. Greg was presented with an ethical dilemma knowing he could not keep the utility box in its current pathetic state. Yet that was exactly what his supervisor was ordering him to do.
Greg realized that the reason why his supervisor had been so stern was because he had created a mess by ignoring the dilapidated utility box that he did not know how to deal with. Greg knew that although people rarely went to the basement, having exposed cables was dangerous. He also knew that the utility box was not serving its purpose of keeping cables and switches concealed. Furthermore, he understood that utility cabinets are useful when they are locked to prevent someone with an ill motive from accessing them and sabotaging the business. Since it was a Friday, he had a long weekend to decide what he could do about the situation. Going to the manager meant insubordination to his supervisor, but he had to do something.
When he got to work on Monday, his supervisor immediately summoned him. As he was going to the supervisors’ office, he expected the worst. To his surprise the supervisor told him he had been planning a major maintenance on all utility cabinets in the building including the switch cabinet in the basement that he tasked Greg to take care of. As Greg left the supervisors office, he was smiling in satisfaction in the knowledge at least he would get to fix the mess in the basement. Through this experience Greg realized that most electricians are concerned about cables at the expense of utility cabinets, however utility cabinets play an important role. He vowed that as long as he worked as an electrician, he would prioritize the maintenance of all the utility cabinets in the building to prevent the kind of negligence in the future.