Jake needed a summer job and was lucky enough to land a position as a ticket collector at a local amusement park. On his first day, he was assigned to work alongside Tim who had worked at the park for the past two summers. Tim explained to Jake that tickets are purchased from the box office outside the gate, and that park-goers present their tickets at the gate when they are ready to enter. Each ticket has a stub that is torn off and given back to the park-goer so they can leave and return the same day.
Jake decided this was not going to be a bad summer job considering that one of the “perks” of working at the park was that on his days off he could enter the park free. However, he had remembered from reading the employee handbook that only employees were admitted free. Any friends or family accompanying the employee must pay full price. Tim showed Jake the gate that employees used on their days off. He said, “Just swipe your employee ID card through the card reader on the outside of the gate and you are in the park.”
Soon after Jake started working at the park, he began to notice that many of the employees would hold the employee gate open while their friends and family entered without purchasing a ticket. One day, Jake asked Tim about what he had seen. Tim replied, “Oh, nobody around here follows that policy. Last week I even saw the park superintendent come in with his entire family without paying.”
A few weeks later on one of his days off, Jake was hanging out with his friends when one of them said, “Hey Jake, since you are working at the amusement park, can’t you get us all in free today?” Jake thought about how much more fun it would be to go to the park with his friends and he began to reason, “Why should I follow the rules if no one else does, not even the park superintendent? Anyway, it’s not like I would really be stealing anything.”
Requirement
1. What are the ethical considerations in this case?