Reflecting on Ethical Dilemmas: A Humorous Tale from a Mentorship Experience

In the course of our professional journeys, we often find ourselves confronting ethical dilemmas, some of which can lead to amusing yet questionable scenarios. One such incident I encountered during my time mentoring a high school Junior Achievement team serves as a perfect example, blending humor with a touch of mischief.

As part of a community outreach initiative, a group of 2nd and 3rd-year associates and I eagerly volunteered to guide a team of high school students in launching a small business. The objective was clear: help these young entrepreneurs create and operate a sustainable venture for a few months. Our team ultimately decided to sell fruit baskets, which involved sourcing bulk fruit, assembling beautiful arrangements, and delivering them to local customers.

However, our journey hit a snag when we encountered one of Junior Achievement’s fundamental rules: the team was not allowed to incur any debt. While this principle was undoubtedly established to protect the program, it presented a significant challenge in reality. With no means to take on liabilities, we soon faced the dilemma of how to purchase our fruit without any upfront capital.

Striving to navigate through these constraints, we ingeniously devised a solution: we asked customers to prepay for the fruit baskets. This approach allowed us to collect funds at the time of ordering, which we then used to fulfill deliveries a couple of weeks later. From a business standpoint, this strategy was remarkably efficient.

However, the humor—and the ethical conundrum—emerged when we reached a critical step in the process: preparing weekly financial reports for submission to the Junior Achievement office. Drafting these reports required us to account for our cash collections and deferred revenue. Had we reflected our actual financial situation, the organization would have faced concerns regarding our Bookkeeping practices. Thus, we found ourselves in a predicament that called for discretion.

Without any malintent, we unknowingly began maintaining two sets of financial records. One accurate set tracked our genuine transactions, while the other was a sanitized version intended for submission to the regional office—essentially, the “audited” records. To our surprise, this dual Bookkeeping became a reality, and we even involved the students in this unconventional practice.

As days turned into weeks, we sat down one afternoon and realized, with a mix of astonishment and amusement, that we had created two separate financial tracks. Recognizing that our approach was working—and with only a few weeks remaining in the project—we decided