The Ethical Quandaries of Mentorship: A Retrospective Reflection
In the realm of professional development and mentorship, navigating ethical dilemmas can lead to unexpected situations, often with unforeseen consequences. I recently revisited an experience from when I volunteered to mentor a group of high school students participating in Junior Achievement. This particular initiative aimed to teach them the fundamentals of running a small business over a two to three-month period. Our team, composed of second and third-year associates, opted to run a fruit basket sales operation.
The premise was straightforward: the students would source bulk fruit and baskets, assemble them, and then deliver their creations to customers in the local community. However, we quickly encountered an unanticipated hurdle: Junior Achievement had stringent rules prohibiting the incurrence of any debt. While this policy was undoubtedly well-intentioned, it presented significant practical challenges for our young entrepreneurs. The prohibition on debt effectively meant that we could not create any liabilities, which complicated our ability to procure fruit for our baskets. Without the ability to spend, how could we expect to generate income?
In a moment of creative thinking, we devised an alternative strategy—requiring customers to prepay for their fruit baskets. This approach proved advantageous from a business standpoint, allowing us to collect funds upfront and fulfill orders a few weeks later. However, this clever workaround led us into murky ethical waters.
The humorous yet slightly troubling part of this experience emerged as we were tasked with creating weekly financial reports for submission to Junior Achievement. If we accurately reflected our cash collections and deferred revenue, we faced the very real possibility of disapproval from the organization. This presented a dilemma: to maintain transparency with the program’s guidelines or to ensure our business operations ran smoothly.
In a twist of fate, we inadvertently began maintaining two sets of financial records. One set documented the actual transactions—who had paid and who was still owed a fruit basket. The second, sanitized version was prepared for the Junior Achievement office, intended to satisfy their auditing requirements.
As we continued this practice for several weeks, it became clear that we had crossed into a gray area of ethics. During a casual discussion among team members, we had the realization: we were operating with two sets of books. Recognizing that the project was nearing completion, we ultimately decided to go along with the arrangement for the remainder of the initiative.
This experience serves as a thought-provoking reflection on the complexities of mentorship and the ethical dilemmas that can arise in educational settings. While the
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