Evaluating an Ethically Charged Scenario You are a civil engineer working for a

Question

Evaluating an Ethically Charged Scenario You are a civil engineer working for a local engineering firm. The company is relatively small and not very well known. In fact, times have been a little bit tough in your firm, since one of the principals retired. Good news for you, though, since you can climb the management ladder faster! Right now, you are new to the company ( 1 year) and have a senior engineer as a manager. Last week, she put you on the only new project in the office that involved constructing a new government office building next to the capitol building in downtown Denver. Your firm was working with a land development company with whom your company partnered on many projects in the past (professional firm-to-firm relationships are great!). After working on the project for a week, though, you realize that their surveying results (information about the ground and soil) were obtained using very outdated equipment, and none of the results seemed quite right. You found employees at the other firm on Linkedin and saw that none of them had backgrounds in surveying, geotechnical engineering, or soil characterization. If you speak up to your manager, though, you might displease your manager, sour the only good project and professional relationship that your firm has at the moment, and put your job at risk. If you do not say anything, perhaps the soil would be OK. There is a chance, though, that the soil would not have adequate strength, which would impact the structure. What would you do in the situation? Would you speak with your manager? If so, what exactly would you say? Consult the ASCE.Code of Ethics to formulate your answer to this question.

Explanation / Answer

Let us first peruse the ASCE Code of Ethics to understand our duties and responsibilities.

1. HOLD SAFETY PARAMOUNT

2. SERVICE WITH COMPETENCE

3. ISSUE TRUE STATEMENTS

4. ACT AS A FAITHFUL AGENT

5. REPUTATION BY MERIT

6. UPHOLD PROFESSIONAL HONOUR

7. CONTINUE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

8. TREAT ALL PERSONS FAIRLY

The brief facts of the case are:

If you peruse the ethics advised by ASCE then it is quite clear that as a engineer you have to be true, fair, just , professional and above all HOLD SAFETY PARAMOUNT. Therefore, as a sincere and dedicated engineer I will without any further delay immediately ask for meeting with the manager and explain to him/her about the serious deficiencies noticed by me in the quality of work being done by the land development agency and the consequences which may affect the safety of a prestigious building being funded by public /taxpayers money.It is my bounden duty as an engineer to safeguard the public money and lives of people involved in case of an accident resulting from faulty soil/survey data being submitted by the land development firm.

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