Colin was a middle manager in a large utilities company. He headed the job evaluation department and administered the company’s job grading system. This involved interviewing job-holders throughout the organisation, composing job descriptions using an agreed format (every job description ended with the words ‘... and other duties as required’), and scoring the job to establish which of seven salary bands should apply. Colin’s department was part of the personnel function and he reported to the Personnel Director.

Colin was an upright, straightforward sort of chap. This was just as well, since he was often offered inducements by those who were keen to ‘influence’ the job grading system. Senior managers, for example, would lobby him in an attempt to secure a high grade for a newly created job so that it would be easier to recruit high calibre candidates. Colin always managed to resist such pressure and to steer a straight course. He maintained that it wasn’t enough to be fair and honest, you had to be seen to be. Transparency was essential, otherwise the job evaluation system would quickly fall into disrepute.

The office immediately next door was occupied by Ray, the manager in charge of recruitment and selection. Unlike Colin, Ray was eminently persuadable. In response to requests from senior managers Ray would cheerfully ‘adjust his priorities’ and let people jump the queue. He accepted small bribes from the recruitment agencies he dealt with – the occasional bottle of whisky or claret and, once, a handsome carriage clock.

Ray also tended to be what he called economical with the truth. You and I would call it dishonest. He would manipulate figures to make it look as if his department was meeting its key targets. He would alter the results of certain psychological tests to improve a candidate’s chances of selection. He invented plausible-sounding statistics, conjuring them out of the air precise to the second decimal place.

Each month Colin and Ray would countersign each other’s expense claim before it was submitted to the Personnel Director for final approval. Colin was always scrupulously honest with his expenses. He saved all the relevant receipts and completed the form accurately. Ray, by contrast, indulged in some shady practices. He’d claim mileage allowance for journeys he hadn’t undertaken and would slip in some receipts that weren’t actually work-related. He’d fabricate taxi journeys and attach faked receipts to his claim form.

Aware of these malpractices, Colin felt increasingly uneasy about countersigning Ray’s expenses. After a few months, he broached the subject with Ray, who simply laughed, saying life was too short to worry about such trifles. He even offered Colin some faked taxi receipts for his own use. Over the space of a few months, Colin’s resentment at being expected to condone Ray’s dishonesty festered and grew. Eventually, Colin decided that enough was enough. The next month he would refuse to countersign Ray’s form. Colin braced himself for an ugly confrontation, but Ray simply smirked, shrugged his shoulders and said he’d find someone else to sign.

Meanwhile, despite Colin registering his extreme disapproval on a number of occasions, Ray’s dishonesty continued. Colin grew more and more troubled by the moral dilemma: Should he turn a blind eye or expose the fraud? One day Ray was boasting about some figures he’d falsified and Colin decided that his silence amounted to cowardly collusion. Come what may, he would have to report Ray’s crooked practices.

Colin compiled a dossier and made an appointment to see the personnel director. The director heard Colin out, tut-tutting occasionally and looking suitably concerned. He took the dossier and thanked Colin very much for appraising him of the situation.

Then ... nothing. Life carried on exactly as before. Ray didn’t storm into his office and accuse him of being a sneak. Nothing. The only change, and it was so subtle that it took some time for Colin to recognise it, was that the Personnel Director seemed more hostile towards him! He started to find fault with Colin’s work and to harry him in a way that hadn’t happened before. Then, when the time came for Colin’s appraisal, he was criticised for missing deadlines and for general tardiness.

Ray, meanwhile, sailed on unmolested and achieved a good appraisal.