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Fallon
Heidi Fallon

Ethics and Leadership

Beverly Romberger

9 December 2018

Ethics in the Workplace- Jim Fallon

Coming from a working-class family in the suburbs of northern New Jersey, Jim Fallon

learned the value of hard work very quickly. Jim Fallon, my father, shares his experiences of

ethical issues in the work place, from his first job as a bus boy at age twelve to his current job as

an outside salesman at age sixty. Allendale Bar and Grill, a family owned business was Fallon’s

first place of employment. He worked there through high school and college working multiple

positions within the restaurant, bus boy, waiter, bouncer, and even manager. AB&G (the

restaurants nickname) and football put him through college at Fordham University in the Bronx.

He graduated in 1980 with a bachelor’s degree in Marketing and Finance.

Once he received his degree and left Allendale Bar and Grill he was hired by a tech

company to work as a salesman. He worked in New York City selling pagers door to door. While

traveling throughout the tristate area selling Motorola pagers, he was learning how to properly

sell a product and show customers the benefits that came with the product. Fallon worked six

years for this company. I asked if because this was his first serious job, he had trouble getting

into a routine and the hang of things. Fallon said, “I was young and nervous, but I realized I was

more prepared than I thought. AB&G taught me people skills, problem solving, and good

manners”. Because most of the time he was working independently, his biggest issue was dealing

with customer service. But during this time technology was evolving, faster than we could keep

up and issues surfaced because of it.

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Fallon
Fallon left the tech company in 1987 and got a job at Black Millwork as an Outside

Salesman. He sold doors and windows, mostly to contractors or architects building houses in the

area. Over the years he became one of the company’s top salesmen, gaining loyal customers and

collecting a long list of contacts. Black Millwork sold products from Anderson Corporation, an

international window and door manufacturer. The rise of the internet caused a long battle

between this small family owned business and the large corporation. In 1998 Anderson started

the process of buying out their distributers, one of them being Black Millwork. Anderson saw

that they were selling more products online than through the store, so they wanted to shut them

down. Because Black Millwork was a trusted company with loyal customers they fought the

closing. In 2003 Fallon was promoted to Director of Sales, but because of the battle between

companies it then became his responsibility to make important decisions. The more pressure

Anderson put on the company, the harder it was to stay open. Fallon was required to let

coworkers go that had been with the company for over thirty years. “I didn’t agree with what I

was being asked to do. It was a family owned company and they treated their employees like

family”. He felt it was unfair, that the small company was being crushed by the growing internet.

In 2005 Fallon left Black Millwork and was hired by his biggest account Kuiken Brothers

Incorporated. Kuiken is a family owned company that supplies residential and commercial

building materials. Fallon brought his customers with him to Kuiken. Black Millwork was on the

verge of bankruptcy because of the economic pressures. In chapter 8, Day says there are three

sources for economic pressure, financial supporters, competition, and the public at large. Black

Millwork was losing their sources to the internet. Online distributing was winning the

competition and was becoming a societal norm. Fallon questioned whether or not it was ethically

right to keep his customers because it would take business from the company but if he didn’t
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bring them to Kuiken it would have hurt his own sales. “Kuiken was and still is a stable

company, Black Millwork was closing and there was no stopping it. I made the responsible

decision to leave the company and take my customers with me”. He did lose some, but majority

stayed loyal to him. This relates to the theory of Ethical Egoism, “do the best for everyone by

doing what is best for us as individuals.

Black Millwork officially closed in 2012 due to bankruptcy, and Fallon has now been an

employee at Kuiken for eighteen years and counting.

Recently he has faced financial issues where customers want to pay for their orders in

full, but don’t pay right away. Customers will abuse the trust they have with the company putting

the salesmen in a bind. Fallon has had multiple customers that finish their entire project before

paying off his purchases. This disrespects the employee and Kuiken as a company, and the

customer should value the relationship he/she has. This also relates to the concept of

Professionalism. It reflects badly on the customer because they are refusing to pay for a product,

when they are financially stable to pay for it on time. Customers of Kuiken are a part of their

own businesses, they understand company-customer relationships because they have their own

customers to tend too. This type of issue happens in many other institutions, there is a lack of

respect within the workplace sometimes.

In a school setting, a teacher offers a student an extension, and the student does not finish

the assignment by the extension date. As a student we are seen as irresponsible and are told we

need to improve our time management skills. Abusing the favor makes the teacher or the

salesmen regret offering. It doesn’t benefit anyone, this is why teacher deduct points and interest

is added to payments. And being an employee it is important to respect the company enough to

be on time, because it could cost you your job and income.

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I have seen how my dad works, he is constantly on the phone and on road driving to

construction sites throughout the tristate area. I have learned a lot from him watching him work,

and I know I can apply my knowledge to my future job. My hope is to go into sales or marketing,

which I will face ethical issues and have to decide.

I have two part time jobs at home, I work for the same restaurant my dad did AB&G and

I work for a preschool as an assistant teacher. Like my dad, I like to talk to people especially

telling stories. For the longest time I thought I wanted a job in educations because I love working

with kids. However, working in the preschool made me realize teaching isn’t for me. So, I chose

the direction of Advertising and Marketing.

Based on the background that Jim Fallon has, the multiple jobs in sales and the part time

restaurant job, I want to acquire as much experience as he has. I may not The more challenges

thrown at me, the better I can be at my job. I can apply the ethical knowledge I have to make

sure that what I decide is morally right. This interview gave me insight into how sales work and

how everyday my dad deals with issues between seller and consumer. And how he uses his

people skills to solve problems efficiently, and the extra work he puts in to be a great employee.

Overall, I learned a lot of techniques that I can use in the future to work diligently.
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Interview Questions:

1. Where did you go to college? What year did you graduate?

2. What was you major in college?

3. Did you have a job in your teenage years? If so where/what was it?

4. As a young adult supporting yourself most of the time, how did you budget and save

money for the future?

5. What type of jobs did you have/ what is your job now? (list title of jobs/job description)

6. Within each job, were you faced with any ethical issues? Explain a few situations.

(truth/honesty, conflict of interest, economic pressures, stereotypes)

7. How did you handle that issue? Were you the moral agent or did you contribute to the

decision?

8. Did you ever question your beliefs after coming up with a solution?