Enron The Smartest Guys in the Room essay

The Enron Movie discusses the corporate culture of Enron and their ethical behavior which lead to the largest corporate bankruptcy. The Enron scandal was a financial scandal which involved three key players Jeff Skilling, Kin lay, and Andrew Fastow who took extensive measures to cheat the system and break the law. The company fixated on stock price saying profits where soaring, but in realty profits weren’t doing well. Several people placed their 401k’s into Enron, believing that the stocks where rising but the company was losing money. Enron’s biggest lie was the energy trading business which was driven by greed.

In 2000 Enron ran out of ways to show they where making money. Enron’s traders exported power out of the state of California, when prices soared they brought it back in by cutting down the power plants and created artificial power shortages. West coast traders made 2 billion dollars for Enron and Enron’s unethical behavior caused the state of California 30 billion dollars. On August 14th 2001 Jeff Skilling announced he was stepping down as CEO of Enron and resigned suddenly and assured Enron’s employees and investors that Enron was in excellent shape and that his reason for leaving was strictly personal.

Skilling left Enron because he knew everything was coming to an end. When Kin lay took over as CEO the day after Skilling resigned Sharon Watkins discovered a dozen assets and spreadsheets that didn’t add up. Investors were worried their investments were lost. On Oct. 23rd Kin Lay was talking to his employees well Arthur Anderson the accountant was destroying accounting records. Four months after Skilling resigned Enron declared bankruptcy and the smartest guys in the room became victims of their own greed. I have experienced deceit myself approximately 14 months ago I was in need of a new coach and loveseat.

Considering my mother had purchased a couch and loveseat about 8yrs ago from American Furniture and they were still in excellent condition I decided to do the same and purchase my couch and loveseat from American Furniture. I was looking specifically for a Victorian style coach and loveseat, when I found the exact ones I wanted. I had a discussion with sales person who informed me that there was a life time on the frame and boy do I wish I had that on paper. A few months after the armrest started making a popping noise and approximately 13 months later the arm board inside was caved in.

I phoned American Furniture to let them know that the material on my couch was in excellent shape but my coach was falling apart in the inside and it was defective. They stated that there was nothing they could do about it since the coach’s frame only had a year warranty. I told them that the sales person had told me it had a lifetime warranty. They informed me there was nothing they could do about it because they would not know who the salesperson was who sold me the coach. I told them that it was very unethical behavior for their employees to deceit people in order to make a sell.

Now I am stuck with furniture that is defective and the reason I bought Furniture from there was because I wanted quality furniture. I thought to myself If I had gone to Big Lots could have gotten better furniture. I asked to speak to a manager and they stated they would have one call me however it has been a month and still have not received a call. I was charged forty dollars for a technician to come look at the coach and loveseat and the technician stated he has seen this happen before where these coach’s do not hold up because the armrest is made with card board. To top it all off American Furniture wants to charge me $350 to repair them.

I find that a lot of times people do not want to open their mouths and come forward when someone is behaving unethically. When I get back to work I want to prevent unethical behavior in my job and I want to be aware of unethical behavior so I will make it a point to research the companies’ code of ethical behavior. I want to be honest and support the company’s ethical code and trust that my fellow employees will do the write things. Most importantly I will ask questions when I feel something is wrong and unethical so I can prevent people from being taken advantage of.