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I worked at Walmart in my first 2 years at Fresno State, and when I quit it was mostly about the ethics (more accurately the lack thereof) of the newly hired co-manager of the store. This person had never worked for walmart prior and was unfamiliar with the tasks for my department to be completed every day. They continually would micromanage and delegate irrelevant work to me, and after a while I had complained to other managers. The other managers told me to accept the new methods from the manager, and ignored the two years of experience I had. This eventually led me to quit walmart.

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I used to have a gym membership at a local gym in Merced called In-Shape. I always worried about leaving my car at the parking lot after sunset since they never had parking lightning there. I even worried about myself getting robbed and getting out of my car because the location for this gym was on the wrong side of town, and there were always homeless people and what it seems to be gang-related activities going on there. I only went to this gym because it was on my way home after my classes at Merced Community College. One day around 8 pm, during one of my workouts, I noticed that a group of thieves had broken into five cars, and one was mine. The thieves stole my backpack with my laptop and all my school belongings inside, and they also took some jackets I had in the back seat covering my bag. When the police arrived to take a report, the gym manager went to some bushes in the back, where she uncovered a little sign stating that the gym was not responsible for any accidents that might occur on the gym premises. The little sign was behind a bushed, which was their only response to what had happened that night. I contacted the main office to ask for the installation of security cameras they had at that time. Still, shockingly, they needed to be fixed, and requested better lighting in the parking lot. The gym never solved the problem, and my response was to sign up for another gym in a different town.

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During my last summer of high school and the early summers of my college career, I was working for a subcontractor that poured cement foundations for residential homes. The reason I continued to come back each summer was because of how ethically trained the other workers were. Those who have worked construction or have been around construction know how the workers horse around. Because of this reason, there are often many arguments that occur on-site, but the workers are so accustomed to the hectic environment that they can also help settle down the conflict. What intrigued me the most was how the workers can go from a full-blown argument to going back to work and helping each other out. Because at the end of the day, everyone was there to work and provide for their needs. That environment was just the right amount of chaos and ethical work for me to love and continue to come back to construction.

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Ethics & Social Responsibility - Target 

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An instance where a company's ethics & social responsibility influenced my decision to shop there was Target. In this class a few weeks ago now we were shown a video of Target's new ad which went viral and received very positive feedback. In the Target ad featuring a child in a wheelchair, a young girl with a disability is shown excitedly shopping for toys in a Target store with her family. The ad aims to promote inclusivity and diversity by showcasing children with disabilities and highlighting the importance of making shopping experiences accessible to all. The ad received positive feedback from viewers who appreciated the representation of children with disabilities in mainstream media. After seeing this, I was inclined to shop at Target more often, not only because they have great products but also due to their positive impact on others.
- Dario Izazaga

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I have been living at my apartment complex for almost three years now, and the only reason I am staying here is because of location and price. I moved into a fully furnished apartment right off of campus, which allows me to get to school and work within ten minutes, it is great. However the management here is terrible. It takes forever for services to be fixed by maintenance, and when you call the office to ask questions they give you short repetitive answers. The biggest problem I have with my apartment is the mail situation. When i first moved in there was no mail room, they just delivered things to your door, which can be tough because people can steal your package or it can be delivered to the wrong door. They then got mail lockers, where packages were put into lockers and you were sent a text message with the code to unlock the locker with your package. For a while it was working great. I then ordered a big package, headlights for my car. On my end the package said ti had been delivered, I ask my complex about it and they cannot find it in the lockers. Months later, I guess they had cleaned out the lockers and they had my package. This has now happened multiple times, and since then I have not had anything delivered to my apartment, luckily I have others i can trust to have things delivered to.

-Melinda P.

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A couple years ago I worked for a fruit packing company in which I liked because I worked with my brother and some friends however on my first week I got into an argument with another employee that had been working there for years. I was a palletizer and so was the other guy the agreement to all palletizers was that we would rotate sections every 2 hours after lunch or breaks however this guy was in my section and I asked him if he can go to his spot because it was my turn to be in that section and the guy refused. He knew that at the other section the work was faster and heavier so he started arguing with me and he told me that he wouldn't move because he has been there longer, and he could do whatever he wants. Thats when we started arguing and cussing at each other and the supervisor noticed and went up to us and as you can imagine the other guy got away with it. I ended up changing positions and went to work in the bag line but after the season was over, I never went back to that packing fruit facility.

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A company that has stuck out and displayed good ethics would be Costco. They manage to keep me coming back and shopping for more and more things. I believe that it's because of their return policy and a clean shopping experience that keeps me from going to many other stores. The return policy is second to none and the fact that I don't need a receipt to return something two years old makes it worth it. I feel as if I can purchase anything and if I'm really not satisfied with the product then I can return the item, even if it was opened and I lost the box. Without any questions being asked I would feel comfortable returning something that I didn't like or no longer need. The clean shopping experience also allows me to enjoy my time there. Every aisle is cleaned every day and restocked to the top which makes me feel like I'm getting the first choice of anything on a pallet. Costco made a good move implementing this and influences my decision in a good way to shop there over and over again.

-Manny Verde

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I used to work at a physical therapy office named, Cornerstone Physical Therapy, when I was one year into college. I worked there as a receptionist and moved my way up to being a physical therapy aide. When I first had my interview with the company, I was so pleased with their social responsibility in helping do pro-bono work for some older patients. Everything their company stood for was so positive and the environment was extremely reinforcing. When I had changed in my school schedule they were always adamant about making sure school came first for me, and worked out a great work-school schedule. This company is not very large and only had the one location, so they made sure to be hands on with everything. It was nice to be able to be recognized for my hard work, and to be offered a higher position. Overall, this company demonstrated all of the right ethics and social responsibilities you can ask for.

-Julia Smushko

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I am mostly buy a lot of clothings in H&M because honestly I really love how they reuse the old fabrics that me or others customers donated them and then made a lot of new and beautiful clothing. I feel like H&M is actively creating an image for themselves as a responsible company, and they present their products using the label CSR. It has chosen to use CSR instead of other similar labels and concepts, such as sustainability and corporate citizenship, with the argument that their responsibility includes the social condition in the factories in which their clothes are produced. It defines CSR as a concept that voluntary integrates social and environmental respect in its business and in its cooperation with stakeholders in order to meet, or surpass, ethical, legal and commercial expectations of the company in the surrounding environment. I appreciate that H&M company has argued that by including in its strategies actions that recognize and work towards improving peoples quality of life and caring for the environment will have some positive impacts on their own business and consequently a significant effect on their long-term profitability. I think the one key reason that explains why H&M adopts CSR is the consumers' increased interest about the production of the clothes they and their children wear.

Vicky Le

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My first professional job in an animal related field was at an animal hospital here in Fresno. Starting out I was one of the youngest employees and people were willing to show me the ropes. I enjoyed the work and the people. When there were slow times I was able to go find other things to do like cleaning up surgery or autoclaving equipment. We would have monthly meetings regarding new information and any issues that the departments had. Over the course of working there the disagreements between the front reception and the back staff began to cause drama. This drama would not cause any issues in work flow but it did cause people to be ostracized. I believe that our management was unable to implement procedures to rebuild respect for procedures. I understood toward the end that you are responsible for your space and offer help to others but stick to what you are responsible for. Ultimately I left the organization for a summer internship. I have heard that the office has gone through major hiccups with employees getting fired due to drinking on the grounds and the HR manager quitting. I still go their to get my cat treatments and usually catch up on the chisme. - Gwendolyn Edmiston

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I used to work for a fruit packing facility when I was just starting college. The facility was family owned, openly "Christian" and rampant with nepotism and favoritism. I was a family friend of the owners and did very well for the company in the small position I had as a production assistant. I definitely got the office job because I knew the family, but I did well at the job. After working for the company for a couple years I observed a tight knit community of people who all were related to the owners in some way or who went to church with them. There were a lot of good eggs, but many bad. Gossip was out of hand, bullying was extremely obvious, and judgmental attitudes were palpable. They lacked diversity, and when a woman of clear African descent was hired, my direct supervisor would make disparaging remarks about her long braids. Giving her the side eye with a disgusted look on her face, calling the braids ugly and unprofessional. The owners were very good people, kind, accepting, and encouraging, but oblivious to much of the disgusting immature behavior that their family friends & church friends engaged in at work. I now work for a large general contractor and have never observed anything like the gossip, bullying, politics or racism that I saw at the small town packing shed. I was astounded to find how toxic the shed had been in comparison to the general contracting companies I have since worked for.

- Karley Hager

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In a generation like the one, we live in today that looks at ethics and social responsibility as a make or break factor for consumers.

One company I have always consumed as a kid was Kirkland Signature products from Costco. My family would choose this company, as they haven't been in any major scandals and have good management practices.

Costco is such a massive company and has to deal with suppliers from other countries like Ivory Coast (chocolate) and Peru (Coffee, Avocadoes, Pima cotton).

Kirkland Signature's Environmentally Responsible Ultra Clean Laundry Detergent is also another Costco product that I stay loyal to, as it is good for the environment and good for my sensitive skin.

-Ricardo Lozada

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Being part of a start-up company has its challenges. First thing in everyone's mind when working in a start-up company is - "is this really going to work", "are we actually able to make it" and "when am I able to get paid?" It is common to ask and think about these questions when starting. In reality, these concerns are valid. We all want to get paid and work for a profitable, legit company and feel good when working.

About a year ago, I networked with an intelligent, confident entrepreneur with a clear vision to build a national, professional, video production agency company. The idea was stupendous. Digital marketing industry is in demand, and there is a supply of it. The idea was to contract professional photographers and videographers across the states, andmarket their work to businesses and marketing companies that need digital marketing material. We contracted the creatives (photographers and videographers) for a small portion of the project sale, and we kept about 75% of the gross sale. It was simple work. All we needed to do was sell, understand what the client needs and then contract our creatives to produce the work and deliver the final product/service.

It was simple, fun, profitable and easy.

But when our start-up capital (investors' money) ran thin, we were like chickens without a head. It turned out that our CEO embezzled funds to purchase personal items for his own pleasure. To note, our CEO was also our "accountant and HR".

When our investors wanted their ROI, there was almost no return. So, we began to drastically sell projects with unrealistic deadlines, to make our investors happy. But when there is a huge amount of projects being sold and under-staffed our logistics became a nightmare. In total we had 11 full-time employees onsite (who handled sales, editing, creative briefing, and creative recruiting).

In my opinion, our allocation of investors' funds wasn't the best, we could have improved our logistics, we could have been more transparent, and we should have invested in professional help from the beginning.

Story short, the company fell apart with uncompleted projects and unpaid employees, upset investors and overall a distasteful reputation.

- Marcos Mendez

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During my sophomore year of College when we had returned to campus for our classes I moved down to Fresno from Merced and needed to look for a job. My cousin recommended that I should apply for American Eagle over at Fashion Fair Mall as she worked in Aerie. I applied, went through the interview, and got the job. I was happy working there as the vibes were good and I seemed to get along with my coworkers and managers. As time went on there was little immature drama between the sales associates and managers. Though I was not involved in the drama it would make me feel a little uncomfortable coming to work as I felt like I was walking on eggshells. I had to be careful what I say and who I talk to because I felt that anything I say it can be used against me or my words can get twisted around. I eventually left within a year and a few months of working there to look for better opportunities but in general, the work ethic of American Eagle over at Fashion Fair Mall could have been a bit better in my opinion.

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I worked at a plant processing factory over the summer. One of the managers I worked along side with was very openly making sexual remarks to one of the female coworkers. She had told him many times she didn't like it or him and to stop. She ended up reporting him and so did I. Nothing was done about it so she ended up leaving and he eventually got fired for other reasons, but I myself won't be working there again. I don't want to be apart of a company who doesn't care for their employees.
-Nicolaus Ramos

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Junior year of high School in the Summer I worked for a local farmer palletizing, sorting stone fruit, and anything else he needed in hundred plus degree temperatures 12 hours a day (was it an experience). Most of the guys I worked with didn't speak English so communicating with them was very difficult. Over the course of working throughout the Summer we developed a routine and understood each other through our actions. However, a group of other guys who worked on the other line doing the same thing put out a contrasting view. These guys would always horse around the various machines. After we had our lunch around 11:30am these guys would go down to the nearest liquor store and come back smelling like alcohol and marijuana. At times they wouldn't even make it back in time and the line with all the fruit would be backed up, causing a disturbance in our productivity. In conclusion, this became a habit on a consistent basis. They would come back to work intoxicated working around all the machinery which posed a safety concern for the whole company.  As for the company, they never did anything about this issue. In addition, these guys would violate company policy and smoke their cigarettes while filling up the forklifts with propane and filling the tractors with gas at the farm pumps. With this, keep in my mind that they would drive these tractors and forklifts with alcohol in their system. Me being a young bystander at the time had seen so much unethical activity happening in this company.

-Paul Q.

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During my freshman year of college, my friends and I decided to rent out a house in Fresno as to combat our long commute time. During this time I didn't have a job so I was rushing to find one. That's when I had my interview with a single-level direct sales company named Vector Marketing which was selling kitchen knives from the manufacturer Cutco Knives. After I had the interview, I told my friends about it and they immediately notified me that it was a scam. Being completely unaware of it I decided to look it up for myself on Google. That's when I found out that Vector had a handful of lawsuits including the state of Wisconsin ordering Vector to stop providing dishonest information to students. In fact, a survey was reported by the Washington Post on Vector recruits and nearly half earned nothing and some even lost money. This prevented me from taking the job. - Andrew G

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I worked at mountain mikes at the same time I was working for five guys during the summer a year or two ago and during that time I left five guys becuase of the quality care that my manager gave us employees. During that time the owner of the particular location we worked at would have outrageous demands of hundred of pizzas for personal parties on the same days as holidays or football sundays, which were our most busy days. Due to this many people quit and when enough people quit my managers quit as well leaving the few employees left to pick up the hours needed to run the store. This caused me and the rest of the employees to quit and made the owner rebuild his entire workforce.

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Inclusivity in fashion is very important to me. I feel that it is a company's social responsibility to offer diverse and inclusive items in an array of sizing ranges. Moreover, I feel fashion companies must highlight and utilize models of various body types. So, I always jump at the opportunity to buy from inclusive companies. In this instance, I was debating on buying a similar product from two different brands, SKIMS and Yitty. Although the products were very similar, I chose to buy from the brand Yitty. My reason revolved around the brand's mission of offering size-inclusive products to fit all body types. In addition, the brand models had various body shapes and the product pictures of the models were unfiltered and did not mask quote-on-quote imperfections that most fashion brands would photoshop out to aid in the unattainable societal beauty standards. Another factor that swayed me into making my decision was the brand’s sustainable packaging and the fact that the clothing was produced from recyclable materials.

Valerie Magallan

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When I am able to, I like to buy more environmentally friendly options for products. One of the skincare brands that I like to purchase from does a great job of creating recyclable and reusable packaging. They are very transparent with their practices and have previously changed the product packaging in order to be more environmentally conscious. I appreciate that this brand tries hard to create packaging and products that are ethical. This has influenced me to buy from them and continue purchasing the products. -Madeline Mendez

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I use to work as a waitress at a Thai resteruant for about 2 years. This restaurant is a family business owned one and it was such a pleasure working with them. One time, our checks were miscalculated and I didn’t notice it til my coworker had mentioned it to my boss. My boss was completely sorry for miscalculating our checks and I remember she even texted me saying how sorry she was and that the money that was missing will transfer over to my next check. I wasn’t mad at her at all, and I was happy that she was being honest on her end and apologized. It is important to work for businesses with great moral ethics. -Asia Johnson

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My senior year out of high school, I was working for a small company in my hometown doing high end residential custom tile. This was a job that I did not intend to stay at for a long time, but was working at to save money for school. I enjoyed the work, and admired the work of my boss who has been a lifelong community member and was very well known in our area. At the end of the summer, I was scrolling on facebook and saw a local golf range was advertising that some guy they had rented clubs to had stolen them. Attached was a security camera picture of the guy when he was checking out the clubs, and it was my boss. I lost a lot of respect for him that day, and although I finished out the last week working for him, I now regret it. Moral of the story is that don't let short term needs outweigh your ethics, and I feel it was an important lesson I am happy to have learned young. (And no, I did not reply to the Facebook posts)

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I went to a job interview for a security position in a large department store.  One of the questions they asked me is if I had ever been put into a position where I had been asked to do something against my moral code and still did it? I responded that no supervisor or leader had ever put me in that position, and they wanted to know if they put me in that position would I just go along with it. This made me suspicious of this individuals motives in general.  I asked them about measures of deterrence did they utilize to prevent shrinkage and how conflict resolution was used hostile situations?  He answered that they did not engage in deterrence, but would handcuff and detain suspected shoplifters, which is totally illegal, and that they matched aggression with aggression. They did not offer me the position and I would not have taken it. J.M.Hanna

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I went to a job interview for a security position in a large department store.  One of the questions they asked me is if I had ever been put into a position where I had been asked to do something against my moral code and still did it? I responded that no supervisor or leader had ever put me in that position, and they wanted to know if they put me in that position would I just go along with it. This made me suspicious of this individuals motives in general.  I asked them about measures of deterrence did they utilize to prevent shrinkage and how conflict resolution was used hostile situations?  He answered that they did not engage in deterrence, but would handcuff and detain suspected shoplifters, which is totally illegal, and that they matched aggression with aggression. They did not offer me the position and I would not have taken it. J.M.Hanna