Jack Does the Right Thing

My hands are trembling as I feel the sweat running off my face; tick, tick, tick, as the sweat drops onto the floor.

“Lee County Sheriff's Office, how may I direct your call?” the female voice heard at the other end of the phone.  Maybe I should just hang up, no just answer the lady, I tell myself.  The fear is so great that my heart is pounding out of my chest and right out my throat.  The thought keeps going through my head, what if Mr. Hughes is listening to my calls.  I hang up in fear that Mr. Hughes will find out before I can get to someone to stop this murder, and the very thought Mr. Hughes has done this before.  What shall I do now and where should I go.

The hour starts to tick by, I want to call, but that Hanna Simpson; has been mean to me, maybe she deserves this, maybe this would be the payback for what she did to me last summer.  When I was cleaning her office and she threw the garbage can at me and bruised my arm and telling me I was useless and could never be more than a cleaning man.  In December of last year that Hanna Simpson went to Mr. Hughes and told him I was going through her things and her computer and almost had me fired, now I know it was Mr. Hughes himself, and maybe that is why he told me not to worry and that he would take care of this himself.  He gave me a raise and told me it was for having to put up with such an irrational employee and it would never happen again.

I must find a place to make a call, a place that Mr. Hughes would never think of seeing me, and not able to listen in on my call.  I may be a cleaning man, but stupid my no means, I watch a lot of CSI and know what happens to people that talk to the police. 

I grab my keys and out the door I fly, but where do I go, he should not suspect me unless he goes looking for the shredded papers.  I remind myself that gets emptied every night and the recycling gets picked up at 3:00 am.  Where do I go, what do I do?  I know I will go to the mall in Tampa, which will get me out of the area and far away from here. 

My cell phone rings, it is work, why are they calling me on my day off, and how do they know my cell number?  I answer trying to be normal and holding down that pounding in my chest.  “Hello,” I answer slowly, it is Mr. Hughes, stay calm I tell myself, he is calling to say that I will not need to come to work tomorrow the office will close for one day for a termite inspection and I could return to work on Tuesday.

I blink my eyes and realize that I have come to a complete stop in the middle of the interstate.  “That is it; regardless of what that Hanna Simpson has done to me I am calling right now.”  I exit the interstate to find a phone that I can make a call, I hope there are pay phones available.  After finding a pay phone at the Days Inn, I insert my credit card and slowing dial the number the voice answers again; “Lee county Sheriff’s Office, how may I direct your call?”   I ask for a detective, and I am directed to Detective Johnson who immediately wants to meet with me, I tell him I am out of the county right now and they will need to send someone to meet me.  Within three hours I am meeting with Detective Johnson and he is assuring me that they are not taking this lightly.  They want me to go back to work as usual. How can I go there knowing what I know and this could be happening right now.  They send me to a hotel to check in where I can be safe and they assured me that the FBI has been contacted and if this is going to happen today they will be there to catch the act.

The hours slowly drag by, like a glacier melting at the South Pole, what should I do, I am going mad just sitting here waiting.  I sit on the bed and after flipping through the cannels I fall asleep as if I had taken sleeping pills.

Morning arrives with the sun peaking through the curtain that was not quite closed, shining right into my eyes, with the sound of the news entering my ears like driving nails into a log;  Mr. Venton Hughes, Hanna Simpson, the anchor announces.  The FBI was on scene Sunday night when a Hanna Simpson was being held hostage by an unknown person, and the news crew was on scene at Mr. Hughes home for the arrest.

I ask myself, “Did I do a good deed?” “Yes I did.” I may not have a job, but I did the right thing.

Tim Watkins, The Employee Who Knew Too Much

There is more than just an ethical aspect of this situation there is also a legal aspect. First Tim Watkins is not a faithful and trustworthy employee; he is a disaster waiting to happen, and bringing his “main squeeze” into his web of lies and deceit, he has now compromised her life. He has passed all ethics rules on emails by using the company email for personal use and sharing company confidential information with a nonemployee. Tim was trespassing when he broke into his boss’s office and reading papers that were not intended for his viewing, the memo Tim reads on his boss’s desk should have never been left in plain sight for anyone to read, this was confidential information and had access codes to access high security areas. We can be sure to say that Tim lacks personal restraint, not only has he broken into his boss’s office he has also taken the information he gained and went to the basement. The name calling of his boss, everyone has had things to say about a boss, but to put it in print this way puts it out there for the whole world to view, and when it comes out of a mouth and in print it can never be taken back. After exploring the basement Tim has now brought into his plan a member of the military, we can assume this by Tim using the word soldier.


I can see this all going very badly for his “main squeeze” and his old high school buddy, because when the federal government is involves there are rules that are unknown to all mankind, they have their own rules. If this is such a secret operation I see Tim just disappearing along with the “main squeeze”, the email, and his old high school buddy. The government would not play they would all be taken to some remote island that is unknown to anyone to be left there or their remains be tied to the bottom of the ocean, never cross the federal government or share government secrets the government has ways of dealing with people like Tim.

If they were to arrest Tim, once the information was brought to the officials, his “main squeeze” would also be an accessory as well as Theodore, they would all go down together. The email would be cold hard evidence: the email shows the entire story, maps out who/whom, what, why, when, and how he executed his plan, therefore; would be evident enough to convict him in the court of law.

With our high tech society that we live in now people must realize when information is shared over the internet and through email, this all can be used in a court of law as evidence. Just because you push the delete button, it is still out there and can be retrieved, whether it is for you or against you.

First Blog Due Sepember 8, 2010

There are many aspects to this email that was posted on Professor Parliski's site, ENC1102Tech; first the legal aspect, second the ethical aspect, and finally the email etiquette aspect.  Complete response to be posted in my second posting, this is just to see my words in print and what this looks like on my blog. 

More to follow...