The company pays you, not your boss. Therefore, you should have the companies best interest in mind, not the personal best interest of your boss. Ideally these two things are aligned. If they are not there is a problem. You can try to fix it (which entails a degree of personal risk, yes), or you can leave. But don't just stay quite. That is disloyalty to the entity which is paying you.
If the company is doing something illegal or strikingly unethical and it is not an oversight and you don't believe change is possible, leave. Otherwise you are complicit and this speaks badly of your character which is worth more than a job.
This is not to say every little issue is worth a battle... nobody and no organization is perfect. Don't be a complainer or a nitpicker. However, if there are major problems don't just go with it. That's how organizations go downhill. People afraid to stand up and take personal risks for the good of the institution. Either try to get it worked out or else walk out. Either way, don't be an enabler.
> That is disloyalty to the entity which is paying you.
My employer is my client, no more, no less. I am employed to produce a set of work for them, and to employ my skills to particular ends as defined in the contract, and that's it. Their relationship with their other contractors is their business.
This idea that because someone pays you to do work you should serve their interests in all things - even to the extent of compromising your own - strikes me as quite perverse. They certainly bear no similar loyalty to you.
It's your problem, but the situation is not analogous.
If the boat has a hole in, we're both going to drown fairly soon if we don't work together.
If you act in the interests of the company, you take on significant personal risk that you'll be thrown over the side of a boat that may or may not make it to a figurative port - i.e. the company lasts long enough for you to get what you wanted out of the contract - for reporting that someone looked fishy around the engine room.
Don't get me wrong however: Loyalty is valuable. I just choose to assign it to people I respect and who care about me, rather than those who waves a cheque book at me and expect to own my soul when they rent my labour.
I hear you on owning the soul and dis-respectable people. I don't think we should let ourselves be abused. In the case of the original poster, if what he says is accurate (we don't know, we aren't there), he is being abused by a rouge boss who is also creating risk for the company. My opinion is that he should fight this and make others aware of what is going on and try to have it change. Or else leave on his own volition if it is systemic of the larger organization and there is little chance of winning. But don't be abused and don't let the organization that is paying him be abused.
The company pays you, not your boss. Therefore, you should have the companies best interest in mind, not the personal best interest of your boss. Ideally these two things are aligned. If they are not there is a problem. You can try to fix it (which entails a degree of personal risk, yes), or you can leave. But don't just stay quite. That is disloyalty to the entity which is paying you.
If the company is doing something illegal or strikingly unethical and it is not an oversight and you don't believe change is possible, leave. Otherwise you are complicit and this speaks badly of your character which is worth more than a job.
This is not to say every little issue is worth a battle... nobody and no organization is perfect. Don't be a complainer or a nitpicker. However, if there are major problems don't just go with it. That's how organizations go downhill. People afraid to stand up and take personal risks for the good of the institution. Either try to get it worked out or else walk out. Either way, don't be an enabler.
R.E last paragraph: Exactly!