I don't think you have to be a full saint to fulfil your moral obligations. He ensured he wasn't implicitly participating and reported it to someone who had a responsibility to investigate/do something about it. That is a reasonable amount of effort to rectify the situation in my opinion.
> Yes I know it’s not all that rare, BECAUSE people can’t be bothered to blow the whistle.
The person you are responding to did "blow the whistle". They reported it to the project head. That is blowing the whistle.
Especially not when gp said that they expected the department head to brush it under the rug. If reporting things "up the chain of command" was really expected to root corruption out, and this fraud is 100% a form of corruption, then whistle blowing simply wouldn't be needed.
They covered their own ass, which is fine, in that later the head can't say they didn't know about it. But they didn't blow the whistle.
Think about it logically. If you’re the prosecutor, the guy whose time is fraudulent is presumptively the criminal. It could very well be that he was actually the one who was engaged in the fraud, but went to the authorities to protect himself by making it look like his boss did it.
As for the prosecutor; he is first and foremost interested in where the money went. If fraudulent hours didn't give OP an extra paycheck boost, then that money went somewhere else.
or, at least, that the other option is free
I see you cut the first part, only to follow with a "only" qualitative. That's not an honest nor moral thing to do. Specially given you still have to prove their moral obligations about the matter. Saying that they've chosen the risk minimizing option is a non sequitur.
I think most people would blow the whistle if they had evidence of personal-enrichment fraud. Suspecting that incentives are producing strange outcomes is one thing; accusing specific people of criminal conduct is quite another.
Hilariously, in the one case I heard about where an MD was eventually fired for taking kickbacks from contractors, the department then struggled to recruit competent staff. It turned out he had only been skimming from people who could actually do the job.
He's not really in a position to act usefully on this information, so had no reason to feel any culpability for not acting. It is only an interesting question when put to people were in a position where they had to make a choice.
There is always something you can do — whether you are going to bother is an altogether a different matter.
In this case, either (1) the peon was lying about reported hours, the boss didn't notice, and then the peon reported himself... or (2) everything happened just like you said.
Aren't there bounties for reporting things like this? At the very least winning should include reimbursement for legal expenses.
* Years of stress
* Years of financial losses because lawyers are not cheap. And no matter how well you are innocent, not having a lawyer is guaranteed that you will fail.
* Years of time wasting.
And for what? The government maybe sentencing a guy for fraud. When its like 90%+ he will strike a sweetheart deal with the prosecutor.
Even worse in a case like this where its almost your word vs the boss his word. Yea, you can be the guy that ends up living under a bridge while the CEO laughs his way to the bank, being able to pin it on you.
Its already difficult with some proof... Dealing with this type of fraud case reporting, is easier when your not in the spotlight of the crime, and then reporting it. But if your unwilling part of it, few people want their neck on the line.
1. No mens rea.
2. He did what was expected of him.
3. You're always free to break into prison if you find yourself in his position, but you might discover yourself sitting in a pool of shit that was not of your own making.
4. Do you really want the parent poster to face the possibility of criminal prosecution, because his scumbag boss convinces the DOJ that the parent poster were the one fucking with the hours, and tried to pin it on him?
High trust in society correlates strongly with being anti-innovative. Europe is going through another lost decade in a row because it got too addicted to social democracy. The fastest growing parts of Europe are some of the lowest trust (i.e. Poland). Please fleece the tax payer more.
More fun always come with more risk. Everyone has their own threshold. So it is pointless to say that "Boring is good". It might be good for you, but not for everyone.
Boring, high trust societies are conducive to risk taking. High trust reduces transaction costs. And people are more likely to take risks when they can trust the system under their feet is orderly, stable, and trustworthy.
You need LOW trust for risk taking.
I think in practice the conditions that lead to high trust societies forming also tend to lead to culturally valuing predictability which translates to a bias against risk. But that's not an inherent part of high trust rather that's just how things happen to be at a given point in time.