Phase 3 · Workplace Readiness
15 Workplace Dilemma Stations
Real situations you could run into at any placement — no clean answer, just a judgment call. These are what the carousel activity in class is built from.
In class: the 15 scenarios below are set up as stations around the room. In small groups, you'll rotate through several, read the scenario, and talk through what you'd actually do — then the class debriefs 2–3 together.
If you were absent: read all 15 below, think through the discussion questions for each, and mark the activity complete on the Bootcamp page.
There's rarely one right answer here. What matters is how you reason through it — who it affects, what's at stake, and what a professional in that role should weigh before acting.
You're shadowing at a local clinic during your placement. While pulling up a chart for your supervisor, you notice the next patient is a classmate's parent — and the file shows something the classmate has clearly never mentioned to anyone at school. Two days later, that classmate is complaining to a group of friends about their parent, having no idea what you know.
- Is there any version of this where it's okay to say something, even vaguely? Why or why not?
- What's the difference between "I would never tell anyone" and actually not telling anyone, even by accident?
- How do HIPAA and confidentiality rules protect you as much as they protect the patient?
You're helping a nursing assistant you like and respect. You notice they gave a patient the wrong meal tray — one that conflicts with a dietary restriction listed on the chart. The patient hasn't eaten anything yet. The assistant hasn't noticed. No supervisor is nearby.
- What do you do in the next 30 seconds, before anyone eats anything?
- Does it matter that you like this coworker? Should it?
- What's the difference between "telling on someone" and "keeping a patient safe"?
Your supervisor is behind schedule on a big order and tells you to skip the lockout/tagout step on a machine "just this once" to save time — everyone's watched them do it before with no issues. You're new, and they're the person who signs off on your evaluation.
- What's actually at risk here, and for whom, if it goes wrong?
- How do you push back on a supervisor without it feeling like defiance?
- Is "everyone else does it" ever a good enough reason?
While moving material, you clip a piece of equipment and put a small dent in it. Nobody saw. It still seems to work fine. Reporting it means a possible repair delay and an awkward conversation; not reporting it means hoping nothing goes wrong later — on a machine other people use every day.
- What would you want a coworker to do if they'd damaged something you were about to use?
- Does "it still seems to work fine" change your responsibility to report it?
- How would you actually word telling your supervisor what happened?
You're placed at an elementary school, helping a teacher during small-group time. The teacher, clearly stressed and behind on grading, asks you to just give a struggling student the answers "so we can move on" instead of walking them through it. It feels wrong, but the teacher is your supervisor and you don't want to seem difficult on day three.
- What's the difference between helping and doing it for them — and why does that line matter here?
- How do you say no to a supervisor's direct request without damaging the relationship?
- Who is actually being helped if you just give the answers — the student, the teacher, or neither?
At your placement with a community nonprofit, a client mentions something offhand about their home situation while you're helping them fill out a form — something that sounds like it could be a safety concern, but they clearly weren't intending to "report" anything, just talking. Your supervisor is in another room.
- Where's the line between respecting someone's privacy and a genuine duty to raise a concern?
- Why do most youth-serving organizations require you to tell a supervisor even about "offhand" comments like this?
- How would you bring it to your supervisor in a way that doesn't feel like you're betraying the client's trust?
At closing, the register is $8 short. You were on it for part of the shift, but so were two other people, including a full-time employee who's been there for years. Your supervisor asks the three of you, as a group, "does anyone know what happened here?"
- Do you say anything if you genuinely don't know what happened? What would you say?
- How does being the newest, most replaceable person in the room change how this feels?
- What's a system a business could put in place to make moments like this less murky for everyone?
You're processing a return and notice the system is about to refund a customer almost double what they actually paid — a pricing glitch you've seen before but never reported. The customer has no idea. Your line is busy and there's no supervisor free to ask right now.
- Does it matter that the customer didn't ask for this and doesn't know?
- What's your actual next move in the moment, with a line building behind them?
- Why might "it's not my money, so it's not my problem" be the wrong way to think about this?
You designed a graphic for a small business's social media during your placement. Later, you find the exact design — with only your supervisor's name attached — submitted to a local awards contest. Your supervisor has always been supportive of you and taught you most of what you know.
- Does it change anything that your supervisor taught you the skills you used to make it?
- Is there a version of this conversation that doesn't feel like an accusation?
- What does "credit" actually mean in a creative field, and why does it matter for your future portfolio?
You had a rough day at your placement — a client was rude, your supervisor was short with you, nothing went right. That night you almost post about it, venting with just enough detail that anyone at the business would recognize exactly what happened. You catch yourself right before hitting "share."
- What's actually at risk here — for you, and for the business?
- Is there a version of processing a bad day publicly that's actually fine? Where's that line?
- How would you want to be told, if a coworker was about to post something like this about you?
While helping with a routine tech support ticket, you realize you can access a shared drive folder full of employee records — pay information, disciplinary notes, things way outside what your placement should ever touch. It looks like a permissions setup mistake, not something anyone intended.
- What do you do the moment you realize what you're looking at?
- Why does it matter that you report this even though you didn't cause it and nothing bad has happened yet?
- How is this similar to finding an unlocked door in a building you're not supposed to be in?
A busy coworker hands you their login credentials so you can finish a task while they're in a meeting — "it's faster than setting you up properly, everyone does this here." Using it would save real time. It also means anything that happens under that login now traces back to them, not you.
- What could go wrong here that has nothing to do with you doing anything wrong on purpose?
- How do you decline without it seeming like you don't trust your coworker?
- Why do IT policies exist around individual logins even when "everyone does this here"?
At your placement on a farm or with a landscaping crew, a coworker suggests skipping a required check on equipment or chemical handling because "we're behind and it's basically fine." No one else seems concerned. You've been told in training that this exact step exists for a reason.
- What's the actual reason that step probably exists, even if it feels like overkill in the moment?
- Does the fact that "no one else seems concerned" make it safer, or just more normalized?
- How do you raise a safety concern as the newest person without sounding like you think you know better than everyone?
A customer at a garden center or ag-related business asks you to apply or sell more of a product than the label recommends, insisting "it'll work better that way" and getting impatient when you hesitate. Your supervisor is off-site and hard to reach right now.
- What do you say to a customer who's pushing back on a safety or regulatory limit?
- Whose job is it to know the rules here — yours, the customer's, or both?
- Is "the customer is always right" ever the wrong rule to follow?
A customer is upset about something that genuinely isn't your fault — a policy you don't control, a price you didn't set — and they're raising their voice at you personally in front of other customers. You know the policy is correct. Staying calm is getting harder by the second.
- What's the difference between being right and handling this well?
- At what point, if any, is it appropriate to get a supervisor involved?
- How do you keep this from affecting how you treat the next customer five minutes later?