Those of us who’ve worked for The Man (even if The Man was, in some cases, a woman!) have likely all had the same experience at some point: You’ve got a job that pays the bills, where you’re treated decently, but where the company which employs you… does a thing or two with which you disagree.

Maybe you had that experience, and you struggled with what to do. What’s a grievous enough transgression on the part of your employer for you to give up a pretty good job, one with security and benefits? Does the answer change when you’re considering just a contractor position instead of a bona fide employee position? Should it?

One of the things that drew me to freelancing was the notion that I wouldn’t have to “put up with” corporate shenanigans anymore. Let’s chalk that up as way #378 in which I was sorely naive about this freelancing thing.

I recently came across a great read about so-called business ethics in the Business Life Digest. It covers 7 myths of business ethics, and—much like the 10 Commandments—they all follow from the first one:

Myth No. 1: Business ethics. Many talk about business ethics without realizing that there is no such thing as “business ethics.” Ethical principles exist for all walks of life, and these principles do not change as one traverses different venues.

That sounds simple enough, but real-life application can be a sticky business, sometimes.

I’m clear on my personal morals. I suppose there are folks who aren’t, but most people (I assume) are not confused about what they, personally, believe to be right or wrong.

I’m also clear on the fact that I wouldn’t want to be an employee of a company which I felt violated those morals.

The problem, I’m finding, is whether or not I want to be a contractor at a company which might be doing things with which I disagree.

As a contractor, it’s harder for you to know what a company is really up to, so the first problem is that your information may be incomplete at best and faulty at worst. Do you believe what you know, even though you’re not a full-time, on-site employee?

The second problem is that as a regular employee, you feel you’re a representative of the company, absolutely. As a freelancer, do you hold the same representation? Is your association with a company as potentially damning if they’re doing something wrong and you just work for them tangentially? I’m not sure.

You can get stuck in an endless loop, here. If you assume you know something distasteful about a client of yours, and then you decide that even as a contractor you cannot abide working for them, you then have to try to make sure that your information is correct before potentially terminating a professional relationship. That sort of verification is almost always difficult to get, as a contractor.

So then what?

If I abide by the “there is no such thing as business ethics” rule, then I’m obligated not to work for clients whose behavior conflicts with my personal code of moral conduct. And while I may occasionally drop a personal relationship and later find out I was mistaken in what I believed about that person, it has rarely never involved a paycheck. Mistakes happen and they’re never fun, no matter the circumstances.

But which is worse: Working for a client who has never wronged you, personally, but who may be dealing in ways you find distasteful? Or cutting off a lucrative business relationship based upon your “feeling” that things aren’t right?

This having morals thing is not for the faint of heart, I can tell you that much.