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I got the privilege of having lunch with Mr. McDonald when I was an IEEE officer during college. He gave a lecture at my university on ethics, and the IEEE coun
by cushychicken 6y ago
I got the privilege of having lunch with Mr. McDonald when I was an IEEE officer during college. He gave a lecture at my university on ethics, and the IEEE council got to take him for lunch afterwards.
He was not shy at all about saying whatever was on his mind. It was pretty awesome to hear him dunk on his VP, right in the middle of lying to the Rogers commission's face. He was also really open about the fact that nobody at Morton Thiokol trusted him for the better part of a decade after he did that. He said something to the effect of, "It definitely made my career harder, but on the bright side, I never had any major crises of conscience for lying about it.
He also didn't give a single fuck about getting a lunch beer at a student gathering. I wish I'd joined him in drinking beer at noon on a Tuesday on IEEE dime.
- hyperbovine 6y agoIt didn't hurt that Congress basically threatened to administer the corporate death penalty to Morton Thiokol if they retaliated against McDonald and others in any way: https://www.congress.gov/bill/99th-congress/house-joint-resolution/634/text?r=85&s=1 https://www.congress.gov/bill/99th-congress/house-joint-reso...
- irjustin 6y agoThat's post fact. He blew the whistle before and very publicly. This event almost doesn't matter because he didn't care he would have gotten demoted - he was driven by being able to do the right thing. I believe there's a moment before he doesn't sign off on the launch or maybe just before he speaks out against his employer in front of the presidential commission... what will happen to me? what will happen to my family, 4 children? What work will I do? How do I make money? this is all I know... If you've ever worried about your future, job prospects, the unknown, the fear of not being able to provide, these thoughts are heavy. He made this decision and would gladly make it again regardless of outcome. I wish I could say the same for myself.
- 300bps 6y agoIf you've ever worried about your future, job prospects, the unknown, the fear of not being able to provide, these thoughts are heavy. And I can imagine him wondering, as any introspective person would, “what if I’m wrong?” That has to add to the stress.
- 6pac3rings 6y agoIs there a hall of fame to put him in not sponsored by Boing?
- dstick 6y ago> I wish I could say the same for myself. Care to elaborate a little? Seems like your experience could help others in a similar situation.
- irjustin 6y agoNothing remotely close. I'm simply asking, that given the situation, would I have made the same decision? That I could be such a hero. But am I willing to stick my neck out? Risk my career, who will hire me? Maybe someone will, but I just put a huge black mark in many's eyes. I have 2 children, a wife, and myself who rely on my income stream. Am I willing to let that go? Do I have to sell my house to make ends meet if I can't get a job? I want to be able to say I could do what McDonald or Snowden did, but if I'm honest, probably not.
- ricksunny 6y agoAt nigh-on 40 years old, I’ve come to believe that ethical violations are routinely perpetrated on the world because good people who would otherwise speak out ‘have a wife and kids to feed’. As if that life decision to start a family, for all of the happiness and wonder that comes from it, plays right into the hands of the management structure inevitably looming over it.
- 6y ago
- cushychicken 6y agoI had it from his own mouth that Morton Thiokol had plenty of leeway to make his life interesting (read: miserable) before this, and in spite of it.
- AtlasBarfed 6y agoAnd yet did anything happen to the evil machiavellian middle managers despite outright lying to congress? That should be criminal charges.
- yalok 6y agoI wish they would do the same for some of the recent whistle blowers like Vindman.
- Waterluvian 6y agoWow. Where can I go to read more about all this? Especially the part about dunking on his VP?
- pertymcpert 6y agoWhy would anyone care about having a beer at lunch? Is that unusual?
- garmaine 6y agoIn that industry, yes.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- rob74 6y agoNot in a casual setting, but when you're on lunch break and going back to work/a conference/whatever else you're doing professionally after that, it is unusual (and not only in the US, even the Germans, who love beer, tend to only indulge in it after "Feierabend").
- mmmmmbop 6y agoAt least in Bavaria, it's perfectly acceptable to have a beer mixed with lemonade ("Radler") during lunch.
- josefx 6y agoGot taken over by a foreign company, first thing was a complete ban on alcohol, second was an attempt to replace all our systems with Windows. We produce software for Linux, our customers run Linux, the first few weeks were not very impressive.
- thornoway 6y agoSaw another corporate takeover from another point of view, that of the acquiring company. The company being acquired used Windows, C#, MSSQL etc for everything. At first nothing was changed, they could use their technology and we could use ours (we used free open source technologies). But they weren't very profitable or efficient. They paid large amounts of money for licenses. Some years later they had managed to move some of their stuff to the cloud but they were now in that particular cloud vendor lock in, paying a lot of fees there. Five years later, almost everything there was shut down and development moved to headquarters to be done with almost a blank slate by mostly new hires. Buying companies is hard. I'm pretty sure this was a big net negative for the buyer.