3 ms·

This is like 20th case of employee warning about fraud and\or impeding disaster, and being punished as a result. And employee being 100% correct. See theranos

This is like 20th case of employee warning about fraud and\or impeding disaster, and being punished as a result. And employee being 100% correct. See theranos and others. We really need to address this

londons_explore 3y ago
Problem is there are far far far more cases of an employee reporting irrelevant 'safety' problems just to try to win a settlement from a company. How do you separate the legit concerns from someone complaining that they can't go to work because their yellow safety vest is slightly dirty and therefore not safe anymore?
- californical 3y ago
  Do you have a bunch of examples of employees filing concerns with OSHA that ended up being completely false? I feel like I’ve never heard of this
  - alach11 3y ago
    To be fair, there's a huge sampling bias issue here. We're talking about the submarine whistleblower because it made the news headlines. An employee raising concerns with OSHA and getting proven false doesn't make the front page.
sho_hn 3y ago
Mature companies definitely go to big lengths to address this, usually above and beyond what regulators prescribe as a baseline. All proper engineering companies have integrity and compliance processes, whistleblower systems, confidante contacts, etc. It's good business to do this. Fucking up kills people, and liability kills companies.
- flangola7 3y ago
  > Mature companies definitely go to big lengths to address this, usually above and beyond what regulators prescribe as a baseline. Mature companies develop code to intentionally dodge regulations. They're not trustworthy regardless of "maturity".
mrguyorama 3y ago
Maybe "Safety officer" should not be a position that can be let go at any time for any reason, and they should have actual, legal authority to do their job. Otherwise they are more like a safety consultant.
- salawat 3y ago
  Safety/Quality Assurance in the U.S. is like legal ablative armor for companies. Especially if you're considered a C-Level voice at the table; because all that'll happen is engineers running to the CTO to override that mean old Safety/Quality guy to get override authority.
  - salawat 3y ago
    Edit: Especially if you're not considered a C-level voice... I'm assuming people have been extracting it, but alas, I'm out of the edit window.
  - mrguyorama 3y ago
    I've never seen engineers ignoring the safety guy, but rather salespeople, marketing, product management, and executives.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
euroderf 3y ago
Didn't you get the memo? See: "RE: No Good Deed Goes Unpunished".
orangepurple 3y ago
You have reached the point of bloodshed. At this point there is no more convincing people of anything. The lines in the sand have been drawn. Management has decided that this is how things will be and that is that. We have seen this behavior pan out in battlefield commanders in Ukraine recently too. In the AFU battle for Bakhmut conscripts were sent into a meat grinder when it was clear that the battle could not succeed without air superiority. Leadership ignored all warnings out of hubris and total disregard for human life.
rsynnott 3y ago
See any thread here about whistleblowers who whistleblow/are fired in advance of the Bad Thing happening, particularly if the whistleblow-ee is a VC-funded company other other HN darling. The attitude tends to be overwhelmingly "they got what they deserved, how dare they try to harm INNOVATION?!" I think to a somewhat lesser extent (HN is particularly aggressively anti-whistleblower) this is the general attitude, unfortunately.

londons_explore 3y ago

Problem is there are far far far more cases of an employee reporting irrelevant 'safety' problems just to try to win a settlement from a company. How do you separate the legit concerns from someone complaining that they can't go to work because their yellow safety vest is slightly dirty and therefore not safe anymore?

californical 3y ago
Do you have a bunch of examples of employees filing concerns with OSHA that ended up being completely false? I feel like I’ve never heard of this
- alach11 3y ago
  To be fair, there's a huge sampling bias issue here. We're talking about the submarine whistleblower because it made the news headlines. An employee raising concerns with OSHA and getting proven false doesn't make the front page.

sho_hn 3y ago

Mature companies definitely go to big lengths to address this, usually above and beyond what regulators prescribe as a baseline. All proper engineering companies have integrity and compliance processes, whistleblower systems, confidante contacts, etc. It's good business to do this. Fucking up kills people, and liability kills companies.

flangola7 3y ago
> Mature companies definitely go to big lengths to address this, usually above and beyond what regulators prescribe as a baseline. Mature companies develop code to intentionally dodge regulations. They're not trustworthy regardless of "maturity".

mrguyorama 3y ago

Maybe "Safety officer" should not be a position that can be let go at any time for any reason, and they should have actual, legal authority to do their job. Otherwise they are more like a safety consultant.

salawat 3y ago
Safety/Quality Assurance in the U.S. is like legal ablative armor for companies. Especially if you're considered a C-Level voice at the table; because all that'll happen is engineers running to the CTO to override that mean old Safety/Quality guy to get override authority.
- salawat 3y ago
  Edit: Especially if you're not considered a C-level voice... I'm assuming people have been extracting it, but alas, I'm out of the edit window.
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  I've never seen engineers ignoring the safety guy, but rather salespeople, marketing, product management, and executives.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

euroderf 3y ago

Didn't you get the memo? See: "RE: No Good Deed Goes Unpunished".

orangepurple 3y ago

You have reached the point of bloodshed. At this point there is no more convincing people of anything. The lines in the sand have been drawn. Management has decided that this is how things will be and that is that. We have seen this behavior pan out in battlefield commanders in Ukraine recently too. In the AFU battle for Bakhmut conscripts were sent into a meat grinder when it was clear that the battle could not succeed without air superiority. Leadership ignored all warnings out of hubris and total disregard for human life.

rsynnott 3y ago

See any thread here about whistleblowers who whistleblow/are fired in advance of the Bad Thing happening, particularly if the whistleblow-ee is a VC-funded company other other HN darling. The attitude tends to be overwhelmingly "they got what they deserved, how dare they try to harm INNOVATION?!" I think to a somewhat lesser extent (HN is particularly aggressively anti-whistleblower) this is the general attitude, unfortunately.