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Antarctic Discussion / Re: Current State Of Affairs
« on: February 05, 2009, 10:43:28 AM »
I'm on the Ice, but I missed the big town meeting. Here's what I know.
The long and short of it is that an employee, let's call him "K", decided to host a jello(TM)-wrestling event in the parts supply building of the VMF (vehicle maintenance facility -- a bureaucratic name for garage). K did not have permission to do this. No one was hurt, as far as I know, though K did show up a couple of days later with a broken foot. He may have pulled the whole thing off, too, were it not for a yearly visit by the US Office of the Inspector General. These people had only a few days to inspect McMurdo, so they worked on Sunday. K, apparently believing no one would need to enter the garage supply warehouse on Sunday morning, did not completely clean up after the jello(TM)-wrestling event on Saturday night. His supervisor, who was accompanying the OIG inspector, entered the building, saw half-empty beer bottles and cans everywhere amongst the jello(TM) flingings. He was not pleased.
He was fired the following week. I'm not sure what reasons were cited for his dismissal, though quite a few legitimate ones come to mind. So far, no surprises. This gets interesting, however, because K managed to spam the entire USAP network with a polemic against those who fired him, including threats to sue for wrongful termination. It appears HR did not inform the IT folks that he was fired, and that they should delete his email account. Rather than citing the rules which were broken and letting the whole issue end there, station management called an urgent all-hands meeting and, as I understand it, wagged the corporate finger at everyone for our collective moral failure, citing this incident and one or two more alleging activities involving nudity at McMurdo and the South Pole.
Employees, who could certainly understand the argument that K broke the rules, were not so understanding when a first-season, ex-military, puppet station manager, who worked for Raytheon (and went home for Christmas!) no less, began haranguing them for a lack of moral integrity.
From what I've gathered from people who were there, a mountain has been made of a mole hill, and station management took a forgettable incident and attempted to turn it into a moral crusade. I doubt this situation could have been handled much worse.
In a wider view, many people in the program feel that a lot of new upper managers are arrogant and unappreciative of their efforts and their often long commitments to the USAP. Most of the new top brass are ex-military and many of those are former military pilots like Sam Feola, the top dog for Raytheon Polar Services. They seem to believe that this program should be run in a military manner, that the org chart hierarchy puts them on top and those below -- many of whom have far more experience on the Ice -- should follow orders without question in ALL aspects of life down here, and that the sloppy civilians who work for them need to shape up and fall in line. Despite the teachings of millennia of great military leaders, our ex-military leaders do not appear to understand the value of morale in the ranks. "You're here to work, not have fun! And tighten up those morals!!" is not something that the generally hard-working, fun-loving, voluntary workforce down here wants to hear.
Especially from Raytheon.
The long and short of it is that an employee, let's call him "K", decided to host a jello(TM)-wrestling event in the parts supply building of the VMF (vehicle maintenance facility -- a bureaucratic name for garage). K did not have permission to do this. No one was hurt, as far as I know, though K did show up a couple of days later with a broken foot. He may have pulled the whole thing off, too, were it not for a yearly visit by the US Office of the Inspector General. These people had only a few days to inspect McMurdo, so they worked on Sunday. K, apparently believing no one would need to enter the garage supply warehouse on Sunday morning, did not completely clean up after the jello(TM)-wrestling event on Saturday night. His supervisor, who was accompanying the OIG inspector, entered the building, saw half-empty beer bottles and cans everywhere amongst the jello(TM) flingings. He was not pleased.
He was fired the following week. I'm not sure what reasons were cited for his dismissal, though quite a few legitimate ones come to mind. So far, no surprises. This gets interesting, however, because K managed to spam the entire USAP network with a polemic against those who fired him, including threats to sue for wrongful termination. It appears HR did not inform the IT folks that he was fired, and that they should delete his email account. Rather than citing the rules which were broken and letting the whole issue end there, station management called an urgent all-hands meeting and, as I understand it, wagged the corporate finger at everyone for our collective moral failure, citing this incident and one or two more alleging activities involving nudity at McMurdo and the South Pole.
Employees, who could certainly understand the argument that K broke the rules, were not so understanding when a first-season, ex-military, puppet station manager, who worked for Raytheon (and went home for Christmas!) no less, began haranguing them for a lack of moral integrity.
From what I've gathered from people who were there, a mountain has been made of a mole hill, and station management took a forgettable incident and attempted to turn it into a moral crusade. I doubt this situation could have been handled much worse.
In a wider view, many people in the program feel that a lot of new upper managers are arrogant and unappreciative of their efforts and their often long commitments to the USAP. Most of the new top brass are ex-military and many of those are former military pilots like Sam Feola, the top dog for Raytheon Polar Services. They seem to believe that this program should be run in a military manner, that the org chart hierarchy puts them on top and those below -- many of whom have far more experience on the Ice -- should follow orders without question in ALL aspects of life down here, and that the sloppy civilians who work for them need to shape up and fall in line. Despite the teachings of millennia of great military leaders, our ex-military leaders do not appear to understand the value of morale in the ranks. "You're here to work, not have fun! And tighten up those morals!!" is not something that the generally hard-working, fun-loving, voluntary workforce down here wants to hear.
Especially from Raytheon.