Respect Campaign and Poisoned Rabbits (Denver Anonymous Suggestion Box)
May 16th, 2008 by Nick
Though Denver is not geographically in Antarctica, Denver is the home of the USAP prime support contractor, Raytheon Polar Services Company. Therefore, far from Antarctica, in a suburban office park with green lawns and a conference room named “Shackleton”, it is in Denver where much of the administrative power over McMurdo and South Pole and Palmer stations resides. Thus Denver’s cultural impact on the ice must not be ignored.
As above, so below.
Someone recently pointed out to me that Denver has an anonymous suggestion box, where employees (from Denver, not from Antarctica) can anonymously ask questions or make suggestions, to which RPSC management responds.
Join us now, as we enter this dark labyrinth to see what creeping horrors await.
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Respect Campaign |
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| Date Submitted | 05/13/2008 |
| Suggestion | While I think respect is extremely important and make every effort to be respectful, acknowledge people’s efforts and help, etc… I find this respect campaign pretty difficult to take seriously when RPSC as a company has such a hard time treating its employees well. Employees here believe in the job they do and in the Antarctic Program, but get finally have to give up due to constant mishandling of projects, and especially employees. |
| Assignment | [RPSC Program Director] |
| Response | It sounds like you don’t believe in respect or treating people and the company with respect. How do you expect things to change if you won’t try to change them and be respectful of others? It’s not Raytheon, the company, that’s at fault – it’s the people. We have to change the culture and the attitudes of the people. That’s where the Respect Campaign helps. Be a gamechanger! |
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Answering phones |
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| Date Submitted | 05/05/2008 |
| Suggestion | There are some individuals who never answer their phones, respond to voicemail or e-mail, even when sitting at their desks. These people I’m referring to are in HR and Procurement. Can an e-mail be put out to regarding that this is part of their job? These are critical positions and no response is not acceptable nor should we have to walk to their cubicle, just to talk to them. It’s a waste of my time, just because they’re too lazy to answer their phone. |
| Assignment | [RPSC Program Director] |
| Response | Thanks for bringing this to their attention. It has helped them realize a problem which has been addressed. |
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Rabbits |
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| Date Submitted | 05/05/2008 |
| Suggestion | Why are we poisoning the rabbits on the property? It is very sad and disruptive to watch them slowly dying in pain outside of my window. Can we leave them alone or catch and release them someplace else? |
| Assignment | [RPSC Program Director] |
| Response | Further information: Enviropest was last on site for monthly pest control treatment on April 10th. These are the same chemicals Enviropest has used the last six years. They do not cause harm to people or larger animals such as rabbits. With regards to the work performed on Sunday, Western Construction was on-site pressure washing the mortar and stairs to rid them of rust. In addition to pressure washing, Western Construction used a diluted acid to help break down the rust. The acid was then diluted further and washed down the parking lot. This is common practice. At no point did the diluted acid come in contact with the vegetation or with any living creature. By the time the acid made it’s way to the parking lot, it was completely diluted and virtually harmless. We checked with the building maintenance staff who said they are not poisoning the rabbits. Most of them are coming around our building from the Justice Center property behind us, We don’t know if the Justice Center has a pest control program or not. I will update this if there is additional information available from the building owners. |
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Employee Survey |
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| Date Submitted | 04/29/2008 |
| Suggestion | Are we ever going to see this or just more double talk from Managment. |
| Assignment | [RPSC Program Director] |
| Response | Yes. In fact, at the 2-day off-site last week for the Leadership Team, the survey results were provided in a presentation. We selected 4 of the top 10 critical areas for improvement. We assigned Leadership Team sponsors to each group. The Division Directors will be briefing the results to their respective division/department, then ask for volunteers to work on the top 4 areas. After the APC, we will readdress the remaining 6 areas, as we will have a better idea of where the Program is heading. Separately, I don’t appreciate your attitude about “more management double talk.” A lot of people are working very hard to analyze the raw data and get a presentation together and a plan to address our top areas for improvement. In addition to the EOS discussion, we will also have discussions at the division level on Respect – a topic that you apparently could learn something from. |
