Just the Facts, Ma’am

By The Phantom

Hey, with all the interest in fake news recently, it’s kind of refreshing/alarming to remember that people have been hearing what they want to hear for a long time. And engineers have often been the bearers of bad tidings, who get ignored.

But I get ahead of myself. Even Phantoms occasionally do a little clean-up of the lair. And so it was that while we were throwing out some old junk to make room for new junk to be thrown out next time, we came across an article we’d saved from a newspaper (remember them?) in 1986. Those of you with enough, uh, maturity, will remember the disastrous Challenger flight. The article recounted the efforts of the engineers involved to stop the launch in such cold weather because they were pretty sure some seals wouldn’t hold. Their management dismissed the fears because the engineers couldn’t prove that the seals would fail. Quoting the article, “In the end, the profound safety concerns of about a dozen engineering experts were overruled by a panel of four vice presidents.” Well, the engineers’ fears were well-founded and seven fine astronauts lost their lives and the nation lost a good shuttle. Per the article, “…the engineers presented ‘inconclusive data’ that failed to prove the launch would be unsafe.” Huh? Ask your airplane captain if the plane is safe and he replies, “Well, no one has proved it is unsafe.” How would you feel? The article cited other cases in which management ignored the engineers and disaster followed. One that came to our feeble mind, which occurred years after the article was written (no, I don’t know why the author didn’t foresee it) involved a certain deep water oil well in the Gulf of Mexico. Drilling was over budget and behind schedule.

Management made the decision to skip some standard engineering safety steps. The engineers warned them that they were taking unacceptable risks but, with their eyes likely on their bonuses (my opinion) and since the engineers couldn’t prove conclusively that a problem would occur, they plowed ahead. The results were disastrous, as I’m sure you will remember.

Fortunately we’re in an industry where the consequences are not that dangerous, though fatal accidents have occurred. We have seen similar bad decision-making, resulting in the loss of gobs of money and vital jobs. Not that engineers are immune from bad decisions, but we have an ethical and moral (and sometimes legal) obligation to make decisions and recommendations based solely on the facts of the situation once we understand them as thoroughly as possible. “Just the facts, ma’am.” (Does anyone else remember what radio and TV show that line was from?) We need to strive toward better decision-making. This includes knowing how to do our job right the first time, every time. And it includes understanding how our job fits into the bigger picture of where our company is going and what it takes to get there. We can give management confidence in our decision-making. That way we become partners in the management of our companies and can work more closely with them in improving decisions.

Well, I know you have no idea where the quote above came from, so I’ll tell you. The detective show was called “Dragnet,” and that was Sergeant Friday’s line when a witness he was interviewing started straying from giving him “just the facts.” The Sergeant had no use for unsubstantiated opinion or emotional reactions; he just needed the facts. And so should we.

—

Photo of Jack Webb as Sergeant Friday, and Harry Morgan as his partner, officer Bill Gannon, from the television program “Dragnet.”

^© PD-PRE1978, By NBC Television via Wikimedia Commons

The Phantom

the.phantom@youwontfindmeanywhere.com

You never know when The Phantom is standing right beside you. Sometimes he is in a meeting with you or walking the floor at your favorite cable show. Sometimes he’s hanging with the suits and other times with the front liners. But be assured, The Phantom sees all, The Phantom knows all and, most importantly, The Phantom tells all.

Cartoonstock.com