Boeing Being Boeing

[AJL67]

Their space flight division isn’t doing any better than the rest of the company. Really starting to wonder if this is ever going to happen, meanwhile Musk has the astronaut delivery system as well as ISS cargo wrapped up. Amazing that they started this race at the same time.

 

[bullet08]

Are they using Chinese parts?

 

[georged]

Boeing is imploding.

It's past recovery, too, because the ineptitude now includes those employees who have been charged with righting the ship. (They rose through the ranks for political reasons. At lower levels, they could be cleaned out. Now they're managers and aren't about to identify themselves as the problem. If they even realize that they are.)

My info source? The former head of JPL who retired from there after several decades and now does contract work for the up-and-coming groundbreaker space exploration outfits that Bezos and Musk put together.

 

[brian64]

Look at the bright side...your survival chances of flying on a Boeing plane are still a lot better than that of a Boeing whistleblower.

 

[olkofri]

 

[AJL67]

A couple years back Boeing had this world wide marketing push celebrating the fact they have the most diverse and including workforce, ads all over tv and in papers, on billboards, etc., they were so proud I suppose. Only problem was the push was a couple weeks after the first Max 8 crash because of garbage software coding, remember when one of them flew straight into the ground on takeoff and then it was discovered there was no training given to pilots anyway.

So little to be proud of these days.

I had the connection for viewing tickets every one of those target days this money now I’m not going to bother, it’s only 20 miles from me anyway, but 5 scrubs tries this month alone and 4 yrs behind schedule all together.

 

[karam]

I just hope nothing crashes going forward, that's all.

It seems there're bad new about Boeing every week for years now. Other than Airbus there isn't another big commercial aircraft manufacturer left.

 

[BingBong]

I just hope nothing crashes going forward, that's all.

It seems there're bad new about Boeing every week for years now. Other than Airbus there isn't another big commercial aircraft manufacturer left.

The media have a thing about them now; some criticism is richly deserved, some is really about operational error and nothing to do with them. Nonetheless, it's the old beancounter story - they should be kept in a box down the corridor and disqualified from making executive decisions, the death knell of many a fine business.

 

[huntertrw]

What is happening at Boeing makes me sick, as they were once a customer (and a good one) of mine some years ago.

 

[georged]

... it's the old beancounter story - they should be kept in a box down the corridor and disqualified from making executive decisions, the death knell of many a fine business.

The beancounters are the villian in this case if it explains why the hiring selection process changed to favor something other than competence / ability to do the job.

Which is entirely possible --- "You don't get the contract unless your workforce consists of X percentage of red tree squirrels, X percentage of Jack Russell Terriers, and X percentage of Monarch butterflies. The end. Take it or leave it."

If, however, the company chose to go there voluntarily, the beancounters were just bystanders to the self-righteousness and willful delusions of the company's top-level decision makers.

How the termites were injected into the frame of the Boeing house doesn't matter, in any event. Physics and hardcore reality are all that products like airplanes care about, not the fee-fees of their builders and users.

 

[sablebrush52]

It’s what happens when a company founded and run by engineers becomes a company run by suits with no technical background.

 

[AJL67]

It’s what happens when a company founded and run by engineers becomes a company run by suits with no technical background.

Build cool stuff ... eh .. we just need to make the stockholders happy so they keep paying us and our shares, grants and bonuses all keep going up.

 

[georged]

It’s what happens when a company founded and run by engineers becomes a company run by suits with no technical background.

How the the no-technical-background suits get into such positions, though?

That's the question.

Boeing's engineers and legit-technical-background suits didn't put them there.

 

[ThermionicScott]

How the the no-technical-background suits get into such positions, though?

That's the question.

Boeing's engineers and legit-technical-background suits didn't put them there.

They came over from McDonnell-Douglas after the merger.

 

[renfield]

I worked at both McD-D and Boeing. Boeing had serious internal issues long before the merger. I could tell stories for hours, but won’t here.

Never mind the internal issues at the FAA.

The current hysteria has more to do with typical media behavior than anything else.

 

[georged]

The first powered human flight at Kitty Hawk (three hundred feet on a fabric-covered wooden kite w/12 horsepower gasoline motor) to men going 25,000 miles per hour to the Moon and back---and walking around on it while they were there---took 66 years.

From that day until now has been almost as long: 55 years

The laws of physics didn't change in those 55 years, mathematics didn't change, the properties of metals and chemical elements didn't change, the principles of education didn't change, and human DNA didn't change.

The only variable that COULD have changed was what's considered acceptable educational (pre-job) performance, and on-the-job performance after the fact.

Put another way, getting work done RIGHT became secondary to other considerations.

Whether or not those responsible truly understood that the Natural World is inviolately rigid, has no feelings, and is not subjective is a good question.

That historically significant, world-class companies once capable of engineering magic can be destroyed by employees who either didn't understand that, or didn't care, was never in doubt.

Which makes the essential question: How did they get in?

 

[sablebrush52]

Which makes the essential question: How did they get in?

They got in the usual way. They got hired.
You need to dispel from your mind the myth that people get hired because they are competent or deserving. Sometimes that is the case, but sometimes it’s enough that they give the appearance of competence.
The secret is simple. If you can’t dazzle with brilliance, baffle with bullshit.
Some of the most desperately dumb, spectacularly stupid bozos it has been my displeasure to deal with populate HR departments. And leave us not forget the old boys network, old school ties, nincompoop nepotism, and an unholy host of cons, falsified resumes, and on and on. It’s a wonder that we’re not wiped off the face of the planet. But just give it time.

 

[georged]

They got in the usual way. They got hired.
You need to dispel from your mind the myth that people get hired because they are competent or deserving. Sometimes that is the case, but sometimes it’s enough that they give the appearance of competence.
The secret is simple. If you can’t dazzle with brilliance, baffle with bullshit.
Some of the most desperately dumb, spectacularly stupid bozos it has been my displeasure to deal with populate HR departments. And leave us not forget the old boys network, old school ties, nincompoop nepotism, and an unholy host of cons, falsified resumes, and on and on. It’s a wonder that we’re not wiped off the face of the planet.

You're making my point.

Desperately dumb spectacularly stupid bozos clearly did not work at places like Boeing---never mind run it---since the beginning.

The company's track record---until a generation or so ago---is the the strongest proof possible that employee quality and performance outweighed all other considerations.

 

[sablebrush52]

You're making my point.

Desperately dumb spectacularly stupid bozos clearly did not work at places like Boeing---never mind run it---since the beginning.

The company's track record---until a generation or so ago---is the the strongest proof possible that employee quality and performance outweighed all other considerations.

And, you’ve just made mine:

It’s what happens when a company founded and run by engineers becomes a company run by suits with no technical background.

 

[BingBong]

And, you’ve just made mine:

Ye. In IT 20 years ago, there was a huge trend to get rid of managers with technical backgrounds and replace them with "professional" managers. If you tried to explain technical nuances which were controlling factors to this new breed, their eyes would glaze over in about 45 seconds. I eventually got out with a decent severance package, it was insufferable.