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What Boeing did to all the guys who remember how to build a plane

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Re: What Boeing did to all the guys who remember how to build a plane

#531

Post by class3shock »

Cpoll wrote: post #526
ForHackernews wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Writing software is nothing like building airplanes. 99% of the time it doesn't matter because most software is worthless or trivial. A sibling thread highlights the decline of Google: What a horror if someone were to receive subpar search results or view an advert that hadn't been auctioned at the most profitable rate.

> subpar search results This isn't as innocuous as you make it. Add up wasted minutes for millions of users and you're looking at thousands of lifetimes. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that access to information is a force multiplier. Google doesn't have a monopoly on that, but it's hardly worthless or trivial.

I don't think his point is to say subpar search results aren't "impactful" but that they aren't going to cause a loss of life. If you work anywhere in the aerospace industry mistakes often can have that result.

Re: What Boeing did to all the guys who remember how to build a plane

#533

Post by Zanneth »

gostsamo wrote: post #430
mikewarot wrote: post #202

>Boeing had come under the spell of a seductive new theory of “knowledge” that essentially reduced the whole concept to a combination of intellectual property, trade secrets, and data, discarding “thought” and “understanding” and “complex reasoning” possessed by a skilled and experienced workforce as essentially not worth the increased health care costs. So they devalued Wisdom, and Elders... and things fell apart. T…

Purging elder employees is the logical result of making the employer pay for the health care of their employees.

I don’t think healthcare for employees comes anywhere close to the list of top expenses for a company as large as Boeing.

Based on the article, it sounds like the expertise of more experienced workers was preventing the reckless management from shipping poorly tested products earlier, and this was the actual reason for terminating them.

Re: What Boeing did to all the guys who remember how to build a plane

#534

Post by GolfPopper »

panick21_ wrote: post #523
GolfPopper wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People won't stop flying until they do - or at least stop flying on Boeing aircraft. And if airlines can't make a profit on a Boeing aircraft flight, there won't be any more Boeing aircraft flights. I don't know whether the point where the market for Boeing aircraft travel is one disaster away or ten disasters away, but it is out there. When it comes, people won't stop flying, but they will fly less, and it will cost…

Objectivly speaking flying with Boeing is still safe. People like us think news about planes and crashes are big but they really arent. Most people dont have the faintest idea of who makes planes, and what plane models exist or how save they are. And there isn't any system to activly avoid certain planes even if you wanted too. Sure at some point with enough failures this can happen. But this is unlikely. Most Boeing…

People aren't rational. Particularly in very large groups.

If a half-dozen (or whatever the magic number ends up being to set the zeigeist on fire) of Boeing aircraft suffer fatal or near-fatal accidents in the near future, everyone will suddenly know who makes which planes, and there will be systems to make sure you don't fly Boeing.

And while I think such a scenario is unlikely, it's hardly impossible. The real driver would be a combination of years of Boeing's own neglect coming together with margin-cutting airlines (you'd think they be extra safety conscious now, but any large organization is its own worst enemy), and any other of dozens of factors that could add up to push aircraft travel in an unsafe direction.

Or to put it another way, my intuition is that air travel (particularly in the US) has been very safe for a very long time, because it has operated with a very large safety margin. There are any number of perverse incentives to cut that safety margin, and it is largely possible to get away with cutting corners because of how deep the margin is. But if you keep cutting, eventually you run out of margin - and the sorts of people who do that sort of cutting can easily have have no idea how much margin there really is, or how much is actually needed to keep operating safely. So eventually things get to the point where you're not operating safely anymore, and then you can get multiple bad outcomes in a short period of time.

Re: What Boeing did to all the guys who remember how to build a plane

#535

Post by ForHackernews »

Cpoll wrote: post #526
ForHackernews wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Writing software is nothing like building airplanes. 99% of the time it doesn't matter because most software is worthless or trivial. A sibling thread highlights the decline of Google: What a horror if someone were to receive subpar search results or view an advert that hadn't been auctioned at the most profitable rate.

> subpar search results This isn't as innocuous as you make it. Add up wasted minutes for millions of users and you're looking at thousands of lifetimes. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that access to information is a force multiplier. Google doesn't have a monopoly on that, but it's hardly worthless or trivial.

Google (and most web software firms) are very lucky to operate in an industry where getting it more-or-less right 70% of the time is extraordinarily profitable, and the consequences for getting it wrong in any individual case are trivial.

There are many industries where this is not the case: aerospace, medical device engineering, and live TV production all come to mind.

Re: What Boeing did to all the guys who remember how to build a plane

#536

Post by tremon »

iaoat2d wrote: post #9
margalabargala wrote: post #3

If you read this article looking for new or surprising insight, you won't find it. It is not new information that Boeing started a rapid decline shortly after the McDonnell Douglas merger, and it will be unsurprising to you to hear that shortly afterwards, Boeing began abusing its most senior employees into leaving. What this article offers is new detail into exactly how Boeing has gone about cannibalizing itself. Th…

"the lengths to which they went to ensure all prior institutional knowledge regarding how to properly build a plane was systematically destroyed." why do this intentionally?

Because the value of expertise does not readily show on balance sheets. Boeing had been systematically eroding expertise for 25 years before its planes started to fall out of the sky.

Re: What Boeing did to all the guys who remember how to build a plane

#537

Post by sjy67 »

lukan wrote: post #453
mrjin wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Engineering is not only about know what to do, but also what not to do, and imho, knowing what not to do is way more important. Those C*O without an engineering background probably could not recognize that, but even they do, they probably don't care neither. Early career staffs are not only more energetic but also much cheaper comparing to those veterans in the field. Replacing those know what not to do with younger…

"when it indeed pops, as the one made the decisions would have pocketed a big fat bonus and walked away" And this is exactly what happened here and criminal investigations are happening, but I kind of doubt, whether they will lead to much. Much in the article is based on hearsay, so it will depend on whether there are more people willing to testify. But one main witness already suicided, despite telling others he won…

[dead]

Re: What Boeing did to all the guys who remember how to build a plane

#538

Post by WalterBright »

wpietri wrote: post #501
WalterBright wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So the market price for a company tends to favor short-term cash extraction over long-term value creation. Would you buy stock in a company that does this? Why do you think others would?

I think others would for the reason described in sentence directly before it. Which, as "so" indicates, is the logical predecessor. I used to write code for financial traders. I promise you that there are a lot of people who do not give half a shit what a company's up to as long as they can buy it for $100 and sell it later for $101. And based on infinite news reports, we can all see there are plenty of CEOs who will…

> I promise you that there are a lot of people who do not give half a shit what a company's up to as long as they can buy it for $100 and sell it later for $101.

I'm sure there are. But you gotta fool the investors to make this work. The presumption that investors are stupid doesn't sound that plausible.

Re: What Boeing did to all the guys who remember how to build a plane

#539

Post by weinzierl »

class3shock wrote: post #527
weinzierl wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd also blame flat hierarchy and lean management. When I started as a young engineer in aerospace in the late-nineties[1] this trend had already started, but we still had young people that tried to build a career and reputation. This culture is completely gone and replaced by move fast, break things and when you screw up start afresh somewhere else with minimal repercussions. I don't say the old world was necessaril…

I'm still early in my career in aerospace and am mulling over the same decision. What's stopping me is I'm already older and I do actually enjoy the work, whereas coding with no relation to a physical thing is not appealing. Currently thinking of trying to get into some inbetween role but haven't stumbled on something that struck me as an obvious path yet. What convinced you to make the jump?

I simply enjoyed coding more. The engineering job had its upsides too, especially the hardware we used, made for some good stories I could never have as a programmer again;-)

Still, I don't regret the switch, CS is just more my thing.

I was already a my mid-thirties and had a child when I finished my computer science degree.

Re: What Boeing did to all the guys who remember how to build a plane

#540

Post by makerdiety »

singleshot_ wrote: post #519
makerdiety wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then maybe stressed anxious people who are both high performing and mentally ill isn't ridiculous? Which makes sense because mediocre people have no stress, anxiety, or mental illness. They're "sane and healthy" instead.

Not every bay is a harbor, but every harbor is a bay.

That's a generalization. And the general is often blind to specific cases which disprove general principles.

You'll need to zoom out if you want a better picture of phenomena. Increase your video resolution to arrive at awesome conclusions like I do.

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