Daily Report Quote

This quote is also from my first report to the FAA local MIDO office, when I was naive and chose not to believe all those press reports about the FAA being the "handmaiden of the aviation industry" and a "tombstone agency." This quote is from the section of my report noted in the first quote below that I deleted to make that quote shorter and I stated that I may quote later. This quote from that section details my history as an inspector at Boeing, and some of the other corrupt Boeing QA supervisors I've worked for over the years:

Another QA Supervisor we had at PSD was (name), who transferred to PSD from the Space Shuttle program or one of Boeing’s rocket programs, I believe. His "lack of people skills" and cold-hearted attitude was soon noticed by most inspectors on the floor. His only goal seemed to be to cut the cost of the product, even though he was a QA Supervisor. He was at PSD around the time of the production bottlenecks on the 737 and 747 programs that resulted in the first Company red ink in 50 years, and began the Company’s focus on cost-cutting to restore profitability. His method to cut costs, as he was a QA Supervisor, focused on getting his line inspectors to not write defects up and to ignore procedures that might cost the Company money.

I found this out when on or about 2/26/99. I wrote an NCR...on a damaged shotpeened fitting on a 777 strut. Shop complained about it, probably to (name), who was Mfg Supervisor of that area, and (my QA supervisor) got me and brought me over to the fitting, looked at the damage, and said he didn’t think it was a valid discrepancy that I should have written up. I told him that it met the requirements of rejectable damage per the...specification, so I had written it up. He got agitated. He said that I shouldn’t write up damage unless it was going to create a "stress riser" in the part. I told him that I wasn’t an engineer, and I had no idea what kind of damage would create a "stress riser", and which wouldn’t. I asked him, that if the criteria I was using for identifying rejectable damage was wrong, if he could find out the correct specifications I should be using, and then present them to the whole crew at the next crew meeting, so everyone would be aware of what "rejectable damage" was and document it. I asked him this so that all of us line inspectors would be consistent writing damage up, as I knew that the only reason I was getting this attention was that I was one of the few inspectors documenting damage per the specifications. That way I would not "stand out from the crowd" like one of those plastic alligators on that Chuck E Cheese amusement game, sticking out their head and getting bashed with a hammer because of it.
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Anyway, he said that he would do it, and said that he was going to cancel the NCR because it shouldn’t have been written. Then he said angrily, "You’re costing the Company money." I was stunned. I didn’t know what to say, so I said "Sorry." He walked off. He never canceled the NCR. It had already been approved by (name), QA approver. He chewed (the QA approver) out. (The QA approver) came out to the shop and we discussed the situation. From what I dimly remember from that conversation, (the QA approver) was upset how (my QA supervisor) had treated him. He had no problem with me documenting damage per the specifications, and said (my QA supervisor) was not very wise doing what he was doing. If something happened to the airplane because of damage he told an inspector to ignore, then he would be in a bind.