I will never discover the full truth, or the truth is infinity...but I will always be looking for it...always test everything, always be looking for god....always make sure me and everyone's mental model is correct.
----- Original Message ----From: Michael Mulligan
This comes from a compilation of a recent conversation with three different Vermont Yankee nuclear plant employees. The gist is…could it be hindsight bias, I don’t think so.
The “cooling tower accident” was absolutely probable in their eyes before the accident. Everyone thinks the categorization of plant systems into nuclear safety, half nuclear safety and non safety…is a false distinction. The object of being a non safety and nuclear safety system ends up morphing into prioritization system based on a financial consideration. All of these guys think it was based on the group think at the time…they were worried before hand…they could see the increasing degradation of the plant…that the cooling tower collapse type accident is right around the corner. I find it amazing that a significant amount of the population of employee’s at that plant thought the corporate behavior was asking for an event.
The question that drives me crazy…why couldn’t the employees create a dialog with somebody before the cooling tower or valve accident…in the corporation, the NRC, INPO, to outsiders…who should have prevented the accident?
They told me they are glad the NRC was onsite…they couldn’t imagine the terrible corporate behavior based on a warped nuclear magic philosophy…nobody could understand the resource priorities…if the plant could get away with what they wanted independent of the NRC. Their idea is the corporation is just trying to maximize profits…I think it’s a lot more complex than that…it’s just the rationalization that’s easy to understand.
I find it fascinating they don’t think Entergy’s ethic’s with nuclear safety is sustainable without governmental oversight. It’s not that they would risk a meltdown…hiding secrets… for making a few pennies of profits. It’s that they will side into a predictable event based on a crazy group think rationalization. Then nobody would have the horsepower to break the trance until a public accident gives the insider’s the leverage to bring the maintenance back up to an acceptable level. They were worried with the runaway and disconnected offsite corporate culture that wasn’t aware of the physicalities of the maintenance of the plant.
They all tell me there is significant soul searching going on at the plant with what occurred.
Everyone thinks this is normalized throughout the domestic nuclear industry….it’s not a localized to Vermont Yankee.
Two employees’ chided me about the legacy of the Bush’s regulatory philosophy with safety…and the dynasty of the republican hold on our national regulatory structure for many years. They are republican's.
They are intimidated into engaging into a controversial debate…whomever; internal, NRC, INPO and outsiders… about the general reliability and safety of their plant! They can’t organize and display the information that could bolster their idea of the condition of the plant…especially if it is controversial to the group think of the corporation.
It’s like they got an unstoppable monster running around in their plant…everyone can see it…can predict the negative results of it, looking down the road with predicting the kinds of the damage this can do. Everyone is resigned to the fact that they are powerless to engage and stop the monster’s action. They feel if they engage the hypocrisy of the monster…it will destroy them and their family without doing any good.
Hmmm…who has more wage slavery pain and terrorism….a man walking on the black hole edge of employment…absence wages and benefits and having any meaningful power of any influences in work….or an employee making $80,000, excellent benefits and a ineffectual Union …who is intimidated and hurts more, if the floor is threatened to be removed from underneath them?
I mean i lose nothing when i get fired...can you imagine the lost of the magnitude of the world a nuclear middle manager or operator with 25 years at the plant has? I wonder what this would be in dollar terms. I think it easier for me to speak truth to power...what the hell do i have to lose.
These events have changed the public's perception of safety with this nuclear plant on a regional based. It's a public relation meltdown! They are telling me VY's whole page ad in the local paper is a result of my investigation.
Entergy's tells us through this their first three priorities are ...SAFETY...SAFETY....SAFETY thru this local newspaper advertizement.
Thanks,
mike
I meant, what is the optimal "state of mind" in a person in a complex system? What and who should i work for in defense of human dignity...is human dignity safety....is human dignity profit maximization in the long term. I am not against profits.
Is the search for truth the prize no matter what the consequences ...maybe we should have no consequences?
I will never discover the full truth, or the truth is infinity...but I will always be looking for it...always test everything, always be looking for god....always make sure me and everyone's mental model is correct.
----- Original Message ----From: Michael Mulligan
Oh, man…doesn’t Chomsky make that phrase come alive, that words have meanings. I got this jerk at work telling me my language is sloppy….and he is right. Chomsky justified my existential fears…of who should I trust? How do I come up with whom should I trust a lot and who should I trust a little? Do i trust someone with a predictable repeated behavior or do i trust somebody who is creative?
I just never had the vocabulary to express my knowings and feelings. Now I understand why everyone hates Chomsky:
http://www.chomsky.info/
That there isn't much difference between slavery, and renting one's self to an owner, or "wage slavery." He feels that it is an attack on personal integrity that destroys and undermines our freedoms. He holds that those that work in the mills should run them.
You should see it from the bottom step of the employment ladder….I mean there is no fall back job underneath me and my cohorts….just a dark hole of unemployment.
We were forced into doing a corporate chant last night at work. The emotional force of not doing what everyone else was doing was so strong. One young and new manager was somewhat balking, saying why am I being punished with you choosing to make me lead the chant…with the top manager coming back with, that is why you joined the management team. It couldn’t be expressed more perfect. It is a soft demonstration of force in front of everyone.
At the bottom rung of the ladder, you should see how easy it is for people to sell their soul and individuality…being nothing through all their years of employment…to become “somebody” such as a manager…who can assert some amount of power over the weak. Are you somebody if you can assert some level of power over another in an organization! Why is power so addictive? What are the attributes of good assertion of authority or power and a bad one...does power restrict visibility or increase visibility? Should you use power to punish people or increase visibility?
At the bottom end of the ladder, the hopeless and sitting right next to unemployment chaos…you should see how easy it is to sell your integrity and your soul, your humanity. You should see how good it feels to dehumanize your self and your peers. You should see how easy this becomes with people who have a limited vocabulary.
“To be or not to be, that is the question”….? To be someone…in the eyes of a manager higher than you?
I mean, that is the fundamental question of life…of human dignity…human rights…. "whom am I" ...of less human errors?
They have gone to extraordinary lengths to surveil me at work.
What is the optimal “state of mind” in a complex system…in human error analysis?
1 comment:
Thanks!
Post a Comment