USVI-On-Line

As mess in the Gulf plays out, it becomes more and more apparent that there is a culture at BP that, at best, has not paid enough attention to environmental and safety issues.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 0060704777

OK, I understand that plenty of companies don’t get it. They don’t get that in area of risk management, it eventually comes back to haunt you when don’t have accountability at all levels, you don’t bother to spend the money on things like employee training and engineering to meet and exceed applicable standards, or, strive to employ state of the art controls when specific standards don’t exist or where regulatory oversight is weak.

The thing that is really worrisome though is when companies at the other end of the risk management bell curve that DO get it and have been known to be the leaders of industry in things like quality and safety ALSO take their eye off the ball, like Toyota and Johnson & Johnson.

It makes you wonder, what the hell is going on? Have all companies cut back on head count so much that they just don’t have the manpower anymore for proper oversight, prevention, and contingency planning? Are engineering, training, quality, and safety budgets cut back so severely like everything else?

And if the quarterly results are more important than what happens to their customers, employees, or environment, how can management (and shareholders) not understand the impact to their insurance rates, their company image and reputation, and the eventual bottom line by being so penny wise and pound foolish?

BP will pay dearly for this foolishness, 11 workers paid with their lives, and the economy, environment, wildlife, and people of an entire region gets gut punched for years. It makes you sad and angry at the same time. What ever happened to doing the right thing?

***End of rant***

The irony... nothing like the pain.

jmq wrote:
The thing that is really worrisome though is when companies at the other end of the risk management bell curve that DO get it and have been known to be the leaders of industry in things like quality and safety ALSO take their eye off the ball, like Toyota and Johnson & Johnson.

Now you've hit home. Johnson & Johnson puts food in my kids mouths. How has my company let safety standards go by the wayside?

I am PROUD to work for JNJ, and honsetly, there isn't a company I'd rather work for. Their safety and customer service record is damn near impeccable.

As for your thoughts on BP, while it is both tragic and sad, accidents DO happen from time to time. There is a reason why working on an oil rig has always been akin to working on an aircraft carrier in terms of sheer danger.

We all need oil. We will all continue to need oil. Let's be adults about it. It doesn't help when our president says on The Today Show "I need to know whose ass to kick".

might this be what jmq is referring to?

http://www.examiner.com/x-50474-Austin- ... -dishonest

Sox you never disappoint – your skin is as thin as ever, you miss the point someone is trying to make, and you manage to give a Obama a shot at the same time. Take a chill pill - its not an attack on the company and I don’t know how much more innocuously I could’ve referred to J&Js recent recall issues.

My point was if companies with model product safety programs are also having issues in these areas, is that an indication that some slippage in the commitment to uncompromised safety has been allowed to occur by everybody, and why in the world is that?

J&J has always been a model corporate citizen. Case studies were written on how well they handled the Tylenol recall years ago. Toyota is a trailblazer with its widely studied and imitated “Toyota Way” and “Kaizen” or Continuous Improvement principles.

That’s why it is so surprising that even great companies like this are having these issues. It would be like having photos of Derek Jeter stumbling around drunk with a hooker on the cover of the NY Post. It just shakes your faith when the good guys screw up too.

I put the blame for the leak right where it belongs. The environmentalist. Yup, thats what I said. If the oil companies didn't have to go out 5 miles and drill 1 mile down where man cannot go, we wouldn't be in this mess. We should be drilling off of Florida, California, Alaska,everywhere in the Gulf. Heck, even Viet Nam is drilling off of Mexico. Every other country on the planet is drilling where ever the oil/gas happens to be. I'm in NY, right above the Marcellus Shale, tons of gas and every environmentalist is screaming bloody murder. The same people that get in there cars and drive to a protest, heat there homes, take hot showers, fly to the Caribbean. Bunch of nuts, kooks, idiots ! Unless you want to sit around a bon fire, shut the hell up !! Oh shoot never mind, we would then have to cut trees. Can't do that either. Bunch of knuckleheads.

And with that...we pass the torch.

There's a lot of change 'round these parts lately.

DaveS007 wrote:I put the blame for the leak right where it belongs. The environmentalist. Yup, thats what I said. If the oil companies didn't have to go out 5 miles and drill 1 mile down where man cannot go, we wouldn't be in this mess. We should be drilling off of Florida, California, Alaska,everywhere in the Gulf. Heck, even Viet Nam is drilling off of Mexico. Every other country on the planet is drilling where ever the oil/gas happens to be. I'm in NY, right above the Marcellus Shale, tons of gas and every environmentalist is screaming bloody murder. The same people that get in there cars and drive to a protest, heat there homes, take hot showers, fly to the Caribbean. Bunch of nuts, kooks, idiots ! Unless you want to sit around a bon fire, shut the hell up !! Oh shoot never mind, we would then have to cut trees. Can't do that either. Bunch of knuckleheads.

Knuckleheads? That's harsh. Did one forget about the forum thugs?

Jorge wrote:

DaveS007 wrote:I put the blame for the leak right where it belongs. The environmentalist. Yup, thats what I said. If the oil companies didn't have to go out 5 miles and drill 1 mile down where man cannot go, we wouldn't be in this mess. We should be drilling off of Florida, California, Alaska,everywhere in the Gulf. Heck, even Viet Nam is drilling off of Mexico. Every other country on the planet is drilling where ever the oil/gas happens to be. I'm in NY, right above the Marcellus Shale, tons of gas and every environmentalist is screaming bloody murder. The same people that get in there cars and drive to a protest, heat there homes, take hot showers, fly to the Caribbean. Bunch of nuts, kooks, idiots ! Unless you want to sit around a bon fire, shut the hell up !! Oh shoot never mind, we would then have to cut trees. Can't do that either. Bunch of knuckleheads.

Knuckleheads? That's harsh. Did one forget about the forum thugs?

Who the freak let you back on the forum? Does Anthony know ?

pipanale wrote:And with that...we pass the torch.

There's a lot of change 'round these parts lately.

Bout time ! BTW, it's all Jorge's fault.

DaveS007 wrote:

pipanale wrote:And with that...we pass the torch.

There's a lot of change 'round these parts lately.

Bout time ! BTW, it's all Jorge's fault.

Shut up Dave. Anthony is just being nice. You are such an a$$. And stop highjacking threads please.