But in a way that was the least of it. The powers that be (president David Skorton) arranged for me a lengthy tour of the engineering school by the Dean of Engineering and the Dean of Civil Engineering. (I am a Cornell civil engineering grad.) Not only was I taken aback by the extraordinary work going on, which was mostly beyond my comprehension, but by the discipline and tradition of engineering of which I am the smallest part. The experience bordered on the mystical; though I went on to get business degrees and make my name, such as it is, around management, I realized some odd genetic-like tug to my engineering roots—it in fact felt very good, a coming home of sorts.

But it also got me thinking about the Gulf oil spill. (It's hard to go more than a few minutes without that disaster intruding on one's thoughts.) There is more than enough blame to go around from BP and hapless Tony Hayward to Deepwater Horizon to Halliburton to the pathetic dis-incentivized federal regulators.

And I want to pile on.

In my recent book, The Little BIG Things, one item, #56, in the section on leadership was titled "Sacred Trust," and it began like this:

"As I see it, anyone who takes on any leadership job, minor or major, assumes no less than a ... Sacred Trust. I know that's extreme language. But I stand by it. This sacred trust is all about what organizations are all about: the professional (and, to some extent, personal) development of people. Sure, the boss's job is to 'get the job done,' and done effectively. But 'boss-hood' primarily entails an abiding responsibility for the people under your charge. ..."

Leadership is a sacred trust. As is the practice of law. And medicine. And any of the other recognized professions.

Including engineering.

Certified engineers, like certified docs and lawyers, mostly take oaths to live up to the responsibilities of their disciplines. Rights and responsibilities: These pros have the right to declaim with some degree of certitude about their discipline, and/but the responsibility to ensure that the boundaries of said certitude are not violated.

Well, in my newfound/renewed ardor for engineering, I also find myself beset with newfound anger-outrage at numerous engineers employed by BP, et al. (Many an "al." it would appear.)

Outrage not at "BP engineers," but outrage at Arthur N. Smith [fictitious name], certified and licensed engineer. And doubtless dozens and dozens, probably hundreds, of his cohorts.

BP seems to have gotten it wrong on a dozen dozen dozen engineering dimensions. In the name of cost control or whatever. I don't give a shit about the cost control issues, real as I know they are. I give a hundred shits about the fact that Arthur Engineer and Ralph Engineer and Mary Engineer, cross-pressures notwithstanding (that's life), abrogated their professional responsibilities as ... individuals. Arthur and Ralph and Mary are probably good parents—but professionally they screwed their fellow citizens to a fare-thee-well.

And I'm pisssed off.

Very pissed off.

Arthur and Ralph and Mary have bills to pay. And the economy is tough. And their bosses, responding to their bosses, doubtless did put merciless pressure on them.

Hence my empathy is high.

But in the end I am appalled. They have cost us lives and economic and environmental damage of epic proportion. Because they lacked the will and integrity to blow their professional whistles and stand up for the discipline to which they have sworn allegiance.

They are (individually) a disgrace to the great tradition of engineering of which I am the smallest part. So I'm taking this personally.

This disaster, regardless of certain companies' headquarters addresses, occurred in the United States. Among nations, we try to live to a higher standard of individual accountability than most. We are (properly, for the most part) known as an individualistic nation—it has been our strength among strengths. Back to: rights and responsibilities. Our individualism gives moral and other supports (effectively, "rights") to our peerless entrepreneurial behavior, for example. But along with those peerless rights of individualism come an equally profound set of responsibilities. If you are encouraging me to "do my thing," you are also making it clear that the practice thereof is, unequivocally, a form of "sacred responsibility."

Well, my beloved engineers-of-the-Gulf, it was not only HTH, Hapless Tony Hayward, who let us down. It was you engineers as well one at a time, name by name. In fact my fury at you is stronger than my fury at Hayward. After all, he was merely a corporate shill—you are professionals, the latest in a magnificent tradition that you have now sullied.

For shame.

NB: Am I exceedingly harsh in my judgment here? Perhaps. But, upon substantial reflection, I think not.

Chapter & verse & punctuation marks, that's what our (USA) workers said in, perhaps, the 1930s, eh?

What follows is not meant to be inclusive. It is meant to be what it is, reflections from a 40 mile round trip from Tinmouth to Manchester Center and back. Thoughts on Federal/Local policy flowing, as it were, from the BP fiasco:

D-Day2010 for Energy Independence/Conservation: A Few Ideas*

• Return to '73. 55mph speed limit implemented within 60 days or less, save thousands of lives, huge amount of gas. EVERYBODY participates/sacrifices, easy-ish to do.


• Return to '73. Winter double daylight savings.


• Summer Jobs Service Corps, to be implemented immediately. 10K kids to Gulf of Mexico to fend off the spill. Pay for with temporary 25-cent gas tax or cigarette tax. (Kids Krusade is Kool.)


• Campaign 60/75. Winter thermostats never higher than 60 degrees, summer A/C never lower than 75. Public ads/blog/tweet/support groups/local campaigns.


• Extend Bush tax cuts, but balance half of lost tax $$ by raising gas tax $1.00 or some such per gallon.


• States: Immediately double registration fees for gas guzzlers, quintuple within 5 years. (Remove when fleet MPG standards reach a specified point.)


• 150-day 80% government-funded home energy efficiency payment (for specified activities); at end of 1 year begin penalties for those who have not taken certain steps.


• Graduated penalties for building energy efficiency deficits, material/painful by year 3 or 4.


• Water conservation rules/penalties/bill reductions. Effect on water but also energy use associated therewith.

(*Must have several implementable ASAP. Must induce shared pain-contribution by ALL.)

(ABOVE: Rare Clematis. BELOW: Serious work gloves.)

I am a lifelong Democrat, and if I were still a California voter, I would probably not vote for Ms. Fiorina. Nonetheless I am a staunch defender of her HP record. (I called her "CEO of the Year" at one point in this space.) After reading the WSJ piece, I sent her an email offering a public statement from me on her HP tour of duty.

To wit:

"HP, circa 2010, is the 600-lb gorilla astride the computer industry. Why? The Compaq acquisition. PERIOD. Carly Fiorina, without a lot of help at times, fought the Hewlett and Packard families in a bitter, protracted battle to do the deal. And won. In doing so she both saved and transformed one of America's greatest companies. And if that's not enough, she also took one of earth's least consumer-oriented companies and converted it into a consumer dynamo, almost single-handedly (again). The greatest criticism of Fiorina was that Dell, then the #1 PC manufacturer, outstripped HP in profitability. Or at least Dell did until, after Fiorina left, they were forced to 'restate' (erase) a huge share of those profits. Ms. Fiorina doubtless made missteps, but anyone who disses or discounts or dismisses the profound positive impact of her tenure at HP is blind or an idiot or both."—Tom Peters, co-author of In Search of Excellence (Peters lived in Silicon Valley for 30+ years, but did not consult to or work with or even meet Fiorina until after she had left HP.)

That is, my net worth and the usefulness (if any) of my work are not related except indirectly.

I think finance is absolutely a centerpiece of our economic well-being. Hence I trust that Mr. Winkelried has done work of value to my country and the world in his decades at Goldman Sachs. I assume, in fact, that there should be a multiplier—that is, the economic usefulness of Mr. Winkelried's work is a multiple of his compensation; he's hopefully been a "net contributor" to our collective well-being.

So it's sad that the Fortune guy would only imagine valuing Mr. Winkelried in terms of his net worth—and thence assigning no societal economic value to Mr. Winkelried's decades of 20-hour days.

I know nothing about Mr. Winkelried. But I think the Fortune guy has a whopper of a problem.

(This Post is from the Auckland airport, as I await a flight to Nelson.)

The late CIA Director William Casey insisted that employees read the management classic In Search of Excellence to encourage every officer to take personal responsibility for solving problems, rather than kicking them on to the next guy in line. CIA Director Leon Panetta should use these searing events to foster a culture of initiative and accountability at a CIA that wants to do the job—but that needs leadership and reform.

Needless to say, Tom is extremely flattered to be mentioned.

It has long been my contention that, while there is surely such a thing as "towering competence," I nonetheless believe that the overwhelming majority of the Wall Street Geniuses are worth their weight in a lot less than gold—horse manure occurs as I gaze out my office window to my Tinmouth VT barnyard.

An excellent article by an excellent author marked the cover of the first 2010 issue of the New York Times Magazine; namely "What's a Banker Really Worth," by Steven Brill. It is an excellent (and dense, lengthy) read, and by no means a hatchet job.

While the article is astonishingly balanced, the defendants keep failing to take the Fifth Amendment. One banker who spoke to Brill said, defending the need to continue sky-high compensation, and, additionally, not defer it:

"A lot of our folks have second and third homes and alimony payments and other obligations that require substantial current cash."

No, with a nod to Dave Barry, I'm not making this up.

The sentence not only takes the 2010 quote of the year award, but it also goes into the dictionary as Definition #1 of "They just don't get it."

Any further explanation or editorialization would be gratuitous.

Repeat: "A lot of our folks have second and third homes and alimony payments and other obligations that require substantial current cash."

But there are "a few," perhaps unaware of the recession's "waning days," who, along with their families, are not approaching the holiday season with unmitigated self-satisfaction at the gains made since Turkey Day 2008.

Unemployment stats are awful.
And they will surely get worse.
The "jobs recovery" will doubtless take five years—or more.

Underemployment is widespread literally beyond measure.
There are hours cutbacks, in many or most cases severe.
And pay grade reductions.
And employment temporarily saved by accepting slots three or four steps down the ladder.

Expectations have been truncated.
Pensions have been severed, sometimes months from planned retirement.
House payments are in arrears.
Foreclosures still loom by the million.
Home equity, the mainstay of the American nest-egg, has evaporated, and will not fully rebound even in the next eight or ten years.

And on.
And on.
(And on.)

I agree that it appears that the crisis of potential total-system meltdown that loomed at the edge of Thanksgiving Week 2008 seems to have been evaded. And I, while clipping a clothespin to the end of my nose, was among those who saw the massive financial sector bailouts as an absolute necessity. In fact, overall, and despite the horrifying deficit run up, I believe that the policy makers deserve a solid "B" grade for efforts during the last 13 months.

Nonetheless, millions upon millions upon more millions of my fellow Americans will approach Thanksgiving and Christmas not only traumatized, but with little light at the end of the tunnel.

I wish them well.
And I offer them my humble prayers.

They surely do not need or deserve a self-appointed grandee at Fortune gleefully pontificating about the return of business as usual following our little rough patch.

How dare you, Mr. Colvin!

Consumers are tightening their belts in lots of ways: shopping more scrupulously, cooking more at home, taking up knitting, growing their own vegetables, being more careful of their energy usage, vacationing closer to home ... etc., etc. ... you fill in the gaps. All good eco-friendly stuff, some would say. Speaking personally, I have put off replacing my car for another year, and I'm planning a low-cost holiday in Barcelona this year by renting a small apartment and flying with a budget airline (NOT Ryanair)!

Employers, too, seem to be approaching this recession a bit differently. Many appear to have more of an eye to the impact their actions will have on employee morale than they have in previous recessions. We are seeing innovative ways to reduce employee costs without laying off as many workers as they might have in previous recessions, for example, by offering career breaks on reduced pay, or asking staff to work reduced hours to preserve jobs.

Many of these recession-driven strategies could be seen as positive ways to live our ongoing work and home lives. But, as anyone trying to lose weight or give up smoking will tell you, it's not the initial effort that matters, but whether you can make adaptations to your lifestyle so that you sustain a change for good—what engineers call "permanent set."

Is it too much to hope that some of the better new habits we are forming as consumers and employers will survive the recession? Which recession-driven habits do you hope will stay with us for good, and which will you be glad to leave behind?

Diamond and Fink graced page B1 of Saturday's Wall Street Journal. The story was of BlackRock's purchase of Barclays' money management operation. It was reported that the top 400 Barclays execs would divvy up $630 million—and Diamond would receive about $36.5 million.

What bugged me was not the $$$-signs per se.

What made me gag were the big, gaping grins on the two guys' faces. I think that is appalling-insensitive-stupefying-outrageous-disgusting-sickening in June 2009.

Would I love to find a check in the mail for $36.5 million? Damn right. Might it light up my face? Sure, but hopefully in the privacy of my entry hall at home. Not some big silly ass public grin—as thousands more are in the process of receiving pink slips in the same mail delivery.

One suspects that the pathetic saps actually think they deserved the bucks for "hard work" and personal brilliance. And maybe they even think the 20,000 a day who lose their jobs in the U.S. alone deserve their fates for not having kept their collective noses close enough to the grind stone.

But ...

But (not the first time I've used this phrase of late) ... have they no shame? If the photo was a must, couldn't they have shown a little sobriety of demeanor? I'm not asking for grim—just the tiniest inkling that they comprehend that not quite everyone experienced a $36.5 million payday on 12 June 2009.

Sorry bastards!

I do not wish them harm.
I do not wish them well.

I am befuddled by the Sotomayor brouhaha over the view of the world from the eyes of a female Latina.

Of course it's different.
Duh!

For one [big] thing, women, Latina and others, are more compassionate than men—and behave accordingly.
Duh!
And: Praise the Lord!

Racism?
The system of laws under which we [Americans, Brits, etc.] live was built by white guys, for white guys, and is, by and large, administered by white guys to this day.
Duh!

I have made out like a bandit since birth courtesy racism; that is, by being a white guy, better yet Anglo-Saxon white guy, in a world designed for and controlled by white guys—that is, a world designed especially for me me me me!!
Duh!

Do Gingrich and others [read: other white guys] really feel that they are free of bias?
Nobody could be that blind or un-self aware.
Right?
(Gingrich is an historian for God's sake.)

I have biases piled on top of biases piled on top of biases—only a small share of which I am even aware, but which directly and indirectly affect everything I do.
Duh!

(I always start my speeches with the same disclaimer: "Many who do what I do pretend that they are totally rational beings. Well, I'm not. Not even close. I carry a big bag of biases which color every word I utter—for example, I lived in Silicon Valley for 35 years; hence, everything I say inadvertently passes through an absurdly influential 'Silicon Valley-California' filter. Etc.")

Every human being—including our nine Justices—carry to work ships full of biases which get expressed in a zillion ways.
Duh!

This post is only peripherally about Judge Sotomayor.
It is, in the main, about the biases we all bring to work every day—and our awareness thereof; or lack thereof.

The implications are staggering!
(I.e., they determine every decision we make!)

(By the way, just to set the record straight, if I haven't in the last 15 years: I do definitely think the world would be a better place if women constituted the majority—significant majority?—of Prime Ministers and Presidents and Judges. Among other things, I suspect there would be less war, less violence in general, less environmental degradation and, "OMG," more com-pass-ion.)

Imaginary headline, June 2011:

"Sotomayor Brings Compassion to the Supremes"
Horrid thought, eh?

The New York Times (May 19) reports "Passengers' Advocates See Progress." Several topics are discussed, and the most contentious by far "is whether Congress will impose a time limit on keeping passengers on planes stuck on the tarmac." Four Canadian airlines have recently set a 90 minute limit in almost all cases. Needless to say, American carriers are fighting this tooth and nail.

Forget, please, for a moment, any diatribes about government nosing into private sector business—save 'em for another topic.

As to the strong language warning: As a veeeeeeery veeeeeery frequent flyer, I hereby declare that I don't give two shits about the airlines' problems in this regard. They bloody well asked for the regulation by their repeated disregard for customer concerns—read overflowing, clogged toilets for one.

To the airlines I say: Stuff it!!!

"Rested pilots" are a safety requisite.
Period.

After days of Buffalo Bombardment in the media (as a very very frequent flier, I welcome the attention), I watched, without horrid consequences in this fictional case, exhausted surgeons sacking out in their ready rooms prior to complex surgeries. Fictional as Grey's is, the problem is very very real—with brutal consequences.

But the real problem is that un-necessarily killing people in hospitals, by the hundreds of thousands in the U.S. alone, gets virtually no media attention, while the cause of one crash becomes a cause célèbre that usually results in FAA revisions to Biblical Flying Rules, and often engineering changes in fleets of planes worldwide.

(In fact the entire hospital system mostly hides mistakes as a "cultural" trait—unlike Airline World, where reporting bad news is commonplace and requisite and "cultural," and causes no blame unless something unconscionable occurs. Hence, airlines and the industry have encyclopedic knowledge of "what went wrongs," and hospitals don't, except, as usual, the Veterans Administration, tops in virtually all things when it comes to error reporting and removal and patient safety.)

I want to fly with perky pilots.
And I want surgery provided via perky docs.
(In fact, to some significant extent, "perky" beats raw talent.)