Having spent over 30 years in the military industrial complex I can tell you that the emphasis is no longer on producing effective highly reliable weapons. The number one goal of any company is complying with EOE requirements, diversity requirements, gay friendliness and ludicrous environmental edicts that decrease the reliability of the hardware they produce. (No cadmium plating, no lead solder, not buying from any company that uses banned processes, etc.)
When you’re hiring engineers by color or sex you’re necessarily dropping your requirements for competence.
At a former ITT division where I was on contract, I applied for a regular full-time position. I wanted to know from the HR lady if they actually used the self-identification of race for anything. She said that they needed a highly compensated black so badly that the first thing she did each morning was check to see if one had applied. I asked what would happen if I left that section blank. She said, “Then we automatically assume you’re white.”
I’ll bet you can trace every problem to a non-weapons requirement put on the contractor.
It is likely an Earth hugging fiasco too. Most likely Global Warming criteria exceeds performance requirements.
Pray America is Waking
Yes, sadly, all of that is true.
Even more depressing than that is the general lack of proficiency in the American government. It seems that they can’t do anything right anymore. Imagine all of the large engineering programs of the past: the Panama Canal, the Manhattan Project, the space program, etc. — I doubt that they could do any of those programs today.
The number one goal of any company is complying with EOE requirements, diversity requirements, gay friendliness and ludicrous environmental edicts that decrease the reliability of the hardware they produce.
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Having also spent 30+ years at a major defence contractor, with most of the time in mgt., I fully agree with you.
One of my sections functions involved reviewing RFPs and writing proposals relative to my particular discipline. It seems that in the early-’90s, the DoD began putting in all the restrictions that required contractors to favor women/minority businesses as vendors/subcontractors, and the overwhelming rules regarding employing women/minorities in high level management positions.
Things went downhill from there. I was miserable in my last few years there and they finally cut me at age 59, while keeping me as an employee on “unpaid leave of absence” until I reached 60 and qualified for pension. In addition, they paid premiums for full medical care until age 65. Those “gifts” to me were to prevent a lawsuit in re agism, which they knew I would have won.
I’m a much more mellow person now, so I guess I have the racism and gender bias of the Federal government to thank for the fact that I will live longer!
Apologies to all for so much blather. I’ll try to do better.
Bingo!