A Warm Welcome, Indeed

Hello to all the SHoPpers out there!

First I'd like to thank SixHertz for inviting me here. It's an honor, to be sure.

As TioJaime said in his last post, I'm new to posting here at the SHoP. I'm not new to the SHoP, as I've been a reader since September 2004. And I'm not new to blogging, either. I had a blog, which I retired at the end of last year. So one could say that this is sort of coming out of retirement. Similar to Mr. Harry Stonecipher retiring as the big cheese of McDonnell Douglas when they merged with Boeing in 1997. Then at the end of 2003, when some ethical issues with obtaining Air Force information came to light, Mr. Phil Condit stepped down and Stonecipher came back to take over the company to try and polish off the blemish by enforcing high ethical standards within the company.

And now this past Monday, all the shop talk (no pun intended) has been about how Stonecipher resigned because of a consensual extra-marital affair.

Before I continue, why is it that on Boeing's website, there's an executive profile on Condit, but not on Stonecipher? Both are no longer active employees of the company. I'll bet it was pulled last week because of the recent revelations.

*Edit, thank you Google cache for finding the Stonecipher profile.

Anyway, what irks me is the fact that this became so public so quickly. So what's the difference between a CEO of a leading aeronautics company and the President of the United States having affairs? [facetious="strong"]I mean it's not like one has more political impact than the other, right?[/facetious] Many say that it was Good Ol' Harry's own doing, for placing the ethical bar so high that the board of directors had no choice but to ask him to leave.

The other thing is that it was consensual. I don't see any media blasting the lower executive female that was the other half of this affair. Obviously they're going to protect her identity and they made it clear that she wasn't directly reporting to Stonecipher and there was no advantage she gained from it. But let's think about this seriously. Is it really possible for an affair to be consensual when it comes to a CEO? Unless you were Jennifer Garner in Alias, it would be quite difficult to compartmentalize all the clout he would have on you.

Okay, I'm done ranting for now. What I meant by 'shop talk' earlier is that I work for an aeronautics company that is in direct competition for Boeing and all my co-workers have been commenting on it these past few days. I am gainfully employed by Lockheed Martin Aeronautics in the lovely, lovely city of Palmdale, in California (I say that with tongue in cheek). I used to work for Boeing's Commercial Airplane Group from Aug '01 to Mar '03. So yeah, I hired in a month before 9/11 and after that it was only a matter of time before they laid me off. So I have been keeping close tabs on the scandals that rocked my previous employer.

What else would you like to know about me? I am TioJaime's friend (contrary to popular belief, TJ does have friends). We met in 1996 at CalSO before starting our freshman year at 'the greatest university in the country, if not the world'. That's what my old HS science teacher used to say about Berkeley, anyway.

My political affiliation lies somewhere in the Conservative / Libertarian range. I probably should take another political party test to see how much that's changed. But you won't see me ripping off democrat bumper stickers like someone I know. *ahem* Which is why I guess I'm more of the 'good cop'. That's not to say that I can be bad. TioJaime knows what I mean by that. Perhaps at a later date, I can disclose what LMHBrent *really* means. That would however mean, going way past merely toeing the SHoP line.

That's probably all you care to know about me at the moment. So now it's back to work.

Signing off the SHoP for now,
LMHBrent