The Fall Guys

Scapegoating – the practice of selecting a “fall guy” to take the blame, thus deflecting deserved outrage away from those at fault, and saddling the (mostly) innocent with undeserved suffering, penalties, and a mud-smeared reputation.

When it’s more fully defined like that, hinting at some of the abusive downside, it’s easier to see how damaging this ignoble practice really is.  Of course the most dastardly versions of scapegoating fire the fall-guy so that they can’t defend themselves or correct the concocted stories.  And if his boss is too noble to go along with the ploy, well, you have to fire him too.  But one of the most neglected aspects is illustrating the penalties and costs paid by the people still at the company… however long it might survive its’ management malpractices before workers are laid off or plants close.

Last year (not long ago), a consulting engineer mentioned to me that he had lost track of how many times executive staff had used him as a scapegoat.  And not long ago, I was inspired to write a poem that I suspect many can relate to.  I’ve decided to publish it here, as my tip of the hat to all those talented, honest and dedicated engineers who have suddenly found themselves struggling for breath and blinking at the sky as the Fall Guys.  May it inspire better decisions, greater boldness, more nobility, and a more wisely wary outlook for all.

–

The Manufacturing Company

There was a certain company, that welded many things,

and yet their questions rarely held an engineering ring.

Customers often urged them – hire a welding engineer.

But those sciences and physics were shunned without a fear.

.

Yet eventually the time would come from management-ly choices,

when a string of poor decisions drowned the ignorant wise voices.

These two sharp guys will likely do, from MIT and LeTourneau too.

We’ll hire them to do some magic, wait briefly for a furry rabbit.

.

This might be hopeless, it’s certainly bleak –

How long do we need an engineer you think?

When customers grow too irate, let’s fire the engineers we hired of late,

and hide our failures as their missed dates.

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Ignorant of the lurking plan, yet alarmed at how the meetings ran,

the engineers were disturbed to find the obvious needs dismissed.

Then grave alarm set in, when contract terms were pushed aside

and executives announced a plan to sell their customers a lie.

.

Shouldn’t it be obvious – the deeper hole they dug

Was more desperate and impossible than fibbing with a shrug?

Why not face the growing stench of putrefied decisions,

And root out the unwillingness to replace fantasy with vision?

.

What do you do when you face a chasm with an uncompleted bridge?

Do you slow the train and rush ahead with the rails and spikes and girders,

Which were needed but never purchased because you gave those orders?

Or do you stoke the fire still hotter and yell ahead to hurry,

And throw off the patient bridge designers and blame them for the dirty

wreck you’ll soon be in,

When car after car goes sailing off the cliffs that you have chosen?

.

Ah, pretending all is simple and the answer’s “git ‘er done” –

Taxation’s cursed sea of MBA’s who can’t even make part one.

.

Brian Dobben – 2009

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I know several people who can personally relate to that.  I’ve also met a few who claim that such unethical, abusive behavior is only wrong if you get caught.  That shouldn’t be surprising.  Harvard Business School and other “higher education” circles are reportedly gripped by moral retardation and long ago turned their “business ethics” classes into studies rationalizing how to separate low-risk fraud from high-risk fraud. The underlying assertion is that the only unethical decision is the one you publicly got caught in, which crassly ignores the penalties to the company in lost profits, missed business, and vital human talent assets jettisoned or crippled. So “wrong” and “evil” have become concepts as slippery as the meaning of “is” in the Clinton Administration, or “American citizen” or “bailout” or “terrorist” in the Obama regime.

I assert that real men are more grounded in reality than that, and that noble behavior is not dead. Even nobility like stepping up and admitting that you didn’t listen and made a poor decision, and committing to do much better.  But with nervous manufacturing staff feeling more at risk in a depression economy, has scapegoating now become a more widespread problem in engineering and management circles?

If so, what are the causes?  And how can we work to prevent or avoid such situations?

And if you’re an HR manager, or a Recruiter, or engineer that finds yourself an unwilling party to such professional abuse, what are your options?  What do you do?