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Corporate cost cutting strategies
Sep. 8th, 2010 01:34 pmI was just listening to the BBC while driving back from an appointment, and I was profoundly struck by the irony of the juxtaposition of stories.
The first story was in response to BP's report that came out today of their own internal investigation, which is trying to put a good spin on the oil spill and to say how they're not the only ones to blame. The story went into some depth about how it was a complicated chain of failures, not just one single mistake.
The second story was about how the head of Ryan Air wants to make air travel even cheaper by getting rid of copilots, because it's such a great way to save money.
I wonder if it's really a coincidence, or if some smart guy at the BBC was actually intentionally making a point of making Mr. Ryan Air look like a sleaze.
If you don't want to have major accidents like oil well blowouts or airliner crashes, you have to pay extra money as you go along for redundant systems and safety procedures. Most of the time, those redundant systems will just be sitting there, and those safety procedures will make the job take longer. But if you, running the company, decide to make this quarter's profits look better, you, your own personal self, are creating the disaster when it happens. Are you, Mr. Ryan Air, going to walk out in front of the firing squad, refuse the blindfold, and yell a demand to the soldiers to aim carefully, after one of your copilotless planes goes down because the pilot had a stroke? No? Then shut the fuck up about how copilots are an unnecessary expense.
The first story was in response to BP's report that came out today of their own internal investigation, which is trying to put a good spin on the oil spill and to say how they're not the only ones to blame. The story went into some depth about how it was a complicated chain of failures, not just one single mistake.
The second story was about how the head of Ryan Air wants to make air travel even cheaper by getting rid of copilots, because it's such a great way to save money.
I wonder if it's really a coincidence, or if some smart guy at the BBC was actually intentionally making a point of making Mr. Ryan Air look like a sleaze.
If you don't want to have major accidents like oil well blowouts or airliner crashes, you have to pay extra money as you go along for redundant systems and safety procedures. Most of the time, those redundant systems will just be sitting there, and those safety procedures will make the job take longer. But if you, running the company, decide to make this quarter's profits look better, you, your own personal self, are creating the disaster when it happens. Are you, Mr. Ryan Air, going to walk out in front of the firing squad, refuse the blindfold, and yell a demand to the soldiers to aim carefully, after one of your copilotless planes goes down because the pilot had a stroke? No? Then shut the fuck up about how copilots are an unnecessary expense.