Who Washes The Walrus?

Full Disclosure: I worked for Exxon Mobil for 40 years. My Dad worked for Exxon Mobil for 33 Years. For sixty-one years, 1946 - 2007, either he or I went in the gate at the Baton Rouge Refinery every morning. For every dollar I’ve paid in taxes or other wise contributed to the economy, probably ninety-five cents came to me from ExxonMobil.

When the Exxon Valdez hit Bligh Reef in 1989 it cost me and my dad money. He had to defer getting my Mom a new sewing machine. I had to borrow more to put my kids through school. Hell, I had to borrow to get my next divorce! But we deserved the punishment, because we were employees and shareholders and we were sloppy and let that boat get out of the channel. But it sure was a lesson to me – it’s been 21 years and I haven’t driven a single big tanker onto a rock in all that time!

My dad and I resented the Valdez, because we and everybody we knew worked hard to avoid that kind of stupidity. We felt like we were tarnished by other people’s screw-up. We had our own, of course. Over the next few years we had some serious incidents – with fatalities – at Baton Rouge. We hated that, and we looked hard to see where we had screwed up. We found that all the way through, our people had chosen actions not because they cost less, but because we genuinely believed they were the safest way. They probably were the safest way, but you can drive the safest car on the safest road in the world, and you still may get in a wreck. Doing a good job doesn’t guarantee against failure, but it sure does improve your odds.

Exxon (without Mobil then) put in a detailed ongoing review system of every aspect of our operation, which is still in effect. We thought it was going to be a big paper exercise, aimed completely at covering the Big Boy derrieres in case of another bad event. Today, all of us believe that system is the reason Baton Rouge has not had a single major incident since 1994.

That same system applies to the people who drill holes in the ocean floor for ExxonMobil. This week, congressional testimony made clear they have a few holes in their system as well as in the ocean floor. Their disaster plan doubtless had a lot good about it, but it included instructions on how to protect walruses from the oil. In the Gulf of Mexico, those are well-protected already, because they all live in Sea World. Rex Tillerson, ExxonMobil CEO, had the grace to say outright that it was an embarrassment to have that in the plan.

Somebody said “Well that proves he didn’t read the plan.” Of course he didn’t. He can’t read all the documents he’s accountable for; not if he had himself wired into a Cray supercomputer. He has phalanxes of managers and staff people to write and read those documents. Somewhere between the environmental engineer at the keyboard and Rex Tillerson, people stop reading the original document and start reading summaries or PowerPoints that tell them the main points. It’s possible that Tillerson not only didn’t read the plan, but never talked to anybody who had personally read it.

A lot of very big, very good, very safe operations have been carried out this way. It’s a good system – if at every level, people make clear that getting it right is more important than getting it done. As that plan went up the line, somebody gave higher priority to “done” than to “right.” The people above them didn’t know that, and didn’t want it that way. But they accepted the plan or summary without asking the questions to make unmistakably clear that “done” is worthless without “right.”

I know some of the people in that chain. Believe me, they would have preferred root canal without anesthetic to having Tillerson be embarrassed before Congress by a report they passed up the line to him. I am very confident that the next morning they were asking themselves “How in the world did I manage to convey that it was OK to bring me a plan with walruses in it?” I strongly suspect Tillerson is asking himself that question, and he’s asking his subordinates how they think he conveyed that message. And he’s asking “What are you going to change to ensure that you never ever again bring me a plan that has walruses in it?”

What I feel good about is that whatever they change, it won’t be a change for next week or the next plan. It will be a change that holds good for years, long after the people involved in the walrus debacle have moved on and probably retired. For decades, “walruses in the plan” will be a code phrase meaning a dimwitted proposal.

What I feel bad about is that I am not sure those questions are being asked, and those changes are being made, at BP and some of the others. Yesterday somebody sent me the first technical details I’ve seen on what happened. What a read didn’t make me feel any better about BP.

I’ll post a summary of them, after running it through my Engineers Anonymous group to make sure there’s some hope of it being understandable.)