Thursday, June 17, 2010

Tony Haywire


Tony's busy getting grilled by congress and as usual there's the case of senatorial amnesia as in I don't know. I was not part of that process. I don't remember.
In looking into Tony's background I find some very interesting facts. It's true that he has a degree in geology but come to find out that his "Phd" is an honorary one from Edinborough. It was stated that he had 28 years experience in the oil industry. You'd get the impression that he worked his way through the company working on some rig in a remote land, but you'd be wrong. He was basically a bean counter with positions in the financial and marketing areas of the company. As to his not knowing of the safety aspects or culture, if you will, of the company Tony himself was quoted from the following newspaper article at a meeting he had in Huston, Texas:

• "We have a management style that has made a virtue out of doing more for less. The mantra of more-for-less says that we can get 100 percent of the task completed with 90 percent of the resources. Which in some senses is okay and might work, but it needs to be deployed with great judgment and wisdom. When it isn't, you run into trouble."

• "The frontline operations teams, I think, have lived too long in the world of making do and patching up this quarter for the next quarter...rather than really thinking about how we are going to maintain a piece of equipment for the next 30 or 40 years."


So if I could pose a question to Tony if I was in that senate hearing it would be: You are the CEO of BP and as such it is your responsibility to establish and implement safety measures company wide. Given the past experiences and accidents with BP what was your plan to improve safety procedures, how was that plan to be implemented and how would that plan be monitored?


A lesson? Be careful what you say or write. It could come back to haunt you.

12 comments:

The Blog Fodder said...

Some days being CEO is not the best job in town. It is where the buck stops. I like being a peon. Worst four years of my life were as a manager. Looks like this guy isn't much of a manager either where it counts.

jmsjoin said...

I wasn't aware, we have to do an investigation, that is stonewalling BS. He is an insult to our intelligence. I have heard we have to conduct an investigation so many times I am sick. After they do what they can here they should be kicked out of the country forever!

pygalgia said...

But Joe Barton (R-TX, of course) made an apology. Then he apologized for the apology.
(more at my place)

Holte Ender said...

What we must remember is that BP is an oil company and they are experts at getting away with murder.

S.W. Anderson said...

Good point, Holte. A major reason for their getting away with murder is the money pipeline they run to the GOP and conservative Republican pols, especially Texans. Rep. Joe "Sold Out" Barton is a prime example.

Tim said...

Demeur
I didn't know about Tony Bologna before. It explains a lot.
It's to bad you weren't there to ask him a few questions.

Tom Harper said...

Like most CEOs, Hayward wants all the power and prestige but none of the responsibility. All of the BP mishaps were "not in my department," "so and so was supposed to take care of that."

BBC said...

Bean counter, figures.

Hell, who cares what is going on down there, no one in this town seems to, things are just fine here and that is what counts to us.

Well unemployment is down but hopefully that just means that some of these monkeys will be moving away.

Oso said...

Demeur,
Sorry,off-topic. we'd touched on commercial RE conditions a while back, I just saw a post on Financial Armageddon on the subject. First couple links in the post are kinda happy talk, but a link to the Atlantic and another Panzner post are more pessimistic:
Financial Armageddon

BBC said...

The Fremont Fair is this weekend, you should chill out from the gulf mess (nothing you can do about it anyway) and go enjoy it.

Demeur said...

I thought about that Billy but I can't afford to go anywhere. I'm a 99er you know. Only thing I go out for now is food.

jmsjoin said...

So he has been replaced. Don
t know the guys name but we started seeing him a couple weeks ago and he has the same crap. Haywire will get his golden parachute back into England where he will be treated as a hero.