(Ed. note: Occasionally anonymous comments made to a post are worthy of more exposure. This is one.)
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "WSF Dir. of Finance steps aside":
I have read with some bemusement several comments here attempting to shift the blame for the incompetent management of WSF to outside influences. While there is plenty of blame to go around, I must say that WSF is the most incompetently managed organization I have ever seen. I never dreamed I would ever say this, but WSF is more incompetently managed than the U.S. Army. I once received a memo from the "acting assistant deputy document control supervisor", which , in the private sector, would be a file clerk! On another occasion I accidentlally intercepted a memo about the movement of my boat which was addressed to no fewer than 126 persons, not one of whom had anything to do with actually moving the boat. I don't know which was more disturbing, the fact that the office did not find it necessary to notify those of us who do the work, or that they could find 126 supernumeraries to notify. If you want to know what is wrong at WSF you need look no further than its bloated bureaucracy. In 1964 you could count the number of people in the office on your fingers. I might be off by a toe or two, but no more. Today, I would not be surprised if there were more people occupying space in the office than working in the fleet.
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Wednesday, February 27, 2008
WSF: A Culture Run Amok
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8 comments:
Not the comment of 81959
I am pleased however, so far, with their public records officer (in WSF speak: "document control" person).
That said, the rest of WSF has got to be cleaned out. Dino Rossi for Governor!
true and valid, perhaps, but that sounded like sour apples.
... not the best effort via the "anonymous" option.
I agree with "superyeadon" that this sounds a bit like sour grapes, but many points are valid.
My whole take on this mess is that many factors have contributed to the problems of WSF.
For example, here is the Port Townsend area, there has been much discussion on the ferries. WSF took comment on upgrading the dock at PT, everybody came out of the woodwork and every proposal out of WSF was shot down. Don't want it downtown, move it to somewhere else, don't make it too big, keep it pretty and so on. Same thing happened for Keystone.
Now we have the new boats - want it bigger, make it pretty like the old boats and so on.
The Legislators making political hay out of every mis-step.
Add on to that a blotted bureaucratic organization, limited funding, an aging fleet, and the I-695 fiasco. Who would ever want the job of administering WSF!
A lot of people are pointing fingers at WSF Administration as the cause, when it really goes from the Governor, Legislators, WSF, on down, including the voters.
The other anonymous represents many of the old wives tales that exist still within some ranks of WSF employees.
He fails to mention that those hand full of managers in 1964 were all drunks. Much like the crews of the era. There was a bottle in every drawer. Management was easy because there were essentially no rules and no oversight. The place was like a Navy tailhook convention.
That is a decades old past. It has no relevence to the reality of today and the prospects of any 10 people on earth running WSF is a myth. The place is so complex and so tightly wound that it pounds through the managers. The executive team will have less than five years of collective experience as soon as the Vessel Engineering Director retires on a medical.
WSF management has the highest rate of turn over iin the company, by comparison the fleet turns over at a geologic rate. This is for a good reason.
The truth of what he reports is that the shore support organization is out of proportion to the need. It is far from a lean operation and the infusion of consultants into the management role is scary.
The WSF Terminal Engineering program particularly is run by consultants. Currently KPFF is the firm with the most traction. They produce the estimates for the projects, manage many of them and monitor the budget for WSF. They steer work to other KPFF contractors and build their "relationships" with the executives. They are the fox in the chicken house.
In many cases WSF terminal engineering employees are marginalized by the consultants through the executives they have built their relationships with.
How can they get away with this? Because the movement of WSDOT employees to consultant jobs and back again is like a revolving door.
The consulting industry represents the only way to put food on your table if the WSDOT starts to lay people off. This is very important becauuse engineering staff have to charge their time to specific projects. If the project goes away, they might also.
Consider that in the last long session our legislature froze most of the funding for WSF terminal projects because they are so over budget and behind schedule. Over 100 million dollars in projects were frozen over ight. The reverberations were intense and made the consulting industry look pretty enticing.
I don't agree with the broad brush strokes painted by the other anonymous but he sure was using the correct paint color.
From the latest news reported, it appears that the Vessel Engineering Director has stepped down.
I did make a mistake in my previous post however, as of this moment the WSF executive team has a total of eight years of WSF executive experience, not the five years I reported, my apologies.
This is the distribution of their WSF management experience:
Operations Director one year, former terminal manager
Maintenance Director two years, former port engineer, the only licensed mariner on the executive team, he has never served on a WSF vessel
Deputy Director two years, former terminal manager
Executive Director new, new to WSF
Human Resources new, new to WSF
Vessel Engineering Director eliminated
Communications Director one year, new to WSF
Chief Financial Officer vacant
Terminal Engineering Director one year, new to WSF, former Viaduct project assistant manager.
Interestingly the recently retired WSF Executive Director Mike Anderson has just been hired as a consultant by none other than the same KPFF that he let run the WSF Terminal Engineering Department. He will work there with several of his old friends who also retired from WSF terminal management positions to work as consultants for the WSF Terminal Engineering Department.
As was said in a previous post, the infusion of consultants into WSF management is scary. This looks very shady.
Well, this began with my original post and I must say my introduction to the blogosphere has been amusing. I agree with the post regarding the anonymity of my post though I find it ironic coming from one "identified" as superyeadon. I tried to append my identity to the original post but was unable to get this site to accept my password. You will find my name and e-mail address at the end of this post. As for sour apples and sour grapes, which is it? Clearly logic is not involved as both posts grant the truth and validity of my position. Now, the contentions of another anonymous post that the incompetent management of WSF is an "old wives tale" and that management and crews alike were all drunkards in 1964, does sound like sour grapes to me. My employment at WSF was interupted by the draft and service as a combat infantry officer in Vietnam followed by completion of a bachelor's degree form the UW, but I did begin my nautical career in 1964 as a wiper aboard the Enetai, Willapa and Kalakala. The Chief Engineer I worked for was a drunk but he was a better officer than some of the ring-knockers I've seen since. For many years one drunk German did a better job of dispatching than the cadre of incompetents now on the job. If I could round up 12 drunken sailors I might just be tempted to bet on their ability to better manage WSF than the present bunch of simpering sychophants! cynicaldavis@gmail.com
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