When the Trump administration came into power earlier this week (good lord; has it ONLY been several days?), loads of folks were fired and moved around into “acting” positions with various agencies. One such person was Janet Petro, Center Director at Kennedy Space Center, who was moved into the role of Acting NASA Administrator.
Here is the memo she sent out, via e-mail, to agency employees:
Granted, these agency directors (acting or not) had no choice; they received a directive from the US Office of Personnel Management with sample templates. Janet, apparently, simply cut and pasted the “sample.” She didn’t editorialize or add any personal comments to the memo even though, as we will see below, she apparently has some different strong beliefs.
Do we blame her? The boss tells you to do something and you either acquiesce or you are gone. We’ve all seen, in our companies, the co-worker who pushes-back or voices their discontent about the-powers-that-be a bit too loudly and is (soon) the next victim in a round of RIFs.
Janet was probably pretty freakin’ excited, on a professional level, to get this promotion. Then, on day 2 into her tenure, she was required to do something that, based on what she is on the record with previously, appears to be the opposite of her personal belief system and morals.
What would you do?
And what, when our country’s survival depends on it, (it’s only day 4…) will OTHERS do?
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From an article at Engineering-News Record (dated Nov. 10, 2021), Editor-in-Chief Janice Tuchman exchanged emails with Janet Petro who, at that time, was Director of Kennedy Space Center.
Among the quotes from Petro:
“At NASA and Kennedy Space Center, our commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility has been paramount to mission success. The entire NASA leadership team stands behind this commitment.”
“KSC has embraced the link between diverse teams and innovation. We reinforce this message with our entire workforce by including it as one of our DEIA Crucial Topics: ‘NASA sees DEIA as a mission imperative. Our commonalities unite us as a team, and the universe of our differences gives us the perspectives and insights that mitigate group think and confirmation bias.’”
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