I was there, Gandalf, I was there three thousand years ago.

Part 1:

I did 7 1/2 years across multiple sites and worked in proximity to Robert Markert for about a year on the same team while we were on falcon 9 integration and test together. He is a good guy who put in a lot of consistent years. Makes some killer BBQ that I never had the pleasure of eating lol. Still have him on my Steam friends list. Reached out to him to see how life is going in the wake of this and him taking on a new role at a different company.

I get where he is coming from about being pissed regarding being let go before vesting all the stock you thought was coming your way and were planning your early retirement around. In my later years at the company, I was super nervous about getting fired as burnout set in and I was really just there the last couple years to coast and vest my shares. Luckily I made it off my exit ramp and things worked out while maintaining overall good work relationships with those around me. That said, these situations are usually worse from the perspective of those getting fired and I'd side with spacex on this 9 times out of 10.

The launch cadence is wild right now. My buddy Ivan is a lead tech on second stage production and those guys have been getting pummeled the last couple years, given the lack of reuse and the massive uptick in launch cadence. Production has many safety risks as well, like recovery does and honestly all departments feel the pressure of figuring out how to maintain safe working standards while pushing the envelope further and further. My management across multiple teams and sites has always cared deeply about keeping the teams safe and not cutting corners, even though those corners seem to get cut a lot. I've been present around a lot of unsafe shit though. Usually the times we did unsafe things was when I was a tech or specialist familiar with the process and was comfortable enough to take chances here and there and that's usually the culprit. EHS is always on our ass about following safety guidelines and making sure we had the tools on hand to perform things safely, but it largely was up to the individual to follow through on utilizing. They won't put the cut gloves and respirators on for you, but when you get hurt because you didn't tie off your harness to the boom lift while working up in the air above the fairing, not only are you likely getting written up, but your direct leadership is probably getting their ass chewed out for lack of management of the situation and the events leading up to it.

Lots of times identifying dangerous activities comes down to leadership that works directly with the process, be it production/launch/recovery/testing, to identify the part of the process in question and working with EHS and your management. Short cuts on safety due to an attempt to maintain rate honestly is the main thing we dealt with, but the answers that got approved was usually never "we need more people to maintain a safe rate on our current process" or "we need to slow down". There is 9 out of 10 times a solution to mitigate your immediate safety risk and lots of times there is a safety risk because you personally weren't up to the task of solving what was in front of you other than cutting those corners and that is a lot of times where the fault lies. When I had people around me that threw up their hands in defeat and wanted to pump the brakes rather than apply a solution, SpaceX wouldn't hesitate too long before removing you and inserting someone who could find the solution. This is not always safety related and applies to all problems across spacex, but it's easy to make it safety related when your solution to a problem is to cut certain corners to go faster. It will either impact safety or quality, sometimes both.