http://www.nasawatch.com/jpl/04.26.01.housekeeping.html NASA Watch: 26 April 2001: Faster - Better - Neater at NASA JPL? From someone@nasa.gov:

The general laboratory inspection currently underway was prompted by a NASA directive resulting from unfavorable findings during a DCMA audit of the general upkeep of the JPL site and the equipment located here. These findings were fair and responding to them is certainly in the best interests of the use of taxpayer resources.

JPL management's response to these comments was also appropriate in setting up a task force to survey the entire laboratory and identify deficiencies that need to be corrected. Since the whole lab was to be surveyed, to include a safety inspection in this process also made a great deal of sense.

During the implementation of this survey, however, the apparent emphasis - certainly as far as the inspectees were concerned - shifted not only to safety but also to the subjective opinion of what constitutes a safe office. This ultimately was reduced to aesthetics (notoriously not a concern for scientists or engineers) which resulted in almost every office being cited for poor housekeeping.

I can't speak for other Divisions, but as line managers in the Science Division we took it upon ourselves to revisit all the offices and look for any real safety violations so we could correct them, but drew the line at trying to force any of our scientists to "tidy up" for neatness sake alone. Knowing line managers in general at JPL, I can't believe that any of them reacted much differently.

To be fair, some of our offices were so overcrowded with papers and boxes that an impediment would have been created to entrance or egress in the event of an earthquake, and our scientists and engineers need to learn to keep this in mind as they go about their work. (Incidentally, the "closed bookshelves" comments concerned wall-mounted storage cabinets usable for miscellaneous storage as well as books, with the caveat that the doors be kept closed for this same reason.) Beyond this, we told our professional people it was up to them to decide what constituted a true obstacle to getting their work done.

If a member of the inspecting team told the engineer in question that "housekeeping" could affect his performance evaluation and/or his salary increase there is no basis in fact for such a statement, since these are the concern of line management - not inspectors. If on the other hand his line manager suggested this, the engineer has a legitimate grievance and there are methods for pursuing these at JPL. If he is unaware of them, I will be glad to assist him.

Finally, in the almost indescribably difficult business we are in at JPL, to equate a failed mission with something so trivial is effectively an insult to every other engineer and scientist working here.

To put this in proper perspective, I am a scientist first and a line manager second, and I keep a neat office strictly because of my personal preference.

Odell F. Raper

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