Nice Touch, Spock

Editor’s note: As was mentioned here last week, one of the people at NASA HQ who got a reassignment letter was Karen Poniatowski who was offered a job at ARC. I’ve now learned that she is pregnant. Not only did Mike Griffin’s team offer her a job 3,000 miles away which she would need to start in a matter of weeks – they offered it to someone who is about to have a baby. What a nice, humane touch. Curiously, today at the STA breakfast, when asked about dealing with rumors and speculation, Mike Griffin said “With regard to feelings – I don’t do feelings – just think of me as Spock”.

So much for at least one of the “NASA Values“: “Safety, the NASA Family, Excellence, and Integrity.”

Reader comment: “Mike’s new core values as espoused in the latest draft rev of the NASA org manual supplanted ‘Safety’ with Mission Success, and eliminated ‘The NASA Family'”

Editor’s update: What has truly surprised me is the replies I have gotten to this post. Some people apparently do not like Karen. I do not know her and have never met or interacted with her. What is curious is how people seem to imply that such crappy treatment is OK if you do not like someone. It is not. Employees deserve equal respect and consideration regardless of whether they pick launch vehicles or clean restrooms.

Other email suggests that since she is a SES she should have expected this and should have to live with it. Again, if there was an ethic of respecting people at NASA there could have been some way for her to be transferred to run the gift shop at GSFC and burn annual/medical leave until she had her baby. Telling her that her duty station is on the other side of the continent gratuitous abuse of management authority.

If this happened to her, it can happen to you.