Morality and Accountability

This will sound like somewhat of a long winded complaint but...
I have worked as a Quality Engineer in an electronics company for over 10 years now. I have found myself so incredibly stressed about the things this company is doing and nothing I have done has been able to change it; what should I do?

Over half of our datasheets (over 1600 released products across dozens of datasheets) do not actually match the product we are selling in a noticeable (electrical) way; and many of those differences are such that if a customer were to use them at their rated function they would fail eventually.(and have, though we are instructed to convince the customer its a design problem on their side)

This is just a symptom of a much larger and on-going problem. Though we are ISO and TS16949 certified, our Engineering Department does not follow any of the AIAG requirements nor any of our internal requirements. In short, the Quality Department gets notified of new design releases after the fact and they may be for products that we have never built before, have no process documentation for, and most certainly do not have any AEC-Q200 qualification for or any other type of qualification data for. We make up Qualifcation data for every PPAP we do(we average 3-4 a week) and I can't even remember that last initial process study, dimensional outline or MSA study that wasn't falsified in some way.

I have found that our registration audits are pretty much a joke. To stay with Design and Development; when being audited we just show them some pre-assembled packages created to show we are meeting the requirements; and we may show the same package 3 years in a row despite dozen of new releases that would not pass an audit. I have even gone so far to ask the lead auditor(when I was in the meeting room alone with him), why he does not check our company website for new releases and just pick one of them to audit. He said its easier on this requirement to just review what our company wishes to present.

It is so much worse than I can explain here without writing a book. In 2016 I told my boss (The Divisional Director of Quality) that I was quitting for these reasons(a long with 3 engineers with similar complaints); they convinced me to stay in a lesser role where I wouldn't be directly responsible for it; but I still find myself losing sleep knowing that they are doing the things they are doing and not being held accountable. I am to the point where I think I just want to say "To Hell With My Engineering Degree" and go pump gas and forget about this place.

 

Change job to 3rd party auditor or at least look for another non-Titanic company, but probably you wont find it.

 

MgDevo,

Early in my career, I worked for a company that had some of the same ethical challenges that you are encountering on your current job. Ultimately, the CEO and some of his henchmen were sentenced to several years in jail. The net result was the the company went chapter 11, with several thousand people losing their jobs. I, fortunately found a good job before being laid off.

Although, I was aware of the financial shenanigans and some of the other forms of misrepresentation, I did not have to actively participate in such things. I generally enjoyed my job and found it fulfilling. However, now that I have the perspective granted by a long life, I feel that taking no action was a failure of personal integrity. I don't think I could have changed anything outside of my narrow sphere of responsibility but I did not have to be part of an unethical organization. I can make excuses: I had responsibilities, I needed the job, I wasn't personally doing anything bad, etc. None of these excuses is very satisfying.

In retrospect, I should have left the company as soon as I knew what was going on rather than staying there for a total of 13 years. Part of the negative fallout from the failure of this company is on me because I worked for the continuance of the company. My advice to you is to find another job as quickly as you can. If people's lives are being put at risk by your company then you need to evaluate whether or not you need to take the role of a whistle-blower.

At the time I left this company, I was unhappy at having to leave and thought that no future job could be as good as the one I was leaving. Little did I know that this was going to be the best move I would ever make. My career advanced, I advanced and never again felt that I had compromised my integrity. I wish you the same good fortune on your journey.