Page 85 - MY STORY

WHAT MAKES YOU THINK THIS IS A DEMOCRATIC
ORGANIZATION?

Our working hours in Santa Monica were 7:30 to 4:12.
When our group was transferred to the Engineering

Division from the Test Division our hours changed to
8:00 to 4:42. Hank B (a buddy of mine) and I felt that our
old hours were better for all of us, even though we would
be out of sync with the rest of the engineering

organization for 30 minutes in the morning and afternoon.
So we did what comes naturally – we put together a

petition for our department members to get our working
hours moved back. Hank and I got about 90% of our
group to sign the petition. We proudly marched into Joe

W’s office and presented our petition, which Joe looked
over quite seriously. His first question was “Did you guys
do this during working hours?” That should have been

sufficient to have us realize this was not going to go well
since our answer was “yes.” His next question, “What in
hell makes you think that the Douglas Aircraft Company

is a democratic organization?” did not require an answer.
We were told to leave, never do anything like that again,
as he took our carefully worded and signed petition and

tossed it in the wastebasket.