December 12th, 2003

Inopportune Nuclear Layoffs

Via Terry Labach’s quotation-of-the-day mailing list, I was amused by this report of some over-zelous layoffs at the Pickering A nuclear station in the UK:

“Personnel being laid off should not be assigned to work that is associated with a special safety system.”

— from a report by a line manager at the Pickering A nuclear power plant in Ontario. The report describes how, 14 minutes into a risky repair job, the staff performing the work were laid off. The workers began leaving the site and had to be asked back to tighten a plug they had loosened in the plant's radioactive-containment system.

Considering that it’s a nuclear plant, you would have figured that they would have thought that through. I suppose not ;).

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