My former colleague Clarence Kershaw, a retired USGS/MMS inspector and a very knowledgeable offshore oil and gas guy, has run into some Tiger Mikes in his career. Clarence has shared some thoughts on the subject:
I liked your comments on “More Mike Talk”. I personally think organizations (Military, Government and civilian) are too obsessed with superior/ underling relationships. It is acceptable for “Mike” types in a superior/owner position to issue instructions-orders-regulations to lower echelon personnel, but is is not always accepted (or sometimes allowed) for lower echelon personnel to “correct” or point out even possible errors made by superiors.
There are a lot of lower echelon personnel who have made an attempt to correct a mistake by a superior and then been rebuffed. After that they tend to accept errors and say “It’s not my job, man.” I’ve seen engineers get indignant when something they approved in error was pointed out by an inspector or secretary. I knew one District Supervisor who did not like to have his writing corrected by an excellent secretary. She would end up bringing it to me to point out to him, because he would not accept it from her. He didn’t always accept it from me either.
My point is if you had a “Tiger Mike” type running the rig just prior to the blowout, it wouldn’t make any difference to him how unstable the well was if he had already made up his mind to continue operations.
No, I don’t know the answer. One person has to be in charge, but each individual must have over-riding “stop work” authority to assure safety!!! The problem is magnified if a disagreement occurs and management consistently backs up the one in charge.
Bud's Offshore Energy (BOE) 