We All Live In A Yellow Submarine - Greg's Corner

By Greg Ritchie

Messenger Reporter

Editor’s note: Greg’s Corner is an editorial (opinion) section where Messenger Reporter Greg Ritchie shares odds and ends from the job and unusual or interesting facts from across the world and across time.

MESSENGER OFFICE – Many of you watched the sad saga of the five men trapped for several days in a small submarine when they decided to dive down to see the wreck of the Titanic. There was great speculation over the cause, whereabouts, response time and all the rest. I was sad to see one man with his young son, lost as we now know, due to a catastrophic hull breach.

You see, when you go that deep in the ocean, the pressure can be up to 400 times that of the pressure at the surface. This means even the tiniest crack or imperfection would lead to the outside water crushing the little tube and everything inside it before they even knew it happened. Crushed. Gone. Nothing but pieces to recover.

I think this was probably merciful, as I can think of no nightmare scenario worse than being cramped with four other men in a small tube, with no water, no food – all while we are breathing the last bit of air in a dark, lifeless shell. The passengers paid about $250,000 each to go on the expedition, with some saying they were billionaires and they should have known better.

There is another lesson here, one that affects all of us. The CEO of the company – brave enough to be on the expedition with the others, God rest their souls – was a man by the name of Stockton Rush.

A few years ago, Rush said, “When I started the business, one of the things you’ll find is there are other sub operators out there, but they typically have gentlemen who are ex-military submariners and you’ll see a whole bunch of 50-year-old white guys. I wanted our team to be younger, to be inspirational, and [an old white guy is] not going to inspire a 16-year-old to go pursue marine technology.”

Indeed one old ex-military white guy told Rush in 2018 his ship had structural issues and could not certify it to reach such depths safely. That man was promptly fired. Rush even used a $30 knock-off game controller to maneuver the craft, wanted to get young people involved with such “cool” technology.

I think everyone deserves a chance. Society – and job interviews – really should be color-blind. But I wonder how the people hired merely for their diversity must feel. “Yes, there were other people better, smarter, prettier, more qualified and more educated to do this job, but we only hired you because of your age and skin color.”

I would be embarrassed. And it’s one thing for such hiring to take place at a university or in an office somewhere. But some jobs are a little more critical than that.

Students were recently asked if places in classrooms should be assigned by race; one of these, two of those, etc. They all nodded, blindly, “Yes, yes, it should be fair to all and determined by race.”

They answered quite differently when asked the same question about the school football team. “What? No, no, only the best players should be there – their race should have nothing to do with it.”

Once again, they don’t care who sits next to them in class – they are not paying for it. But suffering through a long, losing football season because half the team are clumsy descendants from Norway and France? Whoa now, too much diversity for those kids.

People are different, with different talents. As communism showed time and again, some people are lazy. Some people, sweet as they may be, are just plain dumb. And we all have a right to be whoever and whatever we are.

To seek diversity by opening up positions and going out of your way to make sure everyone has a right to apply and compete can only make this country better. But hiring based on predetermined numbers is ridiculous. Who benefits?

The people suffer, because maybe there were other, more qualified candidates. The company suffers, because maybe they need to put extra resources to get this person up to speed. The other candidates suffer because they would have been the best at the job. And the employee suffers, because he or she was never given the opportunity to fail, get better, fight back, learn more – earn that position outright.

We will never know what happened on that sub and the hiring practices of the CEO may have had nothing to do with it.

In the end, I think like this: if you argue for enforced diversity of any kind – imagine you are putting your kids or your grandma on a plane. Which sounds better to you as you say goodbye?

“Our pilots are the most diverse in the industry, many ages and pronouns, many with no gender, some with several, but all representing the proud diversity of our world and the Greater San Fransisco Metroplex.”
“Our pilots are old, ex-military, crusty, salty dudes who have done and seen it all. They will not panic, not fail and give their lives to keep the people on this plane safe.”

Give everyone a chance, but please God, let the best candidate get the job – for all our sakes.

Greg Ritchie can be reached at [email protected]