>Do these engineers still not know how stupid it is to be sending emails like that around the company?

I've started to wonder over the past few years myself: maybe in some cases they very much do, and it's not stupid at all? If you know such emails may come out in case of trouble, then it can in turn become a tool for a low level of whistleblowing/accountability in a hard situation. A lot of us are fortunate enough to not be placed in professional/personal situations where we'd see something with life-safety consequences and not be able to blow the whistle or feel comfortable walking away. But what if one were, or what if the situation is genuinely gray? Like, you get the feeling something may be off the tracks in process, and your management chain/reporting processes aren't responsive, but it's not actually at all clear from your level that it's really important. Maybe it's just you. Sending a "private" email with your concerns to a coworker over official email might be then be a good way to bookmark that. If nothing ever happens it'll forever remain an undiscovered internal email. But if things ever go so wrong that the company actually faces subpoenas from the government over it than there will be a record.

I mean, what you're saying seems to imply that the engineers should have been concerned about keeping Boeing's bad behavior private right? Well, should they? Yeah the company under its modern McDonnell Douglas leadership certainly doesn't want emails like that coming out following the deaths of hundreds of people due to a bunch of company blunders. But I don't think it follows that engineers shouldn't want emails like that coming out. If they're angry enough, they may even actively want such emails to reveal exactly how bad things had gotten internally, in ways that really would embarrass leadership in a newspaper headline or Congressional hearing.

But the emails ("designed by clowns", "wouldn't put my family on it") are just the symptom. Even if the whole engineering division had kept its mouth firmly shut the aircraft would still have been designed by clowns, and no one's family should be put on it. This is shared reality. The goal should be to prevent such commentary by picking up on well-founded engineering concerns before management commits to building a product that is not viable because it cannot perform.

What is with this thread of conversation?

"Don't send emails like that because they could end up in eDiscovery."

How about, don't do things in a way where eDiscovery is likely to be an outcome, and actually foster processes that act on quality issues instead of telling the people you're shouldering with making this work with enough weight on their conscience that the only way they feel like they can cope with the foreseeable tragedy is to at least make sure there is some note in the record somewhere that they tried and could do nothing despite it all?

I have absolutely no respect for for anyone who is so caught up with these messages sound, that they can't read between the lines to see the picture of the completely dysfunctional dynamic these people had to be operating within.

The lower an engineer ends up stooping, the worse and more endemic the problems they are facing likely are. If your company has those types of email at all, whether they get out should be the least of your concerns!

The mentality being demonstrated admonishing delivery and sweating on the damage from dirty laundry being aired instead of the fact there is dirty laundry to air at all is like worrying whether or not you left the faucet on when your house is below sea level, and the tsunami is already on the way.

And apologies to those from New Orleans, or the Netherlands; to be fair I could have used leaving the burner on and fires on the way and pissed off the Californians and Aussies, but water was the first thing that came to mind.

And I'm not letting the engineers entirely off the hook either! If they felt that strongly, they should have walked away to, but I can forgive a lot more in the name of familial security than I can the pursuit of profit at all costs.

What about using PGP or something? They could require as a matter of corporate policy that internal e-mails be sent using PGP, and that storage be encrypted. More sensitive stuff they could use OTR for.

I suppose it's not a good look if you're looking at an archived conversation and they switch over to PGP, but it's better than this.

Huh? Legitimate concern can not be voiced in a humorous and combative way? I think the families of the 347 lives lost would like to have a few words. If ‘inappropriate’ words can bring back their loved one, I’m sure the current Boeing management will be buried under verbal abuse.

People who aren’t in either IT, HR, or legal tend to not know or forget that all corporate emails are archived for years