[Goose]

I think the professor is correct is questioning how do you make a $240 million mistake and still have a job?

FWIW, I can't imagine it was a $240 million "mistake". Either the financial people weren't reporting the truth to "management" (i.e. lying) or they were telling the sad truth and management elected to hold off reporting it, hoping it would somehow "go away". There are financial forecasts on at least a monthly basis, if not more. When things stop going according to projections, it needs to be dealt with. They knew. Who knew what when is an issue, but it wasn't a surprise. RR is, to this point, Teflon man. This one will be "interesting".

Bookkeeping ain’t that hard. I smell fraud.

I am not sure that I could call it "fraud" exactly. I have seen several examples first hand where costs were higher than expected and revenues were lower than expected. The "bad news" was reported with estimates going forward that said it was all going to be solved before the next reporting period. Nobody wanted to accept the idea the original estimates were wrong. They also had no idea how to "salvage" the situation, so they just made vague reports to their superiors and hoped that somehow the situation would fix itself.

Eventually the problems got so big their superiors decided to look into it. At that point, most of the people involved started streaming for the exits and the ones that didn't were asked to do so. Contrary to my expectations, several of those asked to leave went on to bigger and more responsible jobs elsewhere where they did just fine. This was not because they had learned from experience, but rather because lots of "management" really does nothing but report what is happening. They really don't "control" anything and don't even attempt to do so. This is called the "black bag" theory of management, where management spends each reporting period with their head inside a black bag. At the end of each reporting period, they remove the bag, look around, and report to the next level that things are "good" or that things are "bad" based on how they feel at the moment. They then replace the black bag over their head and repeat. You might be surprised at how commonly this theory is employed.

[Goose]

I think the professor is correct is questioning how do you make a $240 million mistake and still have a job?

FWIW, I can't imagine it was a $240 million "mistake". Either the financial people weren't reporting the truth to "management" (i.e. lying) or they were telling the sad truth and management elected to hold off reporting it, hoping it would somehow "go away". There are financial forecasts on at least a monthly basis, if not more. When things stop going according to projections, it needs to be dealt with. They knew. Who knew what when is an issue, but it wasn't a surprise. RR is, to this point, Teflon man. This one will be "interesting".

Bookkeeping ain’t that hard. I smell fraud.

I am not sure that I could call it "fraud" exactly. I have seen several examples first hand where costs were higher than expected and revenues were lower than expected. The "bad news" was reported with estimates going forward that said it was all going to be solved before the next reporting period. Nobody wanted to accept the idea the original estimates were wrong. They also had no idea how to "salvage" the situation, so they just made vague reports to their superiors and hoped that somehow the situation would fix itself.

Eventually the problems got so big their superiors decided to look into it. At that point, most of the people involved started streaming for the exits and the ones that didn't were asked to do so. Contrary to my expectations, several of those asked to leave went on to bigger and more responsible jobs elsewhere where they did just fine. This was not because they had learned from experience, but rather because lots of "management" really does nothing but report what is happening. They really don't "control" anything and don't even attempt to do so. This is called the "black bag" theory of management, where management spends each reporting period with their head inside a black bag. At the end of each reporting period, they remove the bag, look around, and report to the next level that things are "good" or that things are "bad" based on how they feel at the moment. They then replace the black bag over their head and repeat. You might be surprised at how commonly this theory is employed.