I'm surprised everyone is jumping on the worker's side and assuming the supervisor is wrong. You folks have never worked with some anal retentive person being as annoying as possible inside the rules? Back in the navy we used to call this malicious compliance.

> Sanders’ supervisor berates him for calling the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA).

> “Why in the world would we ever call the FRA about anything? Unless I’m absolutely blatantly telling you to break the rules,”

This sounds like a reasonable position. You expect anyone you work with to go straight to HR, or your boss, or an auditing agency? Without talking to you first?

> “All I can say is I need your help right now to keep my ass from getting fired,” Sanders’ boss told him on the call.

> “I need to just look the other way?” Sanders asks, referring to the reporting of defects.

> “No. We just need to have a conversation,” his boss said.

So when asked if he's supposed to falsify reports, his boss says no.

> “Why can’t we just fix the (expletive) defects?”

This is a great sound bite, but doesn't have much bearing on reality. Complex systems have complex solutions. There's liability and lifecycle budgeting, impact analysis, ERP, etc etc etc ad nauseum.

All in all, it seems like the boss was somewhat shady, but its hard to tell - Nothing is black and white. I'm just surprised everyone is willing to take this implication and turn it into a witch burning.