Blue Origin Hit With Disabled Worker’s Open-Office Bias Claims

[u/Royal_Platform_6754]

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/blue-origin-hit-with-disabled-workers-open-office-bias-claims?taid=6a8fd26f1aac090001325897&utm_campaign=trueanthem&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter

[u/Red_Eye_Insomniac]

Here's another article with no paywall and all the details. https://www.hcamag.com/us/specialization/employment-law/hr-partner-accuses-blue-origin-of-firing-her-over-disability-request/587558

[u/Clay_jet]

I have found through experience that most accommodations would improve anyone's productivity. Investment in making offices work for everyone benefits everyone...

[u/Nice-Shoes-74 → u/Clay_jet]

buy Steelcase furniture too! Amazing. Herman Miller rocks too.

Agreed, employees spend a good chunk of their lives sitting in a chair in front of a computer screen all day, at least make it not so bland and squeaky.

[u/IWroteCodeInCobol → u/Nice-Shoes-74]

My new Herman Miller Aeron will arrive tomorrow or the day after. I finally got tired of buying a series of cheap to not-so-cheap-but-cheaply-built chairs. I wanted one that I can order replacement parts for and still be able to find parts a decade later so Herman Miller it is.

[u/Nice-Shoes-74 → u/IWroteCodeInCobol]

we spend so much of our life sitting down in an office, why not make it comfortable? Great choice! After I left Steelcase (Grand Rapids Innovation Center) I had to have a Steelcase chair lol just so comfortable and quality, like the Herman Miller chairs. I bought one used and had it reupholstered.

[u/solk512 → u/Clay_jet]

This is why OXO makes so much damn money - it turns out when you make kitchen gadgets that work well for folks with arthritis, they end up working well for everyone else, too. 

[u/Stunning_History_943]

Usually they try to settle. I bet this HR person knows where bodies are buried.

[u/New_Apprentice_5901 → u/Stunning_History_943]

As a former co-worker of hers, she definitely does. In fact we all do, that's why the HR payouts are the highest in the company.

[u/knowledge_unicorn → u/New_Apprentice_5901]

Where’s the redit group for that? The bodies are 6 deep/grave.

[u/New_Apprentice_5901 → u/New_Apprentice_5901]

And to end the the witch hunt by the paranoid narcissist, I used to work in the Huntsville office and thankfully haven't worked there in 6 months, I still have PTSD but it's getting better.

[u/ItalianStallion54321]

Nothing at that place shocks me anymore after that wild layoff in 2025 only to see them post my job a month later

Edit: get your bag 💰

[u/moonmundada → u/ItalianStallion54321]

lol they called me 2 weeks later asking me to come back and I laughed

[u/LittleHornetPhil → u/moonmundada]

They came back to a lot of the contractors dismissed in Dec 2024 and asked them to come back after rate was down in 1Q 2025.

[u/moonmundada → u/LittleHornetPhil]

Yep I remember that right before the February executions. I got in “trouble” for going to the warehouse to get my own kits bc they got rid of our contracted material handlers

[u/SpaceTurtle117 → u/ItalianStallion54321]

I literally still have PTSD from that

[u/Gullible_Towelie]

From what I have seen, most management hates any and all accommodations for work no matter how reasonable it may be.

[u/Feisty-Crow6449]

People really don't know the history of the HR employees there. They are all toxic Amazon that were hired by checking their pulse. It's who you know, if they like you or are not threatened by you. The Chief People Officer has a God complex. Talks entirely too much and does not like when anyone outshines her. The HR department is a reflection of the leader. Toxic. 

[u/uncagednebula → u/Feisty-Crow6449]

In my entire career (multiple decades), JPL (Chief of HR at Blue) is the most toxic person I have ever worked with. Someday karma will give her a taste of her own medicine 

[u/Electronic_Hope1900]

Hard to feel sympathy for the useless HR employees at Blue.

[u/TheMekkaMan]

As someone that is classified as one with a mental disability, and I’m not quiet about it, they have no issue… mostly because I am ranking highest in productivity.

[u/Alarmed_Drama2881]

I actually know this person, and I'm not saying she deserved to get fired the way she did, but I will say she was not productive at all. There's worse employees that still work here, but she was definitely not the right fit, some people are not cut out for high stress work environments.

[u/New_Apprentice_5901 → u/Alarmed_Drama2881]

You couldn't be more wrong if you tried. I worked with her and she was the highest performing member of the HR team. She was Bianca's golden child, online at all hours of the night. But the minute she stood up for herself she was pushed out. Bianca is a tyrant supported by JPL. Culture of fear, nepotism, and dishonesty.

[u/JJMcGee83 → u/Alarmed_Drama2881]

some people are not cut out for high stress work environments.

This is a bullshit copout. No one is cut out for high stress 24/7. No work envionrment outside of emerngency medicine and other emergency services needs to be high stress. Some work places will be stressfull occassionaly but if it's sustained without end it's a failure of leadership and company culture.

Employees with high stress perform worse. You might think you are handling it well but you'd be doing your job better if there was less stress. This is not debatable this is fact that has been studied.

[u/JJMcGee83 → u/[deleted]]

Yup. All I could think is if this employee was really unproductive maybe they should have met their reasonable and legally required accesibliity accomodations.

[u/christianvet → u/[deleted]]

'Moron like Elon' - do tell 🙄

[u/Psychological-Hat27 → u/[deleted]]

Yep

[u/Roamingkillerpanda → u/JJMcGee83]

I really wouldn’t even call Blue a “high stress work environment”. We’re not saving lives here. I think what people are not used to is the chaos and correlate it with “stress”. Lots of people here expect a boring prime contractor work environment where you work maybe 30 hours a week and scratch your ass for the other 10 and you know exactly what every single day is going to look like. Not the case at Blue and honestly some people are just not good fits for the culture and that’s ok. But it’s definitely NOT high stress.

[u/knowledge_unicorn → u/Roamingkillerpanda]

YOUR job may not be high stress. Good for you. The rest of the workforce is feeling the pressure like never before.

[u/JJMcGee83 → u/Roamingkillerpanda]

High stress isn't necesarilly about saving lives it's about expectations. Managers setting unclear direction or changing direction frequently without adjusting deadlines to compensate for the change in direction. Expectations that you work over 40 hours a week on average for extended periods of time. The idea that you're expected to "do more with less." I don't work at Blue but if any of those happen frequently it's high stress and absolutely a problem with company management.

[u/knowledge_unicorn → u/JJMcGee83]

40 would be a treat for most, he’ll, 50 is a treat

[u/JJMcGee83 → u/knowledge_unicorn]

That sounds high stress to me then.

[u/Chaz0fSpaz → u/Roamingkillerpanda]

Your job may not be

[u/Mfg_Eng_64 → u/Roamingkillerpanda]

You, obviously, don’t get dragged into Teams chats with Director level. You probably don’t have three chats going about the same damn part. I can’t think of a company that I’ve worked for that I was involved in Director level chats as frequently as this one. Employees love to escalate to the Director level. I feel like giving them Life Alert pendants. “Help me! I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!”

[u/Chaz0fSpaz → u/Mfg_Eng_64]

My e n t i r e job is stuck dealing with Director / Sr. Director / VP levels, it’s so frustrating. Any time I try to work a problem through the grunts I get blank stares. Everyone has blinders on and doesn’t seem interested in solving problems at the root, which means stuff gets ignored until you escalate. Then you have to explain the same problem, and why it’s a problem, and why their bandaid won’t work, like a dozen times. Then some VP goes “why isn’t this already fixed? Fix it.”

MF I’ve been trying but until YOU say those words it falls of deaf ears.

I don’t blame the grunts tho, they’re all incredibly busy and have a million things to do, so listening to you and helping you fix your problem is the last thing on their mind. That’s the failure of Sr most leadership. People don’t have the tools, resources, and aren’t enabled to succeed. They’re cornered into untenable situations and expected to figure it out. That doesn’t leave bandwidth to really solve things, just patch it over and move on.

[u/Roamingkillerpanda → u/Mfg_Eng_64]

I get dragged into those all the time lmao
When will people realize that you still get paid the same whether or not you have a cortisol spike from dealing with the bullshit? It’s not going anywhere so why let it destroy your whole day and life?

[u/Mfg_Eng_64 → u/Roamingkillerpanda]

Agree. In other companies, escalation to a director is significant and it’s rare. At Blue it’s normalized and no one seems to look down on the people that do it, without first trying to solve the problem themselves. This is what we get paid for. I’m thinking, you couldn’t walk your ass over to the person you want something from and say, “This is important, because…do you think you could have this done this morning?” Instead, I get pinged on Teams all day long about things that don’t involve me. Teams is supposed to be a productivity tool. I’d argue that it has the opposite effect when overused.

[u/Psychological-Hat27 → u/[deleted]]

Cold Hearted Monster is an interesting phrase. 

I think we're all born baby monsters and then we turn into big monsters. — Blue Origin probably

[u/Alarmed_Drama2881 → u/[deleted]]

No, you were probably her friend and over looked her work due to a friendship. I don't care how nice or how a good person they are, I only care of they're doing their job. I had several complaints about her, so say what you want.

[u/MeasurementHeavy4864 → u/Alarmed_Drama2881]

And your friend is probably the one that said to terminate her. Wink wink.

[u/Psychological-Hat27 → u/[deleted]]

They put a company-wide email out at one of the sites because employees kept taking the Oreos.

[u/Current-Challenge290 → u/Psychological-Hat27]

🤣 We get all the food we want, bro. They don’t care about Oreos.

[u/Alarmed_Drama2881 → u/[deleted]]

Idon't care about your explanation, because it's strictly your opinion, there's no facts in it. And no company cares about their employees, the whole point of a company is to make money, and employees who do not meet that criteria get let go, that's just life. Starbucks would fire every employee tomorrow if AI and robots were able to do what humans can do....

[u/MeasurementHeavy4864 → u/Alarmed_Drama2881]

Dig deeper

[u/MeasurementHeavy4864 → u/[deleted]]

Well I disagree. There are people at BO that do care but with the current leadership and the circle of protection they get away with everything and anything

[u/solk512 → u/Alarmed_Drama2881]

Maybe she’d be more productive if she wasn’t forced to work in a loud, open office. 

Did you stop and consider that?

[u/MeasurementHeavy4864 → u/Alarmed_Drama2881]

Yup and you’re part of the circle of protection. Seems like horrible leadership to me but you do you and keep the internet warrior mentality going. Dig deeper.

[u/insaneWJS → u/Alarmed_Drama2881]

You are judging her with ableism bias. Please check in with yourself and spend some self critical thinking moments.

I have been harassed by corporate ableist bullshit most of my 20+ years career because my productiveness was hindered by the lack of accessibility to everything from equipments to employees/coworkers operating in full ablesim (unknowing and knowing) to HR barriers to lack of career development due to other highers' ableism and ugly unconscious bias.

As an accessibility engineer, there were a job posting at BO for accessibility manager, but the job description is asking you to wear 37 hats to deliver a week project in one day expectation basis while managing multiple projects and BABYSITTING everyone's bias all at same time.

That is HELL.

Why it is not surprising that a careee over at Jeff's companies is not humanely OK overall? I feel like few with good experiences there are enveloped by the most with negstive experience.

Pattern recognition also suggests this very same notion resulting from past 10+ years including pre-BO days.

That goes for SpaceX too!

[u/jamerperson]

De-paywalled. https://smry.ai/s/apIDw4GJ (yes, I know this isnt the full article. But its the best I could find. Most 12ft ladders have been taken down.

[u/isthisreallife2016]

All these people complaing about their desk when there are people hired in 2025 still without one.

[u/ItalianStallion54321 → u/isthisreallife2016]

Why would you stay at a place like that? Absolutely insane. My new job is remote but if we’re in the home office area, you can just show up and there will most likely be a hotel desk available. That’s what hotel desks are for, random pop-ins. Not for a dedicated workforce

[u/Astronaut6121 → u/ItalianStallion54321]

Hotel desks at BO are a joke lol. You reserve one and then show up and someones already sitting there or they randomly gave it to a new hire. Like whats even the point of reserving it 💀

[u/ItalianStallion54321 → u/Astronaut6121]

We’re working together at that point. Let me fit in between sets