I interviewed recently for a job at one of San Diego’s largest employers. A company that produces products with electronic components, they had a position open that would make their products less harmful to the environment.
Anymore, just about every electronic device that is slightly more sophisticated than a two-slice toaster has complicated electronic components with integrated circuit boards. These boards work with ever so tiny chips, processors, and resistors. Some of the soldering holding these components onto the boards can contain lead. And part of what allows these items to be ever so tiny is their use of metals like cadmium and mercury. These metals are toxic. Lead is well known to cause nerve and kidney damage. Cadmium and mercury can damage the kidneys and other organs. Sometimes exposure leads to death.
For these reasons there has been a push to restrict the use of these metals in electronic components. Europe, Korea, China, and California all have RoHS standards (pronounced row hoss), which stands for Restriction of Hazardous Substances. By the RoHS laws of these governing bodies electronic devices are to have reductions or eliminations of these harmful metals.
I had a phone interview with this manufacturer for a position that would help them achieve RoHS compliance. While I was on the line with my potential new boss, I emphasized the knowledge I had of these metals, how they can enter the water supply and make people sick, how they can persist in soils. I also emphasized that through my own initiative I had started the RoHS program at my previous employer and how I believed that the RoHS program will lead to better health and safety. I thought that I had made the case that I had the knowledge and experience for this job. I thought that I had shown that I had the enthusiasm to do the work that would make me practically a shoo-in for this company that touts its green credentials.
Then there was a silence on the end of the line. I knew that I had said something wrong. Did I say something that did not quite agree with what was on my resume? Did I get some of the facts wrong about the RoHS program?
“We’re only doing this because we have to,” my interviewer said. My enthusiasm was unwanted.
So I didn’t have the job. I kept the gal on the line a little while longer. She admitted that she didn’t like her job and that the company overworked its employees. I thanked her for her time and said goodbye.
It is not painting with too broad a brush to assume that the attitude of my interviewer – that mitigating our assault on the environment is not a worthwhile endeavor and only to be undertaken under the duress of legislation – is the dominant attitude of the corporate world. I had thought that, like any other job, they would be hiring somebody who had some enthusiasm for his work, who wanted to do his job well. I was wrong. As I said before, this company touts its green credentials, but the person who heads up this company’s environmental program has no training or background in environmentalism. I imagine that they consider their environmental program to be part of their PR campaign, making them look good to the folks who buy their products.
I should be unsurprised. From the time that I started a paper recycling program when I worked for a bank to the RoHS program at the last manufacturer I worked for, management and upper management were unhelpful and sometimes outright hostile to the efforts I made.
What does this mean? Companies will continue to pollute and ravage the environment. The only thing restricting them from causing more harm are good environmental laws and the enforcement of those laws. They will not comply otherwise. It also means that folks like me, people who have a great concern and are willing to work for the environment, are persona non grata to large employers. There will be no change from within in the corporate world. Environmentalists do not have a place at their table. And we should be justifiably wary any time a company burnishes its green credentials.
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