> Depends on your personal ethics and axioms of life.   I 
> worked on a
> nuclear power plant construction project where I 
> constantly violated
> the stated procedures for installation and testing and 
> documentation.
> My methods were safer and faster.

I completely understand what you were aiming at and why 
you'd do it. I also note that you set yourself up for two 
possible problems - one which should matter to you.

1.
Things go badly wrong.
People die.
Your non observance of SOP is noted.
It was not causal in the deaths but
... boring details glossed over ...
You end up in jail.

2.
Things go badly wrong.
People die.
Your non observance of SOP is noted.
Careful analysis of what happened shows that (possibly due 
to an unfortunate combination of coincidental events) your 
non standard procedures were a causal and avoidable link in 
the chain that lead to fatalities. While it is also shown 
that you could not reasonably be aware that what you did 
would cause these deaths that was the outcome because of 
what you did.
You end up in jail.

The 2nd scenario above is by no means an unreal one.

On November 28th 1979 Air NZ DC10 ZK-NFP / flight 901 
impacted Mt Erebus in Antarctica killing all 257 people on 
board. The subsequent investigation revealed a long and 
unbelievable string of coincident actions by unrelated or 
semi related (business wise) people plus some bad company 
policy plus some pilot lack of enough wisdom that ultimately 
lead to the fatalities. The repercussions in NZ have not 
totally died down to this day. Interestingly, the original 
air accident investigator was killed a few days ago while 
out for his daily walk when an 18 year old lost control of 
their car.

The total scenario makes fascinating and salutary reading 
(Gargoyle knows) BUT several of the events in the chain 
included a major course calculation error uncaught for many 
years, an independent transposition of two digits which had 
a trivial effect on the course, a correction of the 
transposition error which subsequently lead to the original 
"correct" course being reinstated without anyone being aware 
or informed. (Macmurdo sound was replaced by My Erebus). Add 
to that all the usual lack of training, lack of briefing, 
poor maps, lack of introduction to Antarctic conditions and 
more and the scene was set for a national tragedy. There 
were so many repercussions and so much fallout that nobody 
to this day has pointed the finger at one of the guys in the 
middle who "just did his job better" - but not quite well 
enough. If he had not done so the 'accident' would not have 
occurred. Nobody cares because there were and are bigger 
issues. But in other circumstance he would have gone to jail 
(rightly enough as such things are measured) with the death 
of 257 people on his hands.

Moral:    Take great care when bypassing proper and/or 
approved methodologies in mission critical or life critical 
systems that your better-cheaper-faster solutions don't 
become part of a chain of events that has catastrophic 
results which you are unable to predict.

As by definition you are unable to predict such things, 
think carefully indeed in such situations.



        Russell






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