It Didn’t Take A Rocket Surgeon

To see trouble on the horizon;

Rideau Hall — the office of the Queen’s representative in Canada — is now in the extraordinary position of having a third-party workplace investigation after the Privy Council Office intervened due to the allegations aired in a CBC story.
 
But based on accounts given to the National Post, the people who may have been least shocked about Rideau Hall workplace turmoil were people who worked under Payette between 2013 and 2016, when she ran the Montreal Science Centre as chief operating officer.
 
For those who chose to speak for this story, they said their motivation is not to grind an axe years after the fact, but to point out that the Prime Minister’s Office shouldn’t be taken by surprise that many Rideau Hall employees are having a very difficult time working for Payette. It’s all happened before.

A caller to JGL last week claimed her “difficult” reputation goes all the way back to flight training. (No link, you’ll have to take my word for it.)

38 Replies to “It Didn’t Take A Rocket Surgeon”

  1. Maybe the brain trust in Blackie’s office should have clued in when she was charged for assault in the States. But hey, she was somewhat of a celebrity and has a vagina.

    1. The space industry is a relatively small world and it has been known, particularly in the canadian zone, that she’s was a not worthy petty meanie basically since the day she made her appearance. None of this is a surprise.

      What is a surprise is that finally the media is covering it, at least somewhat.

    2. Yes, you could have just come out and said she was a female. No offence Kate.

    3. Maybe the crew in blackie’s office are worried she won’t side with Blackie when he tries to dissolve a minority government that still want to investigate him?!? Why else would the CBC be all over this?

  2. What happens when character no longer matters, only race and gender. Somewhere there’s stuffy old white man who would have been a superb Governor General.

  3. She may have to convert to islam to weather this storm.
    Her ‘vagina card’ may not be powerful enough.

    She has three strikes against her: Not gay, not muslim, and not colored.
    She needs at least one more card.

  4. Hmmmm…I couldn’t find the call nor the transcript so I’m trying to be fair, I’m a little ambivalent about all of this to be honest. I think Payette is your classic overachiever which means she’s highly motivated and competitive to the nth degree. Jet pilot, astronaut and whatever else she’s done…you don’t get to be all these things by being a snowflake.
    If you ever want to see a group of overachievers in one room, check out the documentary “Pitching Deck”. Navy pilots who know they’re the best of the best (just ask them) and who keep a highly visible scorecard in the briefing room where they can keep track of their fellow pilots “traps” and “wave offs”. These guys can talk trash like nothing else. Good natured of course… or so it seems.

    That said – their social skills aren’t exactly exemplary. Ever catch an interview or at least an attempt at an interview with Neil Armstrong, Gordon Cooper and others? These guys make potted plants seem hyperactive. There are exceptions of course, but holy smokes!
    Buzz Aldrin is one of these exceptions and seems amiable enough but even he is reported to have blown a gasket when he found out Armstrong was to take the lead role in the lunar landing which speaks to his competitive nature.

    I guess I took the long route to tell you Payette is overqualified for the job and should never have been there in the first place.

    1. Jet pilots are not “overachievers.” No more than players who make it into the NBA are “overachievers.” They are just “achievers.”
      In general, they are good engineers in their own right, and engineers in general have a culture very different than the mass culture. They care about facts and results, and yes generally do not put up with ignorant people asking stupid questions, as are most of the media. If you bombard one with nonsense, why yes, you’ll find they lack “social skills” to appease you. Being a “potted plant” would be a nice way for them to treat you.
      On the other hand, most of the best engineers I knew were lab rats. They lived to solve problems. The ones who would not or could not get into line management (that is, not managing projects but just people), and that’s where you’d find most a’holes. Of course, that applies to most affirmative action hires.
      The best technical engineer I knew also happened to have the best people skill for engineers under him. He made chief engineer for an organization of 10,000, most of whom engineers. And he well deserved it.

      1. It takes a specific talent to be a “jet jockey”. Flying one with minimum talent can lead to disaster. Unfortunately you usually can’t ask them what went wrong. If one has the skill, it is no more difficult to fly a jet than it is to fly a Cessna. A person with talent feels the aircraft. People, please don’t rag on me about the aircraft, I know the difference and I also know the level of talent needed to “just” fly one. I doubt Payette would have been considered one of the “best”.

        1. “Overachiever” has always been for me one of the highest praises for a person. Unfortunately it’s one you use with great care, since you are saying the recipient is not naturally gifted. But if I use it for someone I do not know, such as a ball player, I mean it as high praise. You make up for lack of gift with a lot of hard work, hustle, and attention to details. And what got me was just how burton was using it to damn by faint praise.
          In my post, without overtly saying so (until now that you forced me) I was trying to imply that Payette was probably an affirmative action hire all along the way. What she has done in her current position is ex post facto demonstration of that.
          A priori I cannot fly a Cessna or any plane since I need corrective lenses, but I knew some fighter pilots. None of them gave me the impression they had the kind of overblown egos burton talked about. And you can find overblown egos anywhere.
          I’ll freely brag that my biggest overachievement was winning this pool tournament at my grad school’s local pub. That was not bad for someone who has no confidence of making a shot over half the table length and has no draw.

  5. This is what happens when an adequate background investigation is not done, or the results are disregarded.

    It was no different with Duffy. His cravings for recognition/awards and his financial circumstances could have been determined quite easily, but Harper went ahead and picked him anyway.

    And by the way burton, I’ve got a perfect little word that fits Payette … and it certainly isn’t overqualified.

    1. I get your point. When I commented about the social skills aspect of overachievers I was doing my best to avoid using the words “can be complete and utter Aholes”.

  6. Everything about Canada is now laughable. Out of control debts, deficits, mass immigration, services cuts, higher fees, more taxes and more lies from government, their officials and complicit news networks.
    Canadians love mediocrity and socialism.
    Canadian voters have aimed low, repeatedly voting for #LibCons while expecting different governance. Every time. It never happened but they still vote #LibCons.
    In the end the “post nation state” of diversity and shitholery is exactly what stupid Canadians deserve right now. That and personal financial insolvency; the average Canadian is so stupid, so irresponsible he/she owes 180% of gross income in credit card debts, car loans, HELOCs and mortgages. Carelessness leads to Justin.

  7. Did you know that GG Payette has not even moved into her official residence at Rideau Hall? She has been demanding expensive renovations to protect her privacy before she does.

    “Hundreds of thousands of dollars have been spent to satisfy Gov. Gen. Julie Payette’s need for privacy at Rideau Hall, but she still hasn’t moved into her official residence almost three years into her five-year mandate. ”

    https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/rideau-hall-expenses-privacy-projects-1.5676088

    And over that same period we know that the Dear Leader was demanding millions of taxpayer dollars to renovate the prime minister’s country retreat at Harrington Lake. JT sets the standard of Liberal feeding-from-the-public-trough and his disciples gleefully follow his example. They are all entitled to their entitlements!

  8. Blackie knew exactly what Canada was going to get when he hired Payette; a self entitled drama queen more than willing to thumb their nose at protocol and the traditional ways of service to your country; someone just like himself.

  9. Seems like a weird smear job, especially with CBC piling on. Maybe she’s not compliant enough for the Lieberals. They need somebody with less character, less intelligence, fewer morals. Somebody who will without question, obediently sign off on any crazy constitutional changes the Lieberals have dreamt up (eg, Wilson-Reyboud). Maybe she balked at using GG authority to close Parliament till a plague vaccine appears
    She’s presumably intelligent, therefore she must be painfully aware of how stupid the Lieberal leader and a big chunk of his Cabinet are and she sounds like some kind of sociopath who would have trouble hiding her disdain and restrain herself from talking down to them
    Any recently retired CBC employees available for GG? Lieberals loooove their CBC GG’s, with their lifetime of demonstrated devotion to the Lieberals. I’m thinking….Peter Mansbridge (despite his lack of diversity)

    1. Bald white guys need not apply.
      Are we done with whats her face former GG, expensive travel habits, ex-CBC, spent way more than current GG/placeholder/doormat.
      That last guy GG, he was good, dawg.

  10. So you have Payette who by accounts is a bit of an overbearing drama queen, and the sock monkey, also an overbearing drama queen.

    It was inevitable that once you get two queens in a hive one of them will be sacrificed.

  11. I’m amazed at some of the comments here. Payette is obviously a VERY competent person (more so than 99.9% of people posting here, including myself) – you don’t do what she has done because of luck or special preference.

    What is clear to me is that in Payette’s past, when people didn’t do their jobs, people DIED. She came to the GG demanding the same competence that she experienced in her previous jobs. Imagine the GG staff, who expect a certificate of excellence for showing up to work almost on time, having to do their jobs. Of course Payette’s a bitch and an angry person – nobody has the right to make such demands of competence on the poor little dears.

    Come on, SDA readers. Instead of trying to take down Payette, understand that she is being attacked by all those who think the most important attribute of any boss is to give in to all the demand of their staff.

    1. I’ve known two female astronaut candidates; they were both complete fruitloops. Whether it’s the stress of the training or lax standards due to diversity, I’m inclined to believe the accusations.

    2. Uh-huh. Yet we keep hearing that flying in space is a team effort, but “my way or else” is hardly conducive to that.

    3. ” What is clear to me is that in Payette’s past, when people didn’t do their jobs, people DIED. She came to the GG demanding the same competence that she experienced in her previous jobs”

      Every former soldier, logger, hydro worker, farmer, miner, construction supervisor, etc is in the same category. Yet the vast majority of them get through their lives without acquiring the reputation of being an arsehole.

    4. “Come on, SDA readers. Instead of trying to take down Payette”
      So we ignore everything; the assault charge before she was hired, the things that have transpired since she was hired. and her lack of goodwill in a position that requires goodwill and getting along. She is exhibit A for the reasons countries decide to do away with ceremonial positions entirely. Maybe that was the Liberal’s end goal when she was hired.

  12. I work with several women in my profession who could be termed, “overachievers”. The key is, given the absolutely disastrous consequences that would accompany being hired for anything other than their competence, the ones at our institution at least were hired by our group on the basis of merit. They’re all perfectly reasonable people and easy to get along with. It seems as though the problems start creeping in when people are hired or promoted based on criteria other than merit and they figure out that they’re bullet proof based on some immutable feature with which they were born. Why do the work and go through the effort of learning to work with others if your dysfunctional behaviour comes with zero adverse consequences?

  13. The Spawn’s father was known to pirouette behind the Queen’s back in front of the cameras to show his “respect” for the position. It’s not inconceivable that the Spawn might follow in his foot steps by knowingly hiring a loose cannon beeeootch to “represent” the Queen in Ottawa. We all know that Canada has no shortage of Liberal voting assholes who are OK with that.

  14. An Ambassador to a foreign country originates in this country
    The Queens representative in Canada should by all definitions of the word originate in Golly old Britain
    Then that person a Britt would be the Queens representative, not some Twatt from the back waters of La Belle Province or what ever swamp she was spawned in.

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