Materials Lead at Blue Origin: “we worked like dogs, like slaves”
Donald Dismukes led a team that moved Blue Origin rocket parts. He describes a system that promoted through nepotism, stunted and overworked minorities, and retaliated against workers for speaking up
Donald Dismukes worked for Jeff Bezos’ rocket company, Blue Origin, as a Materials Lead in Huntsville, Alabama. His team was an integral part of moving around materials to build rocket engines.
Dismukes was terminated last year after he started speaking up about what he describes as a culture of nepotism: one that promotes insular friendships within the company while dangling a carrot to minority workers who hope for promotions and career advancement.
While there are a lot of aerospace companies and defense contractors in Alabama and the specifically the Huntsville region, Alabama is also a right-to-work state, meaning they can choose to opt out of paying union dues. Beyond this dynamic potentially leaving some workers vulnerable, we were curious to hear from someone on the ground at Blue Origin—as past experiences shared from inside the company have focused more on more “white-collar” work.
Hard Reset reviewed Dismukes’ performance reviews over the years he worked there, and spoke to three of his colleagues at Blue Origin, who happen to be Black men. Their accounts are similar to the environment that is described in the interview below—and in many ways, mirror what Amazon factory workers have shared in past reports.
While Dismukes’ work was eventually deemed expendable and replaceable, it actually is quite necessary to building those rockets that eventually get all the publicity.
AS: What drew you to work at Blue Origin initially?
DD: I wanted to work at Blue because I wanted to build something great, and because they paid well. I had colleagues from other aerospace jobs working “upstairs” — but when I visited, there weren’t many people upstairs who looked like me.
When I started, I knew I was overqualified, given I had a business degree. And I had applied for a different role that I was more qualified for. But when I got the materials job, I fulfilled my role with pride anyway. When it came to work, I always had tunnel vision and wanted to work hard.
My job was not just moving parts from inventory to the factory—it was making sure my team ran efficiently, moving “hot parts” that were needed right away. We delivered thousands of parts from inventory to welding stations to factories, ensuring everything ran smoothly from beginning to end. My team had blueprints for engines, and instructions to go into the inventory to make sure we had what was needed for various parts.
It initially felt like what I imagine working at NASA was like: ideas could be heard. In my actual role, I started to rise, and was told that I was going to be in another position soon.
But under the surface I always felt I had to work harder, do more, and stay silent about the things that other people got away with.
AS: Tell me about the role of your team?
DD: We were the heartbeat of the plant—moving anything and everything, from inventory to the factory to welding to the clean room. If it weren’t for our team, nothing would get done.
Every day we received tasks, scanned parts, and discerned the next location to deliver parts and packages to. One item could have sixteen possible destinations, so we would have to bring the part back to our desks and research, coordinating between different operators (the machinists and welders running the machines) to understand what was needed where.
We would then deliver various parts from the factory to the correct operation. With over 300 people in the plant, my team of six or seven accomplished what probably truly needed fifteen people. Some days, I’d be moving a full 18-wheeler truckload of material by myself, on top of everything else. That’s not an exaggeration—I was literally loading and unloading huge pallets, plus all the smaller deliveries in the building.
And beyond that, there was constant change and chaos. Although we were all trying to produce engines more efficiently, the engineering team would “redline” our plans. The blueprint of how to make an engine efficiently and quickly was always evolving, and there were miscommunications and disconnects from the headquarters in Kent, Washington to Huntsville, Alabama. Sometimes, because of this, our work would double overnight.
So our team was not just picking up and transporting parts, but taking them back to the computer and researching ourselves where they go next. Then, we would have five people in our ear telling us that they needed other parts.
The work was always going to move at a fast pace, but we simply didn’t have enough people to sustain the workflow. In my opinion we worked like dogs, like slaves. My team was constantly getting blamed if parts weren’t showing up on time.
AS: It sounds like you were working constantly.
DD: We didn’t take breaks, because I didn’t want to upset my manager. I rarely had lunch. For example, if one team needed a fuse, they needed it delivered right then. If they didn’t get it in time, my manager was told “Donald’s team is moving slow.”
In order for my team to really take a break, we had to go over the time that we were scheduled.
So I checked in at 6 a.m. usually, even though the job was supposed to start at 8 a.m. I’ll be honest, sometimes I was later than 6 a.m., because I was always exhausted.
I was clocking in 120-130 hours bi-weekly to sustain the floor for close to three years. Working overtime or more hours was technically “optional.” But it actually wasn’t optional for me, given what was needed from my team.
Management demanded perfection from us. Yet we had no path to advance, we were the most overworked and underpaid compared to everyone else. My team was promised other positions and promotions, but they never happened. We prayed together because of the lack of promises from management.
AS: Did you develop anything to smooth the operations there?
DD: I made a tag system so that parts were labeled where to go next, instead of us needing to research where the parts go after all the redlines were in. And then my team could pick up parts and drop them off more efficiently—from procurement to welding, for example.
It really started to work.
They asked me to go to Blue’s Florida location to train other materials leads. At a certain point, they were giving me so much responsibility, and I was getting all this praise. I really just wanted to do my job, have a couple laughs, and go home. Especially because people don’t like when you are over-shining.
I went to manager meetings, even though I was a lead and not a manager—not because I wanted to shine brighter than others, but because my manager hosted me to go. In many ways, I assumed the role of a manager—taking heat, and also frequently hosting morale meetings with my team, because we were often undermined and promotions weren’t happening. At one point, my manager told me “I gave them chicken and t-shirts, and they’re still not grateful,” further describing them as “cancers” on the team. He essentially said in so many words, it’s time for them to go.
So he brought in a man who no one liked working with onto the team, and many people quit.
AS: So who was treated well and advancing at the company?
DD: In Alabama, half of the people who work at Blue Origin are not qualified. It’s a lot of nepotism: let me do this thing to help my brother out, help my sister out.
Contractors were hired to help, but despite my shifts being the busiest, my manager put them on other shifts. I was told in front of my team “Suck it up, buttercup.” That hit hard, but I kept working.
I had a degree in business, but many people at Blue in Alabama didn’t have degrees. One example was a white coworker who was very adept at the politics game and who became very close with my manager. He didn’t have a degree, but he went to lunch with my manager every day. He worked far less than I did, and he’s still there. It was my understanding that he would go hunting with my manager, and in one meeting, they even reached across the table and started horsing around with each other. They were very close.
I never wanted to get too cozy with my manager—I got an odd feeling and felt squeamish. When it comes to any manager, I don’t want to be your friend. I want to work for you. But many managers wanted more.
I also sense that some Caucasian men don’t want to be told anything by a Black guy. This white coworker who was really political called me “Bubba.” And my manager said, “oh it’s just a southern thing, don’t worry about it.” But everyone knows what that means in the South.
Speaking of racial issues, I started to notice disparate treatment between Black and white workers doing similar work over time. For example, Black people were told not to wear hoodies in the cold—and I later saw white colleagues wearing hoodies. Another time, when a Black man driving in a tugger with heavy engines accidentally side-swiped a wall, he was drug tested multiple times. A white colleague who accidentally ran into a door went home and cried, and another chipped a granite table. To my knowledge, they were never drug tested.
AS: When did you start to see a target on your back?
DD: For a long time, I was consistently given positive performance reviews, even called “irreplaceable.”
But things started to change. I was promised promotions many times, but never got them. I trained leads and almost everyone on my team except one.
I began speaking up on behalf of my team—sharing how none of us were getting promotions, yet working more than our less-qualified white counterparts. One white co-worker, who was buddy-buddy with my manager, got a supervisor job for a desired shift, even though a Black co-worker with a Masters degree and more experience applied.
A young white female contractor was hired after someone quit. When I asked her to complete a task, she refused, cursed at me, and made a scene. I told her calmly to show respect, as I had never cursed at her. She apologized, but later told HR that I had cursed her out. Even though witnesses saw her curse at me, HR believed her—and she’s still there. I’ve heard reports that she led to another Black employee being fired for similar allegations.
We went everywhere for help—to tip lines, directors, and even to HR outside of logistics, because everyone knew that logistics HR was in management's back pocket. Word would get back that “someone is airing dirty laundry.” Things didn’t get better. At one point, my manager even told me “If I were you, I’d quit—Amazon managers are coming in. I’m even thinking about leaving.” But he didn’t say the same to his buddy, the one who later became a supervisor and still is.
My reviews went from “irreplaceable” to “aggressive.” I was isolated and sent to a new building, where the workload needed five to six people. Some days I would pick up 700-1,000 parts. When I hurt my back and went to the nurse, she said I needed light duty—but my manager sent me right back to work.
Eventually all my authority was taken away, and then I was accused of timecard fraud and terminated. (Never mind that I used to mess up on time cards over the years, as did many people, and was never singled out—and also I worked the job of up to four people at times. They just needed a reason to easily show me the door.)
When I was fired, my manager wanted to be in the room with security to see it happen. It was personal for him. I heard, from a co-worker who had tears in his eyes when he told me the story, that they asked for more security, because I was the “angry Black guy.” They later offered me $5,000 to keep quiet, but I refused to take it.
In the last year since my firing, people still come to my house to ask me for help, because I was one of the people who knew all of the answers. Blue even took my tagging system and renamed it “speeding tickets.”
AS: How has this experience impacted you?
DD: I sacrificed everything for this job believing I would be rewarded—weekends, holidays, nights.
After all of this I am afraid to work, as I don’t trust people. I don’t have the money to go to a therapist, but I think I have PTSD. I go to sleep and my heart is banging, but I don’t have money to go to get a therapist.
People still come to me for help and to share their stories. It’s a “good ol’ boys’” club at Blue. But I’m speaking up for people who are scared, whose kids don’t want to face this. For the Black people on my team with kids and no other income, who don’t have a way to feed their families if they are fired.
My mother—an accountant for the government in Illinois—taught me to work hard, to get an education, and to trust that good things would come. But in the South, and at this company, working hard didn’t matter. Blue Origin showed me the good old boy system will kick you back to the bottom no matter how high you climb.
I’m telling my story so that others know what goes on, and so that this can’t be swept under the rug.
Do you have a story about working in the space industry or with big defense companies in Alabama? Reach out to ariella@superposition-stories.com or to @aristeinhorn.17 on Signal (encrypted messaging).