It's shocking how lacks things are in quality. I was fired from a position in June for not releasing material by the GM of quality. I refused to buy off material that didn't meet the spec requirements. He requested I buy off on his word. He would not send the buyoff via email.
An email is not a controlled documents. The email would not cover your ass, just bring your boss down with you . Your boss want you to accept something you don't? Assign him the approval form. My favorite reply is "I can't approve it, get your own stamp". Of course being in a union helps, I think it should be mandatory for the aviation industry.
The sad part was the GM of quality wasn't my direct report boss. I was an engineer for another manager. The GM had a lot of people that were on a dotted line to report to him. I didn't realize I was one. My boss was an engineering manager. I didn't even have the dotted line to the quality manager, only the gm. I questioned the gm on alot of items, mostly about why we were approving material the did not meet requirements but also why he and I were the only ones allowed to do daily approvals.
The place had a ton of redflags I didn't know about until I started there. 6months later I was gone. I was planning during the next ISO9001 audit to show all the failed material data so we didn't pass and throw the GM under the bus as he bought it all off.
Edit. I agree and email isn't a controlled document. I just wanted something written down and the data to support it. That way, if I get questioned about it, I point to the email. The industry was mining tooling and not aerospace.
Thank you. They are getting better. I was shocked when I was fire for insubordination. As I wouldn't approve failing material, the GM would approve. I would think ethically I would be safe but the company was small and didn't really care about it's reputation