Cummins has published an inspiring little story about Donovan Joel “Don” Cummins. He entered the family business before he was officially old enough to work, made machining mistakes, got fired twice and eventually became Vice President of Engineering.
The intended lesson concerns perseverance, exacting standards and personal growth. There is another interpretation.
The founder’s younger brother fucked up twice and still retained a route back into the founder’s company.
If that proves he received no special treatment, Buckingham Palace is a council house.
A Meritocracy With Matching Surnames
Cummins says the early company became a “true family enterprise”. It employed Clessie Cummins’ father, brothers and brothers-in-law.
It sounds less like a recruitment process and more like Christmas dinner with machine tools.
The company stresses that family ties brought Don no special treatment because Clessie fired him twice. Lovely. But the sack only proves that Don faced consequences. His subsequent career proves that those consequences did not remove his access to the business.
Most dismissed workers do not return like recurring characters in a corporate sitcom. The security pass stops working, payroll forgets their name and somebody clears their locker before the tea goes cold.
Don remained within the family orbit, developed his engineering career and ultimately reached the vice presidency. His mistakes became charming pieces of corporate folklore.
That is one hell of a redundancy package.
Fired, But Not Finished
Cummins says those teenage dismissals helped shape Don’s career.
What a beautiful sentiment.
Failure did not define him. Somebody allowed him to learn, mature and become more than his worst performance. Decades later, the company can place those mistakes beneath a heritage photograph and sell them as evidence of resilience.
Cummins treated my mistakes rather differently.
I sent angry and sometimes unacceptable emails while experiencing disability-related distress. I was signed off work, the company kept needling me and managers later weaponised my reactions as evidence of some fixed defect in my character.
Nobody gave me a clear formal conduct warning. Cummins never properly drew the line, explained the consequences and allowed me an opportunity to correct my behaviour.
Instead, it collected the emails for the bundle.
Don’s machining mistakes became lessons. My distressed reactions became a diagnosis.
He got a development arc. I got an Employment Tribunal.
The Magic Revolving Door
Cummins does not explain how Don returned after either dismissal. The corporate article simply moves him from “twice-fired machinist” to one of the most influential engineering leaders in its history.
Perhaps the factory door recognised his face.
Maybe somebody examined the circumstances, saw his potential and decided that two mistakes should not destroy an entire career. That would have been humane. It would also have been exactly the opportunity Cummins denied me.
The company later treated me as though improvement were unrealistic. Employment Judge Sweeney even accepted the proposition that there was no realistic prospect of rehabilitation.
Apparently, human potential is hereditary.
Sweeney also speculated that a warning might have inflamed me. This allowed everyone to skip the inconvenient business of actually issuing one. Cummins did nothing, Sweeney imagined what might have happened and his imagination became the company’s retrospective procedure.
Don received two real opportunities to return. I received one hypothetical opportunity to fail.
Same Company, Different Story
None of this means Don lacked ability. His later career included research, quality management, engineering leadership and the development of Cummins’ first overseas manufacturing operation in Shotts, Scotland.
The point is that he received enough time and access to build that record.
Cummins now celebrates what Don became after his failures. In my case, it froze the story at the ugliest moment it could find and pretended nothing before or after it mattered.
When the founder’s brother made mistakes, they helped shape him. When a disabled production worker reacted badly under prolonged distress, those reactions supposedly revealed his permanent character.
One man remained capable of growth. The other became irredeemable without Cummins ever testing whether a warning, support or breathing space might work.
The difference apparently sat somewhere between the personnel file and the surname above the factory door.
The Surname Test
Imagine if Cummins had applied its modern reasoning to Don.
After the first machining mistake, management could have decided that correction would only inflame him. Following the second, somebody might have declared that he showed no realistic prospect of rehabilitation.
That would have produced a much shorter company history.
No research leadership. No quality-management career. No Scottish factory. No Vice President of Engineering. Just a teenage machinist disappearing through the gates after somebody decided that his worst moments represented his entire future.
Fortunately, Don had access to something stronger than a warning, an appeal or an Occupational Health report.
He had the surname on the building.
Terms And Conditions Apply
Cummins wants applause for a story in which a twice-fired teenager received the opportunity to learn, return and flourish.
Fair enough. Second chances matter.
They apparently mattered to Don Cummins. They did not matter when Cummins dealt with me.
The founder’s younger brother made physical errors in the company’s machinery and became leadership material. I made errors in tone while suffering disability-related distress and became evidence.
Don got rehabilitation, responsibility and a corporate tribute. I got managers, barristers and a judge explaining why nobody needed to give me the chance he received twice.
At Cummins, being fired twice can become the opening chapter of an inspirational leadership story.
Terms and conditions apply.
Apparently, the second chance must run in the fucking family.
Lee Thompson – Founder, The Cummins Accountability Project
Sources
- Cummins Inc.: From fired teenager to Vice President: The story of Don Cummins, 16 July 2026
- Employment Tribunal written reasons in L Thompson v Cummins Ltd, case 2501831/2022.
- Lee Thompson witness statement and associated case documents, held by TCAP.