“The people who make Samsung phones are an elite bunch,” Joel Hruska reports for ExtremeTech. “They hold the most coveted jobs at the most valuable company within Samsung Group, the largest and most prestigious conglomerate in South Korea.”

“But the sense of exceptionalism was smashed last week as Samsung Electronics Co. took the unprecedented step of killing off an entire generation of its Note 7 smartphone after persistent problems with battery fires and explosions,” Hruska reports. “Now the 26,600 workers in Korea who were celebrated for taking the company’s profit and brand to new heights are seen as responsible for the worst crisis in Samsung Electronics’s 47-year history. A sense of gloom has descended, employees say, describing the episode as sad and tragic.”

MacDailyNews Take: How can you have a “sense of exceptionalism” when your entire outfit is based on peddling iPhone knockoffs to the ignorati? Normal, properly raised people would have nothing but a “sense of embarrassment.” And now, regardless of how they arrived here, they do. Karma always prevails.

“The division has often received the biggest bonuses within Samsung Group, typically about half of base salary, and employees now suspect they may get nothing. Some senior executives will likely lose their jobs too, including perhaps chief D.J. Koh,” Hruska reports. “Now, employees are fretting the fallout from their role in such an expensive hit to Samsung’s once-sterling reputation… Workers say the debacle has caused soul searching inside the company. ‘It’s sad and shameful at the same time,’ said another employee in the mobile unit. ‘Wherever I go now, people ask me things like, ‘Is everything okay? I hear the company is in big trouble.’ It’s a big lesson for us.'”

Read more in the full article here.