Coming up on 94 hours of Standby for the Month.

[realityman]

Willy,

thanks for articulating my thoughts better than I could have.

the only exception is that i don't like the phrase 'they own us for 7 days'. They don't own me. They pay me to do a job. It may seem like a small thing, or semantics, but it's not.

But the whole concept of 'they pay me to do a job' is where the disagreement on this thread lies. As it's currently in the contract, sitting standby as a flight asset in an FBO is part of the job. KMAN doesn't like it. Probably most of us aren't thrilled with it. But it's part of the job.

And whether you voted 'yes' or 'no' on the '05 contract or IBB in '07, it's what we all live by now.

OF COURSE there's room for improvement. If they paid us $1 million/year and we only worked 5 days a month for it, we could still find room for improvement. We're pilots, right?
What got me involved was the use of the word 'abuse' at the start of this thread. I simply pointed out that a typical FBO standby, the way most FBO's are outfitted, hardly qualifies as abuse. Our duties include flying AND availability to fly while on the road, for a predetermined time period each day. If they choose to fly us or make us standby for a flight, it's not abuse. Are we abusing the system if we order four crew meals for a six hour duty day? I'd argue that you're abusing your body, but the contract allows it, so it's not abusing the crew food system, the caterers, the company, the FM's, or anyone else in the process.

I never said NJA was perfect. I never said some FBO's aren't so nice for sitting around. I never said people shouldn't complain, or bring things to the attention of people in power. I'm just saying that the company exercising their contractual rights that puts us in a situation where at most places its pretty comfortable hardly qualifies as abuse. Especially when we can, without penalty, call fatigued if the sitting around tires us out too much.

KMAN wants to be on duty, but be able to do whatever he wants if he's not flying. I still say it sounds like he was hoping this job would be an all-expenses paid vacation every other week.

 

[Diesel]

No problem crewservicer i was just a little exhausted from staring at the alarm clock.

It is interesting that the two companies have a totally different view on FBO stby.

 

[kman]

No, i don't expect a vacation, like we have the time really to do anything anyways. Where do you guys get off on telling me I expect a vacation.

With out the crew rot standby, our week is a vacation? You guys must be robots. Wow your vacations really must suck.

Again, how is not wanting to be sitting standby when there are 5 crew sitting, expecting a vacation? You guys call me names and tell me to leave, but you can't even answer a simple question.

All I want is not to be sitting around just to make some numbers look better. Kept on with the STFU, whiner, Leave, cr@p, you guys are true professionals.

 

[gutshotdraw]

Shhh, Diesel. Let's just keep that on the down-low. Wouldn't want some whiners to muck THAT up too.

 

[Willy21]

the only exception is that i don't like the phrase 'they own us for 7 days'. They don't own me. They pay me to do a job. It may seem like a small thing, or semantics, but it's not.

Point taken. That is the way that gets me through the week. I guess it works for this lowly SIC. Maybe someday when I make the pic money I can say they "pay me to do a job." Until then I will pull gear and fetch coffee. How do you like yours?

 

[realityman]

KMAN,

Show me where I called you any names.

I said if you aren't happy, you might consider employment elsewhere.

I didn't tell you anything like STFU. I said that every time you open your mouth on this message board it's negative.

But it was YOU that said you could be running, swimming, sleeping in a bed, eating meals that you want when you want to, and other such things a number of posts ago.
Naturally, you can do any or all of those things in your rest time, if you so choose. But you're complaining that you can't do them when you're on duty. And you referred to the fact that you can't do those things as 'abuse'.

Maybe what scheduling does sometimes is wasteful. Maybe it could be described as useless. Or unnecessarily redundant. But abuse? Hardly.

If you fly trips, or sit standby at the FBO, or sit standby at the hotel, it's what we're paid for. If you really don't think it's a vacation, then what difference does it make where the standby takes place? Yeah, FBO's, especially crappy ones, can be fatiguing. So call fatigued when you're too tired to fly. That's part of the job too.

I can tell you with a fair amount of certainty that we are NOT paid to go running, swimming, lounge in luxury, sun ourselves at the hotel pool, or any other number of leisure activities you may want to do. If you can do them during your time off, great. Otherwise, what's the big deal?

Personally, I like the numbers matrix. Make it look like we're doing something. I'd hate for them to say, "Gee, we have x number of pilots sitting in hotels doing nothing every day. Maybe we can operate more efficiently with less pilots." Hope you're not too close to the bottom of the seniority list when that happens.

 

[realityman]

Point taken. That is the way that gets me through the week. I guess it works for this lowly SIC. Maybe someday when I make the pic money I can say they "pay me to do a job." Until then I will pull gear and fetch coffee. How do you like yours?

Hate coffee. How about fetching me some Gatorade? It'll help after my on-duty running.

 

[Willy21]

"The water sucks, it really really sucks"

 

[kman]

a·buse a·bused, a·bus·ing, a·bus·es
1. To use wrongly or improperly; misuse

The abuse I was talking about is the massive crew rot mission they have put us on for the last several months. When I use the word abuse, im am talking about the misuse of crews for standby for punishment and for the sake of just so the numbers look good.

Prime example, TEB 3 weeks ago, at least 5 good airplane on standby. We fly in and get 3 hours of standby fine what ever. Another crew(same ac type) shows up an hour after gets assigned 4 hours of standby. About two hours into it, they release the later crew for a 17 hours overnight to standby the following night, we know this because most of the crews where hanging out in the lounge. We get extended two hours into a 10 hour turn. WTF? The second crew even started 2 hours afters us( about 9am ). Would you think maybe this would be the misuse of a crew? Abuse.

 

[fischman]

Looks like we have a volunteer for the negotiating committee.