FLOPS Management, You Will Be Sued AND Lose

[waka]

you bottom feeder scumbags would sell your own mothers!

 

[chingaso]

They should, seriously, be ashamed of themselves.

But, what goes around comes around. I don't think any of the mental giants running Flight Options have realized what they just did to their dwindling credibility. For a company that was already suffering from horrible PR, they just secured for themselves the certain reputation of being a scum-bag operation and NO new customers are going to be beating down the door to do business with them.

They have just demonstrated to the rest of the aviation industry, and hell, the entire business community of the United States, that they've run a company so pitifully that they "had" to lay off employees. Flight Options is laying off employees while other fractionals are expanding and hiring and buying more planes and gaining new customers and making profits. And this is the best that these people can do...

How pathetic. They just announced to the enitre world: "we are hopelessly incompetent, and do not have what it takes to run a company, and cannot succesfully administrate our business. We suck real bad, everybody."

These bastards hurt people; wives and children. They are just as bad as rapists, child molesters, wife beaters, and terrorists. Not one centimeter higher on the human scale. Not one.

Greed and pride at its very worst. How sickening. How utterly pathetic.

 

[Voice Of Reason]

They should, seriously, be ashamed of themselves.

But, what goes around comes around. I don't think any of the mental giants running Flight Options have realized what they just did to their dwindling credibility. For a company that was already suffering from horrible PR, they just secured for themselves the certain reputation of being a scum-bag operation and NO new customers are going to be beating down the door to do business with them.

They have just demonstrated to the rest of the aviation industry, and hell, the entire business community of the United States, that they've run a company so pitifully that they "had" to lay off employees. Flight Options is laying off employees while other fractionals are expanding and hiring and buying more planes and gaining new customers and making profits. And this is the best that these people can do...

How pathetic. They just announced to the enitre world: "we are hopelessly incompetent, and do not have what it takes to run a company, and cannot succesfully administrate our business. We suck real bad, everybody."

These bastards hurt people; wives and children. They are just as bad as rapists, child molesters, wife beaters, and terrorists. Not one centimeter higher on the human scale. Not one.

Greed and pride at its very worst. How sickening. How utterly pathetic.

Once again you have pinpointed it spot-on. I never could have predicted just HOW bad they'd let it get. I predict this purchase was a tax write-off for another business. JAIL is the only place those at the helm belong if they are doing as I am guessing.

 

[learflyer]

delete

 

[CALRepublic]

you bottom feeder scumbags would sell your own mothers!

This is not good at all, first Management screws you, and now you're going to start fighting each other.

Very, very dangerous working environment at FLOPS.

 

[Voice Of Reason]

This is not good at all, first Management screws you, and now you're going to start fighting each other.

Very, very dangerous working environment at FLOPS.

You're right on the last sentence, but this will only bring us closer at FLOPS and further from mgt. For every one they fire, whatever pilots were unsure that are left see the writing on the wall.
Yes, it WILL make it a hostile environment, but NOT against each other...it is hostile from the mgt camp

 

[skanza]

They should, seriously, be ashamed of themselves.

But, what goes around comes around. I don't think any of the mental giants running Flight Options have realized what they just did to their dwindling credibility. For a company that was already suffering from horrible PR, they just secured for themselves the certain reputation of being a scum-bag operation and NO new customers are going to be beating down the door to do business with them.

They have just demonstrated to the rest of the aviation industry, and hell, the entire business community of the United States, that they've run a company so pitifully that they "had" to lay off employees. Flight Options is laying off employees while other fractionals are expanding and hiring and buying more planes and gaining new customers and making profits. And this is the best that these people can do...

How pathetic. They just announced to the enitre world: "we are hopelessly incompetent, and do not have what it takes to run a company, and cannot succesfully administrate our business. We suck real bad, everybody."

These bastards hurt people; wives and children. They are just as bad as rapists, child molesters, wife beaters, and terrorists. Not one centimeter higher on the human scale. Not one.

Greed and pride at its very worst. How sickening. How utterly pathetic.

"rapists, child molesters, wife beaters, etc..."? Really? Come on, I know it's bad, but comparing these people to those people is quite harsh. I don't think they intended any harm to anyone, especially the kind of harm that results from the above mentioned crimes. I do agree, greed and pride are very bad and destructive things (hint, hint).
Now, I'll receive the responses of bullets since I am not expressing hate towards mgnt like everybody else here.
Sorry, but I'm just trying to be objective and I don't like to hear about anyone losing their job. Best of luck to all...

 

[birddogg01]

Hey Skanza, what's the reason you're not expressing hate towards management? Well lets see. Its got to be one are all of the following. a) you are management, b) you have family in management or c) you are up management's azz. Which is it?

 

[Galaxy]

"rapists, child molesters, wife beaters, etc..."? Really? Come on, I know it's bad, but comparing these people to those people is quite harsh. I don't think they intended any harm to anyone, especially the kind of harm that results from the above mentioned crimes. I do agree, greed and pride are very bad and destructive things (hint, hint).
Now, I'll receive the responses of bullets since I am not expressing hate towards mgnt like everybody else here.
Sorry, but I'm just trying to be objective and I don't like to hear about anyone losing their job. Best of luck to all...

You were likely one of "those" guys making the calls firing these guys and girls. If not.. I am sure you are one of the productive folks. Explain how the pilot can change the productivity level without flying sick or broken planes?
Whatever--Loser.. At least I can still sleep at night. Aviation is only so big and you just signed your destiny-enjoy the FLOPS life.

 

[skanza]

Hey Skanza, what's the reason you're not expressing hate towards management? Well lets see. Its got to be one are all of the following. a) you are management, b) you have family in management or c) you are up management's azz. Which is it?

d) none of the above.
I'm just trying to show an objective point of view. And I stand by the fact that you can't compare rapists, child molesters, wife beaters, etc... to what's happening at flops. And I don't express hate towards management just because they're management. (like union folks do) I will express dissatisfaction with those who's ideas I don't agree with. I only support or contest a decision based on my principles, not the source of the decision (e.g. management, union).

 

[brokeflyer]

well your objective is pretty fcked up......keep quiet.

 

[skanza]

well your objective is pretty fcked up......keep quiet.

Keep quite? On the internet? Get real.
My objectivity is not effef up. I'm simply saying from an outsider's view, raping, molesting, terrorizing causes purposeful physical and mental harm to people. "re-adjusting" the headcount within a company is a business decision and not purposely meant to harm people but does happen a lot. It is a shame that people are affected negatively, but that is not the intent.

 

[chingaso]

Comparing these people to rapists, murders, wife beaters, and terrorists might at first glance seem kind of extreme and overly-harsh, but once you get past the superficial knee-jerk, more commonalities begin to come to light than differences. I was using the metaphor to describe a group of people that do damage to families, and do this damage intentionally, such as the likes of Michael Sheeringa, Sanjay, Tyler, et al.

Skanza do you work at Flight Options? I somehow think you don't. Do you realize that practically everything Sheeringa has done "for business purposes" have had catastrophic affect on pilot's families? This has been going on for well over two years and just keeps getting worse. This last salvo had nothing to do with business, or if it did, then these people have no business running a business.

Sheeringa sends an email that, with a keystroke, causes damgage to pilots and their spouses and children. Pilots who had worked at this company for years, as much as 8 times the amount of time this guy had spent at the company, suddenly had to pull their children out of school, their wives forced to give up their jobs/careers, sell their homes, and move to a city that was arbitrarily chosen as a Tier 2 or Tier 1 city, arbitrarily chosen by some girl in Cleveland that doesn't comprehend U.S. geography west of the Missisippi River. The only people that were spared were Assistant Program Managers or other Hitler Youth that were well-connected in Cleveland and were able to good-old-boy their domiciles into Tier 2 status.

Less than a year later, Sheeringa increases medical insurance benefits by 300% for some families. Flight Options is self-insured, therefore, this was basically a paycut for employees, and revenue for Flight Options; the employees at Flight Options were viewed as a source of income for the company. Many, many families lost medical benefits they were previously entitled to because it made Sanjays metrics look good to the Board of Directors in order to facilitate the sale of the company (not the growth of the company, nor its well-being [bear in mind, the word "company" means "human beings]).

Less than a year later, well into the fiscal year, Sheeringa decides to change the payroll schedule, because it made the quarterly reports look better to the Board of Directors. Annually, there was no effect, but that was irrelevant, since the sale of the company was scheduled prior to the fiscal year ending. The result, however, took food off people's tables. We were, for years and years, being paid twice a month. Every single employee at Flight Option budgeted their lives based on this constant. Then, with a keystroke, the schedule changed to bi-weekly. An SIC with a monthly net income of $3400 was now seeing a monthly net income of $2800. Sure, at the end of the year the salary was the same, but our bills kept coming on a monthly basis. I don't think my landlord gives a rat's ass that I get 3 paychecks in August when I'm running short in April.

Oh yeah, pilots at Flight Options are prohibited from doing contract flying on the side. Even if it were air ambulance or hauling freight, the fact that it fell under Part 135 was viewed as a "conflict of interest" by the new management. We were forced to sign a lot of documents promising we wouldn't try to augment our dwindling monthly net income.

I could go on. Taking away tried and true vacation benefits is up there on the list. Forcing people to use their vacation time effectively sacrificed people's accrued sick time, so if you wanted to take the vacation you had been approved for and miraculously didn't lose, you were forced to fly sick if you didn't want to lose your vacation days. Forced to choose. I'll save the criminality of corrput policies such as pencil-whipping maintenance, or destroying 501s for another time, along with viewing "safety" as simply a marketing term.

Its been well documented now, with the revelation that Sanjay's job was to viscerate the company for sale, and not grow it or make it prosper, that decisions aren't being made for good, productive reasons. These people knew very well what they were doing, and many of the things listed above were done punitively at best, and spitefully at worst. Michael Sheeringa openly admitted that the Tier 3 debacle was a huge mistake. A competent CEO would have reversed the decision and restored the Tier 3 domiciles with the same, simple and easy keystroke that he used to take them away. But he didn't. Pure pride and arrogance prevented this. "Just because" is not a reasonable response, nor a valid means to justify any decision, yet it has become the go-to excuse for many, many idiotic policies. How juvenile.

Give a little man a lot of power and bad things happen. It might not kill like a gun, but the responsibility is similar. Michael Sheeringa has Michael Sheeringa's best interest in mind, nothing more, nothing less. He knew what he was doing was hurting wives and children; he's done it before. Why else, if he is so innocently just trying to get some business done, did he feel he needed to hire a security guard to escort him to the parking lot each night after work?

These people hurt wives and children. There is no defense for that, and if we begin to throw our hands in the air and be resigned to attitudes like "oh well, thats just business, too bad" then we've lost integrity. He who allows bad things to happen without doing something to stop it is just as responsible as the person doing the bad things in the first place. To toss it off as "its not personal, its just business" is either naive, indifferent and shortsighted, or definitely irresponsible.

 

[slowjet]

Skanza,

I am one of the 70 who were fired for following the SOP' s and FAR's - basically, being a professional.

These people are rapist of peoples lives, not only the pilot, but their families as well. A criminal is a criminal reqardless of the crime. They lack morals and integrity.

 

[hogbody]

Great Post

Chingaso,
Your post said it all. Thanks.
Hogbody

 

[jetwash]

Slowjet,


You will be coming back.
Management wants a contract ASAP and this is just a form of desperation for us to accept less then NJ, Flex, CS,XO, Avantair etc......

There will be no contract unless you are all brought back.
Hold on and have faith.

 

[birddogg01]

Awesome post Chingaso!!!

 

[GerryG]

Keep quite? "re-adjusting" the headcount within a company is a business decision and not purposely meant to harm people but does happen a lot.

Why don't you shut, your, hole, you fu**ing management f**k. I've got a head count for you to "re-adjust". You have obviously never lost a brother, you have never been through this so shut your lie-hole. Fu**ing s**t for brains. "Business"? Your about to see the "business" end of the Teamsters, you a$$ kissing, Koolaid drinking, ankle-biting, windbag.

Yea go ahead and moderate me, I'm beyond caring.

 

[waka]

This is not good at all, first Management screws you, and now you're going to start fighting each other.

Very, very dangerous working environment at FLOPS.

What are you talking about? I didn't say jack about the pilots fighting each other. If anything, they should stick together. Now, when it comes to pilots doing OT and flying broken airplanes, d@mn right it's time to fight. It certainly isn't a time to get together and sing Kum-by-yah.

 

[netjetwife]

Great post, Chingaso!

... I was using the metaphor to describe a group of people that do damage to families, and do this damage intentionally, such as the likes of Michael Sheeringa, Sanjay, Tyler, et al. And you can bet their families have not suffered one bit during this time ... Sheeringa sends an email that, with a keystroke, causes damage to pilots and their spouses and children. ... Sheeringa increased medical insurance benefits by 300% for some families. I remember when that happened and I've thought of it again, too. ... Many, many families lost medical benefits they were previously entitled to because it made Sanjays metrics look good to the Board of Directors ...
Sheeringa decided to change the payroll schedule, because it made the quarterly reports look better to the Board of Directors. The result, however, took food off people's tables. Not that the FLOPS cared... Oh yeah, pilots at Flight Options are prohibited from doing contract flying on the side. We were forced to sign a lot of documents promising we wouldn't try to augment our dwindling monthly net income.... The FLOPS were afraid you'd make more money on the side and dump them for refusing to pay pilots a professional wage.
Michael Sheeringa ... knew what he was doing was hurting wives and children; he's done it before. Why else, if he is so innocently just trying to get some business done, did he feel he needed to hire a security guard to escort him to the parking lot each night after work? Slinking away from the scene of his crimes? Sure sounds like it!

These people hurt wives and children. There is no defense for that, and if we begin to throw our hands in the air and be resigned to attitudes like "oh well, thats just business, too bad" then we've lost integrity. Agreed. Because the FLOPS essentially declared war on the pilots and they didn't care that families were going to get hurt in the process. The Sheeringa Gang could have chosen to follow the successful NJA example and make partners of the pilots by giving them a fair contract but instead they tried to break their will. Thugs do go after families to inflict as much pain as possible, don't they? He who allows bad things to happen without doing something to stop it is just as responsible as the person doing the bad things in the first place. To toss it off as "its not personal, its just business" is either naive, indifferent and shortsighted, or definitely irresponsible. Well said! By now every Options pilot should be ready to admit (even those who've had blinders on) that everything that has happened was done so maliciously and personally--under the direction of F&H, the infamous union-busting firm. There's part of your payraise right there!

Chingaso, thanks for an excellent recap, great post! I began posting here as an angry wife sick of seeing her husband's skill being exploited and her family being short-changed and made to suffer for corporate greed. I remember how much it meant to me to read posts by board members who understood. I know from that experience (and Options families have it even worse!) that your post has provided a lot of support when it is badly needed. Bravo! NJW