Eagleflip said:
Tony--I replied to your post because it was one of the more cogent thoughts on the board. As both of us have seen, chastizing a board member because of his/her "poor attitude" rarely leads anywhere except toward more inflammatory remarks, taunting, passing gas in the opponent's general direction, and assorted tawdriness.
I suppose I can understand that rationale. Apparently, though, side stick-n has defied the odds and offered Labbats an apology for calling him a punk.
Eagleflip said:
To answer the other question as to whether helping to clean the aircraft is required, no, it is not. Is it expected? Yeah, probably by now it is, most of our FAs are used to the pilots helping out. It is a rarity for a flight crew not to help out in back in one way or another.
...
All I really want from my little contribution is a "thank you" from the FAs, but alas...those comments seem to be coming fewer and further apart. Perhaps we all simply need to be reminded that as a small airline, we (the crewmembers) are certainly in it together.
I have a feeling that the well-intentioned practice of pilots cleaning the cabin is an example of how many more practices will evolve in the future. It starts out with everybody feeling good about helping out, it slowly becomes something that people expect, and before long, a pilot will choose to NOT help clean, and things will get ugly. Along the same lines, employees trust management, management gives employees no reason to mistrust, then one day management needs to take some hide out of the crewforce - - honeymoon over.
I may be wrong. We may be wrong. I hope I'm wrong. History says I'm not. BUT, history can be changed, right?
Eagleflip said:
But I'd still like to hear a "thanks" now and again!
Thanks for the candid admission.
side stick-n said:
If it was something that needed to be done, I was properly trained and had the appropriate clothing to do it, then YES I would be glad to help these guys out. It is NOT below me. The FA's get additional help when I am able because we are a team and someone said I had to be the quarterback. As such, I find that it greatly improves the teamwork concept and helps to turn a A320 in 35 minutes.
Hiring aircraft cleaners would also help turn a A-320 in 35 minutes, but why hire aircraft cleaners, right? Aircraft cleaners don't deserve jobs, they don't have families to support, and they don't have feelings.
I'm being faceitious, but you have to admit there's another side to that story. It appears to outside observers that the good will of the pilots is being taken advantage of (pardon the poor sentence structure). I predict that there will come a day when even JetBlue pilots will refuse, by and large, to do the jobs of aircraft cleaners.
fredflyer said:
Tony, while you talk about the guy who "lowered the bar" in post #3, you seemed to have completely overlooked post #2, which is where the "bad attitude" posting started. Why aren't you chastising the guy who started the mud slinging? Everyone seems to hone in on the JB guys "attitudes", but it seems like most of the time they are just responding to someone else's negativity towards JB.
The reason I overlooked post #2, which is nothing more than a common poke at the practice of pilots cleaning cabins, is it does not rise to the level of obnoxiousness as the first JetBlue contribution to the thread.
Labbats observed, and it appears that his observation was accurate, that Captains are EXPECTED to clean the cabin. Side stick-n responded by belittling labbats for his "long list of advanced aircraft" and called him a name.
Now, while I find the tone of his response offensive, I don't think side stick-n's post is representative of the majority of JetBlue pilots' attitudes - - I've heard on the whole they're nice guys, even if somewhat misguided
. Side stick-n did NOT come off in that post as a nice guy by any stretch of the imagination. He's backed off from that by apologizing for his name-calling, but that's how, in my opinion, it got started.
B-Atch
