[FONT="]“The commitment that Larry made is the same commitment I will make—but…I will not put the company at risk to fund that plan.”[/FONT][FONT="] – Soon-to-be CEO Jeff Smisek firing the latest of what will be many shots at the lump-sum option of our “A” Fund. Mr. Smisek? A commitment is not a commitment if you keep trying to find ways to weasel out of it.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Today is Friday, October 16, 2009 and there are 8 items for discussion.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Item 1: [/FONT][FONT="]New chief pilots in the office[/FONT]
[FONT="]Our new EWR chief pilots are Bill Borelli and Pam Krueger.[/FONT]
[FONT="]While we welcome them to the office we would also like to remind them that they were once regular line pilots, union members, and union officials and urge them to conduct themselves as such.[/FONT]
[FONT="]These are newly-created positions that will expand the number of chief pilots in the office even though our base is theoretically shrinking.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Item 2: [/FONT][FONT="]management Reminds Us of Our Responsibilities, or The NASA Fuel Memo, Part II[/FONT]
[FONT="]It must be fun being in management: show up at 10 a.m. (or later), have a couple of cups, wander the halls, suck up to the guy above you while scheming on his job, take a long lunch, write an eye-glazing memo while under the influence of a post-lunch, food-induced stupor, stumble to the Beamer and head home.[/FONT]
[FONT="]A couple of days ago, we all got another one of those memos. You know the ones we’re talking about: There are Pilot Bulletins that must be viewed prior to your next flight. Please go to OTHER > PILOT BULLETINS to view and acknowledge the bulletins.Yeah. Anyway, as we read this one, we had an eerie sense of being here before—only the other way around. The last memo cautioned us not to take too much fuel or our retirement just might not be funded anymore. This one warns us not to take too little or we might run out—of fuel, not retirement. Those management guys! They must be wild-men at the office parties![/FONT]
[FONT="]In honor of our eagle-eyed fuel-management hawks downtown, we searched the archives for our first take on management fuel-meddling. This was our Council 170 Secretary/Treasurer’s first writing assignment for his ill-fated stab at the Council 171 Communications Committee Chair. From October 2007:[/FONT]
[FONT="]“Houston—we have a problem…”[/FONT]
[FONT="]-[/FONT][FONT="]Jim Lovell, Astronaut[/FONT]
[FONT="]Ah, fall—the smell of burning leaves, the earlier sunsets, kids trick or treating—and management: all tricks, no treats.[/FONT]
[FONT="]In his most recent missive, Continental’s Vice President of Intergalactic Sub-Orbital Spaceflight Operations reminds us that we are the earthly equivalent of NASA and the Astronauts, and that each takeoff we make is backed by hours of labor as our ground crews frantically work their slide-rules and prepare us for blast-off.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Amidst highly-technical NASA-like terms such as “bump” and “uncomfortable”, this latest memo assures us that we, as Astronauts, just don’t know what we’re doing when we override Mission Control’s highly accurate Fuel Uplift Plan Profile and that if we’re not careful we could not only lose our retirement, we might make a bigger “carbon footprint”, too. “Carbon footprint”? This sounds like something our dogs do on our living room floor every now and then. But when that happens, I pretend not to notice and ask my wife, “Hey, honey? Would you see if my car keys are out on that side table by the sofa? I have to go grocery shopping for you then get you that certificate for your facial and day-spa getaway. Oh, and I Tivo’d Oprah and Dr. Phil for you.” She falls for it every time—almost. Boy, the look on her face as she passes me on her way to the bathroom with the latest “carbon footprint” wrapped in tissue—now that’s priceless.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Where was I? Oh, yeah, “carbon footprint”. I may have just fallen off the baggage cart on my way to Cape Canaveral—I mean, “Houston Bush Intercontinental Airport”—but I’ve kind of always thought that’s what we Astronauts were supposed to do: turn more fossil fuel into “carbon footprint” than anyone else’s Sub-Orbital Space Program—“airline”, I meant to say—then collect our huge retirement checks and call it a day. The Director of Sub-Orbital Operations, however, disabuses us all of both of these notions in his Mission Profile Statement, insisting that we carry too much potential “carbon footprint” on a daily basis and that we just need to trust our Manned Sub-Orbital Space Flight Engineers—“dispatchers and load planners”, that is—as they painstakingly spend hours planning each of our Sub-Orbital Insertion Missions—or “flights”. The Director’s memo continues to fret that, “Adding [potential carbon footprint] indiscriminately however, without critical thinking increases burn, may reduce payload…and ultimately reduces profit-sharing and possibly pension funding.” I think it also said something about painful swelling and itchy rash but I don’t have my copy of the Mission Planning Document in front of me at the moment to refer to for verification.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Your [Local Council] Representatives have studied this Mission Planning Document at great length (well, they talked about it over beer and wings at Hooter’s), and have determined that the proper course of action is for our Astronauts to strictly adhere to Starfleet Command’s Sub-Orbital Mission Insertion Plan Profile and NOT add ANY extra “potential carbon footprint” on ANY of your sub-orbital missions. This, your representatives have determined, will meet Starfleet’s goals thus:[/FONT]
[FONT="]- It reduces the need for critical thinking—or any thinking for that matter[/FONT]
[FONT="]- It does not increase “carbon footprint” thus saving rare dinosaurs for our future generations to enjoy—It’s for the children[/FONT]
[FONT="]- It allows us to carry more rubber “carbon footprint” out of Hong Kong[/FONT]
[FONT="]- It ensures our continued reliance on Starfleet Command’s promises as opposed to real pay[/FONT]
[FONT="]- It allows Senior Starfleet Commanders to pretend for a while longer that they actually intend to pay us our “A” fund money in anything but carbon credits[/FONT]
[FONT="]And, most importantly:[/FONT]
[FONT="]- It ensures that our Senior Starfleet Commanders can continue to stuff more millions of dollars in their pockets every day, continues to “fund the future” of their special Deep Space retirement programs, and allows them bragging rights around their buddies at all the other sub-orbital space programs: “Hey, our Astronauts worker harder, ask fewer questions, and line our pockets more than your Aeronauts. And, boy, are they dumb! So there.”[/FONT]
[FONT="]So, next time you’re strapped in, all systems go, A-OK for blast-off, remember this: the few hundred pounds of fuel the company thinks you don’t need, since you have no critical thinking skills and are unable to determine such weighty (ha, ha) matters for yourself, just may be the difference between the successful completion of your mission at the correct destination (Cape Canaveral) and a divert (Edwards Air Force Base) short of where you were supposed to go. So, please, take what dispatch gives you—and only what they give you—and divert whenever you have the slightest doubt about your ability to continue to your planned destination with “comfortable” fuel. And whatever you do, remember that the Space Shuttle is supposed to land with dry tanks; we aren’t.[/FONT]
[FONT="]We’re sure things must have changed between then and now—we just can’t find any evidence of it.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Item 3: [/FONT][FONT="]Mystery manager “Bumps” Fuel to Make His Life Less “Uncomfortable”[/FONT]
[FONT="]In the category of, If We Did This, We’d Be Fired, comes this:[/FONT]
[FONT="]Several pilots have contacted us recently about the “add-fuel” habits of one of our downtown luminaries. It seems our mystery manager comes out to fly EWR trips now and then—and is in the habit of adding in the neighborhood of 10,000 pounds of fuel for his Atlantic-crossing return flights so he can fly low and fast. When queried by his crew for the reason, his answer is: I want to make an earlier flight back to Houston.[/FONT]
[FONT="]When we (just pilots) end up on the right side of a fast flight plan, we always seem to wait for our gate, spend quality time in the Ballpark, and explain to our passengers that, while we did land an hour and ten minutes early, we’re still going to deplane 45 minutes late and please see the red coats for your connecting flight information. Our mystery manager just never seems to experience the same joy the rest of us do when we arrive early. His gate is ready and his commuter flight awaits.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Just like vice presidents Erwin and Compton and their game of Shade The Truth a couple of weeks ago, this week’s Mystery Manager has never understood the concept of lead by example—and that makes him unworthy to lead at all.[/FONT]
[FONT="]
[/FONT]
[FONT="]Today is Friday, October 16, 2009 and there are 8 items for discussion.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Item 1: [/FONT][FONT="]New chief pilots in the office[/FONT]
[FONT="]Our new EWR chief pilots are Bill Borelli and Pam Krueger.[/FONT]
[FONT="]While we welcome them to the office we would also like to remind them that they were once regular line pilots, union members, and union officials and urge them to conduct themselves as such.[/FONT]
[FONT="]These are newly-created positions that will expand the number of chief pilots in the office even though our base is theoretically shrinking.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Item 2: [/FONT][FONT="]management Reminds Us of Our Responsibilities, or The NASA Fuel Memo, Part II[/FONT]
[FONT="]It must be fun being in management: show up at 10 a.m. (or later), have a couple of cups, wander the halls, suck up to the guy above you while scheming on his job, take a long lunch, write an eye-glazing memo while under the influence of a post-lunch, food-induced stupor, stumble to the Beamer and head home.[/FONT]
[FONT="]A couple of days ago, we all got another one of those memos. You know the ones we’re talking about: There are Pilot Bulletins that must be viewed prior to your next flight. Please go to OTHER > PILOT BULLETINS to view and acknowledge the bulletins.Yeah. Anyway, as we read this one, we had an eerie sense of being here before—only the other way around. The last memo cautioned us not to take too much fuel or our retirement just might not be funded anymore. This one warns us not to take too little or we might run out—of fuel, not retirement. Those management guys! They must be wild-men at the office parties![/FONT]
[FONT="]In honor of our eagle-eyed fuel-management hawks downtown, we searched the archives for our first take on management fuel-meddling. This was our Council 170 Secretary/Treasurer’s first writing assignment for his ill-fated stab at the Council 171 Communications Committee Chair. From October 2007:[/FONT]
[FONT="]“Houston—we have a problem…”[/FONT]
[FONT="]-[/FONT][FONT="]Jim Lovell, Astronaut[/FONT]
[FONT="]Ah, fall—the smell of burning leaves, the earlier sunsets, kids trick or treating—and management: all tricks, no treats.[/FONT]
[FONT="]In his most recent missive, Continental’s Vice President of Intergalactic Sub-Orbital Spaceflight Operations reminds us that we are the earthly equivalent of NASA and the Astronauts, and that each takeoff we make is backed by hours of labor as our ground crews frantically work their slide-rules and prepare us for blast-off.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Amidst highly-technical NASA-like terms such as “bump” and “uncomfortable”, this latest memo assures us that we, as Astronauts, just don’t know what we’re doing when we override Mission Control’s highly accurate Fuel Uplift Plan Profile and that if we’re not careful we could not only lose our retirement, we might make a bigger “carbon footprint”, too. “Carbon footprint”? This sounds like something our dogs do on our living room floor every now and then. But when that happens, I pretend not to notice and ask my wife, “Hey, honey? Would you see if my car keys are out on that side table by the sofa? I have to go grocery shopping for you then get you that certificate for your facial and day-spa getaway. Oh, and I Tivo’d Oprah and Dr. Phil for you.” She falls for it every time—almost. Boy, the look on her face as she passes me on her way to the bathroom with the latest “carbon footprint” wrapped in tissue—now that’s priceless.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Where was I? Oh, yeah, “carbon footprint”. I may have just fallen off the baggage cart on my way to Cape Canaveral—I mean, “Houston Bush Intercontinental Airport”—but I’ve kind of always thought that’s what we Astronauts were supposed to do: turn more fossil fuel into “carbon footprint” than anyone else’s Sub-Orbital Space Program—“airline”, I meant to say—then collect our huge retirement checks and call it a day. The Director of Sub-Orbital Operations, however, disabuses us all of both of these notions in his Mission Profile Statement, insisting that we carry too much potential “carbon footprint” on a daily basis and that we just need to trust our Manned Sub-Orbital Space Flight Engineers—“dispatchers and load planners”, that is—as they painstakingly spend hours planning each of our Sub-Orbital Insertion Missions—or “flights”. The Director’s memo continues to fret that, “Adding [potential carbon footprint] indiscriminately however, without critical thinking increases burn, may reduce payload…and ultimately reduces profit-sharing and possibly pension funding.” I think it also said something about painful swelling and itchy rash but I don’t have my copy of the Mission Planning Document in front of me at the moment to refer to for verification.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Your [Local Council] Representatives have studied this Mission Planning Document at great length (well, they talked about it over beer and wings at Hooter’s), and have determined that the proper course of action is for our Astronauts to strictly adhere to Starfleet Command’s Sub-Orbital Mission Insertion Plan Profile and NOT add ANY extra “potential carbon footprint” on ANY of your sub-orbital missions. This, your representatives have determined, will meet Starfleet’s goals thus:[/FONT]
[FONT="]- It reduces the need for critical thinking—or any thinking for that matter[/FONT]
[FONT="]- It does not increase “carbon footprint” thus saving rare dinosaurs for our future generations to enjoy—It’s for the children[/FONT]
[FONT="]- It allows us to carry more rubber “carbon footprint” out of Hong Kong[/FONT]
[FONT="]- It ensures our continued reliance on Starfleet Command’s promises as opposed to real pay[/FONT]
[FONT="]- It allows Senior Starfleet Commanders to pretend for a while longer that they actually intend to pay us our “A” fund money in anything but carbon credits[/FONT]
[FONT="]And, most importantly:[/FONT]
[FONT="]- It ensures that our Senior Starfleet Commanders can continue to stuff more millions of dollars in their pockets every day, continues to “fund the future” of their special Deep Space retirement programs, and allows them bragging rights around their buddies at all the other sub-orbital space programs: “Hey, our Astronauts worker harder, ask fewer questions, and line our pockets more than your Aeronauts. And, boy, are they dumb! So there.”[/FONT]
[FONT="]So, next time you’re strapped in, all systems go, A-OK for blast-off, remember this: the few hundred pounds of fuel the company thinks you don’t need, since you have no critical thinking skills and are unable to determine such weighty (ha, ha) matters for yourself, just may be the difference between the successful completion of your mission at the correct destination (Cape Canaveral) and a divert (Edwards Air Force Base) short of where you were supposed to go. So, please, take what dispatch gives you—and only what they give you—and divert whenever you have the slightest doubt about your ability to continue to your planned destination with “comfortable” fuel. And whatever you do, remember that the Space Shuttle is supposed to land with dry tanks; we aren’t.[/FONT]
[FONT="]We’re sure things must have changed between then and now—we just can’t find any evidence of it.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Item 3: [/FONT][FONT="]Mystery manager “Bumps” Fuel to Make His Life Less “Uncomfortable”[/FONT]
[FONT="]In the category of, If We Did This, We’d Be Fired, comes this:[/FONT]
[FONT="]Several pilots have contacted us recently about the “add-fuel” habits of one of our downtown luminaries. It seems our mystery manager comes out to fly EWR trips now and then—and is in the habit of adding in the neighborhood of 10,000 pounds of fuel for his Atlantic-crossing return flights so he can fly low and fast. When queried by his crew for the reason, his answer is: I want to make an earlier flight back to Houston.[/FONT]
[FONT="]When we (just pilots) end up on the right side of a fast flight plan, we always seem to wait for our gate, spend quality time in the Ballpark, and explain to our passengers that, while we did land an hour and ten minutes early, we’re still going to deplane 45 minutes late and please see the red coats for your connecting flight information. Our mystery manager just never seems to experience the same joy the rest of us do when we arrive early. His gate is ready and his commuter flight awaits.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Just like vice presidents Erwin and Compton and their game of Shade The Truth a couple of weeks ago, this week’s Mystery Manager has never understood the concept of lead by example—and that makes him unworthy to lead at all.[/FONT]
[FONT="]
[/FONT]
