The events at midway have demonstrated that It’s inexcusably negligent how unprepared management is with their lack of response to COVID-19. The president declared a state of emergency days ago. CDC is recommending people stay away from one another and telework if they can, airlines are cutting flights left and right, putting planes into long term storage, the Academy sent everyone home but management is STILL concerned about getting everyone their hours under the NTI and they still have the support people still showing up everyday, like everything is just fine, business as usual. Self isolation as a precursor to enforced quarantine doesn’t work when you have non essential people floating around. According to sources, other towers are still having tours and having the window cleaners and such come in.
Meanwhile, At RIX in Latvia everyone at the tower is on lockdown. Only the minimum amount of controllers in operational areas. Even their tech ops people need to be specially cleared into operational areas, everyone else is at home, where they should be. They take it serious, recognizing that minimizing everyone single bit of exposure helps, and that normal ops are over and done with for now. They aren’t afraid to break the mold of normal ops. We shouldn’t be either. Controllers do great stuff in crisis, look at Houston tracon with the floods and hurricanes stuff. We should be operating with this life/death bare minimum mentality. I for one would gladly do long hours on combined positions to keep away from others, but still keep it all running. I’m sure others would too.
I can’t believe that management is that stupid, to believe that having hand sanitizer around will make it just fine. It’s not stupidity, it’s that they are scared. They want good performance reviews from their bosses, so they are afraid to rock the boat. None of them are willing to open themselves up by suggesting we take a critical look at what we’re doing. Training is a joke as it is, with the academy closed UFA I can’t imagine a new tower cert will end up at RTF until 2021. But they gotta make the numbers look good so they can get a pat on the head from their boss, and make their boss look good to the district. They were low key telling us to use LWOP if we were sick or exposed and didn’t have sick leave to cover a month away, until the guidance came out. They would risk exposing everyone if a person didn’t take LWOP if they lacked leave and came in rather than have to explain to their bosses why they would be granting so much admin leave. Clearly its in the best interest of the facility to have any potential person kept away and to make it as easy as possible for a person to do so, vs having someone risk everyone by coming in when they might be exposed Bc they can’t afford to take LWOP. But nope, can’t have that!
I didn’t want to believe it, but it’s true, in this profession only the shit floats to the top. The NAS is a national security asset and the integrity of the operation needs to be protected but we have people running it who have no clue what they are doing and are too damn scared to speak up, because they want a raise at the end of the year. People get fired for far less in the private sector, but no one in charge will face any consequences for their failure to plan for an obvious incipient threat, despite ample time and all the resources they had. They just care about their metrics and making the person above them happy at all costs. Am I wrong?
Meanwhile, At RIX in Latvia everyone at the tower is on lockdown. Only the minimum amount of controllers in operational areas. Even their tech ops people need to be specially cleared into operational areas, everyone else is at home, where they should be. They take it serious, recognizing that minimizing everyone single bit of exposure helps, and that normal ops are over and done with for now. They aren’t afraid to break the mold of normal ops. We shouldn’t be either. Controllers do great stuff in crisis, look at Houston tracon with the floods and hurricanes stuff. We should be operating with this life/death bare minimum mentality. I for one would gladly do long hours on combined positions to keep away from others, but still keep it all running. I’m sure others would too.
I can’t believe that management is that stupid, to believe that having hand sanitizer around will make it just fine. It’s not stupidity, it’s that they are scared. They want good performance reviews from their bosses, so they are afraid to rock the boat. None of them are willing to open themselves up by suggesting we take a critical look at what we’re doing. Training is a joke as it is, with the academy closed UFA I can’t imagine a new tower cert will end up at RTF until 2021. But they gotta make the numbers look good so they can get a pat on the head from their boss, and make their boss look good to the district. They were low key telling us to use LWOP if we were sick or exposed and didn’t have sick leave to cover a month away, until the guidance came out. They would risk exposing everyone if a person didn’t take LWOP if they lacked leave and came in rather than have to explain to their bosses why they would be granting so much admin leave. Clearly its in the best interest of the facility to have any potential person kept away and to make it as easy as possible for a person to do so, vs having someone risk everyone by coming in when they might be exposed Bc they can’t afford to take LWOP. But nope, can’t have that!
I didn’t want to believe it, but it’s true, in this profession only the shit floats to the top. The NAS is a national security asset and the integrity of the operation needs to be protected but we have people running it who have no clue what they are doing and are too damn scared to speak up, because they want a raise at the end of the year. People get fired for far less in the private sector, but no one in charge will face any consequences for their failure to plan for an obvious incipient threat, despite ample time and all the resources they had. They just care about their metrics and making the person above them happy at all costs. Am I wrong?
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