Trouble in HK atc
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Macau
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Tea Gathering anybody?
Disgruntled Hong Kong atcos have been highly critical of their management for years. Management is generally regarded as a bunch of third class politicians although most seem to agree there are 1 or 2 decent blokes on the fourth floor. Now management has invited controllers to an informal tea party for an open discussion about the myriad of problems in ATCX. This invitation has naturally been discussed amongst controllers. The vast majority see it as just another trap - the usual: “we have to be seen to be doing something” after the recent angry exchanges of opinions between management and our dying union – soon without a president. A decade of distrust cannot be changed the way overflowing annual leave became TOIL in the blink of an eye thanks to some very creative administration.
Most controllers are still of the opinion that no matter what they say it will not make any difference whatsoever and woe betide anybody who stands up to management – just ask the ex-president of the union or the controller who recently swapped within the rules! They are both tattooed for life. The “open door policy” management claims to promulgate simply means the door is open for you to leave, but fresh ideas cannot enter! It is all a pantomime and nothing of any significance will ever happen. However, a few others are slightly hopeful claiming that Good and Evil are at war on the fourth floor and that better times may be ahead if the outcome of the situation is ideal.
Controllers and probably the press too would like to know just how it is possible that so many controllers annual leave balance exceeds 180 days if there indeed is no controller shortage?
How come a person named “N/A” still gets rostered so often?
Why are office staff and trainees called upon to work operationally so frequently if there is no manning problem?
Did anybody consider the long-term consequences now the annual leave can no longer be converted to TOIL??
What happens when even more controllers’ leave exceeds maximum? Will they simply see leave disappear into thin air or will management invent a new way of manipulating annual leave which cannot be granted?
How long can this continue before it all blows up completely?
EARLY-GO/TOIL: Why don’t you post a new thread with your drivel about late breaks? If you want to involve management remember that only anonymous complaints will be taken seriously!!!
Most controllers are still of the opinion that no matter what they say it will not make any difference whatsoever and woe betide anybody who stands up to management – just ask the ex-president of the union or the controller who recently swapped within the rules! They are both tattooed for life. The “open door policy” management claims to promulgate simply means the door is open for you to leave, but fresh ideas cannot enter! It is all a pantomime and nothing of any significance will ever happen. However, a few others are slightly hopeful claiming that Good and Evil are at war on the fourth floor and that better times may be ahead if the outcome of the situation is ideal.
Controllers and probably the press too would like to know just how it is possible that so many controllers annual leave balance exceeds 180 days if there indeed is no controller shortage?
How come a person named “N/A” still gets rostered so often?
Why are office staff and trainees called upon to work operationally so frequently if there is no manning problem?
Did anybody consider the long-term consequences now the annual leave can no longer be converted to TOIL??
What happens when even more controllers’ leave exceeds maximum? Will they simply see leave disappear into thin air or will management invent a new way of manipulating annual leave which cannot be granted?
How long can this continue before it all blows up completely?
EARLY-GO/TOIL: Why don’t you post a new thread with your drivel about late breaks? If you want to involve management remember that only anonymous complaints will be taken seriously!!!
Join Date: Jun 2008
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it is very insulting saying TOIL is posting silly stuff on this forum. there is nothing wrong to voice my view under this thread namely "trouble in hk atc". rrsuckm 
don't play webmaster. TOIL and EARLY-GO are big big big troubles in here. TOIL and EARLY-GO matters corrupt atco atfso behaviour at work. it is shameful you guys leave at 2pm while the roster saying you should leave at 3pm/4pm! why n/a on the roster, simply because we do not need that person for releasing people for early-go!! that answer your silly question.
don't play webmaster. TOIL and EARLY-GO are big big big troubles in here. TOIL and EARLY-GO matters corrupt atco atfso behaviour at work. it is shameful you guys leave at 2pm while the roster saying you should leave at 3pm/4pm! why n/a on the roster, simply because we do not need that person for releasing people for early-go!! that answer your silly question.
Join Date: Oct 2009
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Let me get this straight....
So the acronym for working when you should be able to take leave but you can't due to manning issues is "TOIL" - somebody had to be joking right?
STP
STP
Steve. This is the Hong Kong Civil Service we're talking about.
You know, brown envelopes left over from the second World War, everything in triplicate - I bet we still have carbon paper somewhere, letters that address you as "yourgoodself", office staff chastised for catching the 17:20 bus because they are paid til 17:23, a class structure that Victorian England would have been proud of, wetting of pants by the 4th floor whenever the word "Bureau" is mentioned, penny pinching in the extreme but pound foolish when it comes to most things.
What is laughable is to see their attempt to relate shift-working controllers' rosters and entitlements to the 150 year old Civil Service Regulations. Written clearly for the job of a pen pusher in the British Army in the 1800's, these archaic tomes never envisaged civil servants not working 9 to 5, 5.5 days a week, without anyone needing to cover your postion if you were sick or on leave. (sickness is probably forbidden in there somewhere!)
So we have this ridiculous system of relationship to office workers in Admiralty, who gleefully have their weekends and public holidays off, while frontline supervisors struggle with rosters full of holes. Daily manning sheets littered with "Not manned" in critical poisitions make a mockery of the roster.
There is no such thing as callout or reserve to cover sickness or leave- well there is, but they have no mechanism to pay you for it.
So, as you say, they conveniently have the ironically named TOIL as their secret weapon.
TOIL is like their version of Monopoly money - they can throw it around at a whim without upsetting the taxpayer. Any time they need you to work overtime, or come in on days off for training etc, they say "oh, but we'll give you TOIL". It's their great piggy bank of IOUs that never get paid back because the don't have the staff . And the reason they don't have the staff is they just do not understand why anyone would want to have their leave - don't you want to save it up for the next 30 years and retire early??? Great!!
Disjointed rant over. Can't be bothered any more.
You know, brown envelopes left over from the second World War, everything in triplicate - I bet we still have carbon paper somewhere, letters that address you as "yourgoodself", office staff chastised for catching the 17:20 bus because they are paid til 17:23, a class structure that Victorian England would have been proud of, wetting of pants by the 4th floor whenever the word "Bureau" is mentioned, penny pinching in the extreme but pound foolish when it comes to most things.
What is laughable is to see their attempt to relate shift-working controllers' rosters and entitlements to the 150 year old Civil Service Regulations. Written clearly for the job of a pen pusher in the British Army in the 1800's, these archaic tomes never envisaged civil servants not working 9 to 5, 5.5 days a week, without anyone needing to cover your postion if you were sick or on leave. (sickness is probably forbidden in there somewhere!)
So we have this ridiculous system of relationship to office workers in Admiralty, who gleefully have their weekends and public holidays off, while frontline supervisors struggle with rosters full of holes. Daily manning sheets littered with "Not manned" in critical poisitions make a mockery of the roster.
There is no such thing as callout or reserve to cover sickness or leave- well there is, but they have no mechanism to pay you for it.
So, as you say, they conveniently have the ironically named TOIL as their secret weapon.
TOIL is like their version of Monopoly money - they can throw it around at a whim without upsetting the taxpayer. Any time they need you to work overtime, or come in on days off for training etc, they say "oh, but we'll give you TOIL". It's their great piggy bank of IOUs that never get paid back because the don't have the staff . And the reason they don't have the staff is they just do not understand why anyone would want to have their leave - don't you want to save it up for the next 30 years and retire early??? Great!!
Disjointed rant over. Can't be bothered any more.
Join Date: Jun 2011
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Mad Hatters Tea Party
I'm late, I'm late, for a very important date!
Controllers: It would be so nice if something would make sense for a change.
Management: There's only one way to stop a MAD WATCH. I have an excellent idea, LETS CHANGE THE SUBJECT.
Here comes the Union Rep:
Off with his head!!
Would you like a little more tea?
Well, I haven't had any yet, so I can't very well take more.
Ah, you mean you can't very well take less.
Yes. You can always take more than nothing. Its a bit like TOIL.
Now then, are you ready for your sentence?
But there has to be a verdict first.
Sentence first! Verdict afterwards! Off with his head!!
What do you know about this unfortunate affair?
Nothing.
Nothing whatever?
Nothing whatever!
That's very important! Jury, write that down!
Of all the silly nonsense, this is the stupidest tea party I've ever been to in all my life.
Your Majesty, members of the jury, loyal subjects... and the King... the prisoner at the bar stands accused of enticing ADG, into a game of TOIL, thereby and with malice of forethought, molesting, tormenting, and otherwise annoying our beloved...
Never mind all that! Get to the part where ADG loses his temper.
...thereby causing ADG to lose his temper.
Someone's head IS GOING TO ROLL FOR THIS!
Rule 42: All persons higher than the 4th floor must leave the court immediately.
I am not in the Tower, and I'm not leaving.
Sorry. Rule 42, you know.
Now back to work.
This place really is quite mad.
Apologies to Charles Lutwidge Dodgson
Controllers: It would be so nice if something would make sense for a change.
Management: There's only one way to stop a MAD WATCH. I have an excellent idea, LETS CHANGE THE SUBJECT.
Here comes the Union Rep:
Off with his head!!
Would you like a little more tea?
Well, I haven't had any yet, so I can't very well take more.
Ah, you mean you can't very well take less.
Yes. You can always take more than nothing. Its a bit like TOIL.
Now then, are you ready for your sentence?
But there has to be a verdict first.
Sentence first! Verdict afterwards! Off with his head!!
What do you know about this unfortunate affair?
Nothing.
Nothing whatever?
Nothing whatever!
That's very important! Jury, write that down!
Of all the silly nonsense, this is the stupidest tea party I've ever been to in all my life.
Your Majesty, members of the jury, loyal subjects... and the King... the prisoner at the bar stands accused of enticing ADG, into a game of TOIL, thereby and with malice of forethought, molesting, tormenting, and otherwise annoying our beloved...
Never mind all that! Get to the part where ADG loses his temper.
...thereby causing ADG to lose his temper.
Someone's head IS GOING TO ROLL FOR THIS!
Rule 42: All persons higher than the 4th floor must leave the court immediately.
I am not in the Tower, and I'm not leaving.
Sorry. Rule 42, you know.
Now back to work.
This place really is quite mad.
Apologies to Charles Lutwidge Dodgson
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Ask Throw a Dyce and ex Gweillo Airlines "Pilots" about TOIL.
On the beach (TOIL-free and staying here)
Join Date: Jun 2011
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Curiouser and curiouser
The time has come, my little friends, to talk of other things / Of TOIL and rosters and vacation leave, of pak choy and DGs / And why the sea is boiling hot, and whether pigs have wigs / Calloo, Callay, come run away / With the pak choy and DGs.
But I don't want to go among mad people.
Oh, you can't help that. Most everyone's mad here.
You may have noticed that I'm not all there myself.
Time for the expats to go! Off with their heads!! 2013 all will be normal again.
But I don't want to go among mad people.
Oh, you can't help that. Most everyone's mad here.
You may have noticed that I'm not all there myself.
Time for the expats to go! Off with their heads!! 2013 all will be normal again.
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In spring, when woods are getting green, I'll try and tell you what I mean
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"
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Two mentions in dispatches..woohoo.
It's interesting to read about EGs of minutes being regarded as theft from the CAD,yet the TOIL police managed to lose 13 DAYS from my balance
.Then you are put on a punishment roster as punishment for their incompetence on their own stupid system
.
So in practice when you leave they can't be bothered unless you are hundreds in positive.
Atom bomb in the whole TOIL/Leave/Roster system.Are they still publishing 11 page rosters.
It's interesting to read about EGs of minutes being regarded as theft from the CAD,yet the TOIL police managed to lose 13 DAYS from my balance
.Then you are put on a punishment roster as punishment for their incompetence on their own stupid system.So in practice when you leave they can't be bothered unless you are hundreds in positive.
Atom bomb in the whole TOIL/Leave/Roster system.Are they still publishing 11 page rosters.
Join Date: Jun 2006
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The bad weather this week tests the system 
So many flights every days now mean the normal roster cant cover the traffic if any delays into the night
Will we be asked to work more day 9 and 10? Just when the management tell us they have plenty of staffs and have the leave situation solved. Will all the 1 days of leave off suddenly disappear? People from the office called up to help is no use when the weather is bad. They are not current.
What plan next bosses?
Yes mr dyce, still the big rosters and continuos roster change. I think it will get worse. It seems they expect to callout at short notice. Everyone turn off your phone.
So many flights every days now mean the normal roster cant cover the traffic if any delays into the night
Will we be asked to work more day 9 and 10? Just when the management tell us they have plenty of staffs and have the leave situation solved. Will all the 1 days of leave off suddenly disappear? People from the office called up to help is no use when the weather is bad. They are not current.
What plan next bosses?
Yes mr dyce, still the big rosters and continuos roster change. I think it will get worse. It seems they expect to callout at short notice. Everyone turn off your phone.
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suzie,
no need for extra colleagues.Staffing is good if no-one take early go.Tower colleagues always take early go ,particular the expat.We hearing two expat resigning and leaving soon.That is good.
no need for extra colleagues.Staffing is good if no-one take early go.Tower colleagues always take early go ,particular the expat.We hearing two expat resigning and leaving soon.That is good.
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We hearing two expat resigning and leaving soon.That is good.
STP
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I would also replace resigning with retiring.I can't think of many expats younger than 50 and most are closer to 60,or even beyond.Hey welcome back to the real world.
Also probably replacing people with all the ratings,OJTI,100's of years of experience,with a Tower only who controls by numbers.
This is good?
Also probably replacing people with all the ratings,OJTI,100's of years of experience,with a Tower only who controls by numbers.
This is good?