Now the totally out of touch local management with Bristow have issued an eat-before-reading memo saying that expat staff should get their girlfriends or wives to send them out money for their chop with Western Union, or open accounts with Citibank or brandish large wads of cash at the Bureau de Change at Lagos when they arrive. Great thinking in the present security situation
I can just see it now on the morning convoy from Darrel's to QIT. The Bristow bus suddenly pulls out of the armed convoy and drives onto the forecourt of Citibank. Mopol vehicles block off the road and the Mopol wondering what's happening panic, some dropping their weapons and running away as they take off their uniform shirts, while others blindly fire into the air, the bush and the bank . The convoy commander reports that the convoy is under heavy attack by a group of armed militants who were trying to rob the bank and JTF immediately send an armed response team which arrives sometime later in the afternoon . Two pregnant women in the crowd are injured and rioting erupts on the street with one driver being beheaded. The convoy eventually starts on its way to QIT, but community unrest has now spread so widely that the gates of QIT are besieged by an angry mob with the driver's head impaled on a stake. It's decided to evacuate all Bristow staff to the MGH helipad by helicopter and that they will stay there for the next few days. As they are fed there by XOM they now have no need of their allowances anyway. The rioting is eventually brought under control after 3 days, during which time Darrel's is razed to the ground. A huge increase of telephone calls to the whistleblower hotline results in the Chief Pilot and Chief Engineer being sacked by the compliance officer and a committee is set up by the HRM in Lagos to look into the cause of the trouble and exonerate him
What do you think NEO? Have you opened your Citibank account yet?
Oh how I wish to think you are pulling a leg here.....even Bristow Management (such as it is) could not possibly send such a memo....could they?
It should make folks shudder to think that as cynical as I am about the HR madness that causes such agony for the hired help, that I cannot force myself to think this one huge prank you are pulling off.
Deep in one's heart there is a bit of hope that HR people are not that stupid but unfortunately....the rest of the soul knows better.
flungdung,
Is actually a miserly 3% rise overall. Is Bristow in the North Sea who have a 5.7% rise. Many peoples have left this year and despite what is said there is always only just enough pilots, so any sickness etc, is a big struggle to keep things going. However, ADA, I don't think so
Flungdung is right, the only way to sort any of this mess out is to go to the bar Drink Star Gulder is really antifreeze
Nigeria or the Gulf, same hole only the depth may vary
As I said in my last post, I won't be returning. I am however, under no misapprehension that the management will be filling their pants at the loss of my talents. I am sure there will be some willing victim to take my place ,briefly .
After all the management only thinks as far ahead as the next bonus. The future of the company (beyond next bonus) is of no interest.
Why plan ahead when your interests are best served in short term thinking. This method tends to suit their mental capacities anyway.
The sad thing is, these were once people who cared about the future and were respected for it. (Sasless will not agree).
Beyond not knowing to whom you refer within "management" that cared then but not now....and thus being able to confirm that statement....the rest of what you say is absolutely true.
Our Japanese friends view business in "long term" vice the American way of the next quarterly report mindset. As our automobile factories close and go overseas (think Mexico) the folks at Toyota are building plants in the USA.
As Toyota (and other foreign car makers) take over the American automobile industry our folks in Detroit wring their hands and face bankruptcy knowing the good ol' US Guvmint will bail their sorry asses out if need be.
Maggie Thatcher knew the evils of government run/subsidized business....I just wish her wisdom could have rubbed off on us.
Now the totally out of touch local management with Bristow have issued an eat-before-reading memo saying that expat staff should get their girlfriends or wives to send them out money for their chop with Western Union, or open accounts with Citibank or brandish large wads of cash at the Bureau de Change at Lagos when they arrive.
What is the problem with this very fine and eloquent suggestion - do you expect Humane Resources to go to the bank on your behalf every month and deliver the money to you on a plate?
I have heard about this Pruning at many meetings with my other Managers and at fust did not understand. Now I realised that Pruning is one of my greatest accomplashmints just ask the ex drivers and housing staffs maybe you will be next....
I now realise that there is a serious leakingness or maybe even a Mule as John Le Curry the famous spy author called them in our Centre of Excellence Heads Quarters but we will burn that bridge when we come to it.
When I write detailed memorandums to those minor managing people in the fields of Eket and Calabar and other places and warn them of the dire consequences of passing on informations in writing to the lower Staffs like Pilots and mechanical men but they obviously don't listen. Is my message at the bottom of my mails not clear like crystals?
Be warned - I am now monitoring your whining and subversive behavious!
Regards
F.C.
Please do not place this mail on the notice boards and do not make photocopies or distribute to employees. Just pass on the info to employees - thanks
Last edited by Foamy Coolings : 28th August 2008 at 12:13.
Reason: add space
Let me swim against the current here. I've been with Bristows for some time, all those years without fail I had my salary in my account at the end of the month, if there is another 4.5% added to it, I'll take it. They allow me to fly only as many hours as precribed by the doctor/NCAA, they will ground the a/c if anything is wrong with it or I am telling them that I'm not happy with this or that, no pressure at all from above, wonderful bunch of engineers to look after me, at the end of the day I retire to my airconditioned mansion to chill out, LG: Life is good.
Archos - fully agree with everything you say which makes it even more infuriating when the Foamy Coolings' of this World come along and in a manner akin to the Gestapo and SS proceed "on orders" to go out of their way to screw up something that wasn't broken.
Whenever someone says to me "The Company did this" or "The Company did that" - I always ask which person in the "Company" they are referring to. People make changes - not inanimate "Companies"
As a lifelong avoider of Unions, I can't help but feel sometimes that there are occasions when a united voice is the only way to beat this sort of crap. It has worked in the North Sea and it could work here too if not hijacked by the looney PC Brigade.
Have to agree with most of what you say. The pay does always go in on time, and though the rise is only on basic salary, the strengthening dollar will provide a useful extra bonus (and the rate is forecast to fall to £1=$1.75 by year's end). Fluctuating currency exchange rates is something one has to learn to live with if one is employed by a foreign company and not paid in one's home currency.
But Trogs, I most have to agree with your comment about not fixing something if it isn't broken. Somebody has made a decision which has upset a lot of people and that I believe will have repercussions further down the line for those of us remaining. However, unlike heliminger, I'll be back even though I'm unhappy about some of the changes in our new pay review - and I'm one of the few who is still in Nigeria for 10 months a year!
There is no such thing as the perfect employer though, like many, I enjoyed most of my time with Schreiner. Alas they are now gone and Bristow, warts and all is still one of the better employers around.
Last edited by soggyboxers : 28th August 2008 at 20:24.
Reason: addition of data
Fluctuating currency exchange rates is something one has to learn to live with if one is employed by a foreign company and not paid in one's home currency.
Soggy - how right and occasionally in our favour.
Back in the old days in Bristow Kuala Trengannu we used to receive 100% of our salary and allowances paid in Malaysian Ringgit into personal accounts at Standard Chartered Bank (almost always on time)
The Pound Sterling was on a roll and every month we found more and more Malay Dollars waiting for us - wundahfull!
Some Senior Payroll Clerk (HR wasn't yet invented) thought "wait O!" - I can save the Company a few quid here so they fixed the exchange rate at 5.94 Malay to 1 pound even though the extant rate was over 6:1 and rising.
"Your salary is now going to be the same every month so stop whingeing" they told us.
Almost immediately the mighty Pound began plunging and within months was down to 1 Pound equalled less than 4 Malay Dollars.
Scenario -
1000 pounds at 5.94 arrives in Bank = 5940 ringgit
send 4000 ringgit home = 1000 pounds
Proceed to bar with 1940 "free" ringgit
Even more wundahfull!
The present Pound vs. Dollar deal looks set to head the same way albeit on a smaller scale.
Israeli envoy declares Rivers safe just before Israeli Kidnapped
At a reception in Rivers State Government House last Tuesday evening the Israeli envoy made the following speech:
Quote:
Rivers is safe - Israeli envoy
Bolaji Ogundele, Port Harcourt - 28.08.2008
THE security situation in Rivers State is not as terrifying as being reported in the media, the Israeli Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr. Moshe Ram, has said after a two-day stay in the state.
He commended the state governor, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi, for his focus on improving the economy of the state, saying Israel was interested in partnering with the state on development.
Ram, who was hosted to a dinner at the Government House, Port Harcourt, on Tuesday, likened the security situation in Israel to that of Rivers, saying anyone who relied on media report in judging places could get confused.
He said there was peace in the state, but added that security was one area where the state and his country could collaborate.
“I think Rivers State is taking good care of itself. Just like I said at the dinner, the picture that is being painted in the newspapers about what is happening here is different from what I have experienced in the two days I have been here.
“Of course, there is a possibility of exchanging of views and sharing ideas and since we have someone who is in the security business in our mission, he will make contacts and see how we can help on security network,” he said.
He said his team had talks with the state government and the private sector on areas of business where collaboration could be forged, adding that the visit was a preliminary move on the way forward.
It was on his way home from that dinner that Israeli businessman Ehud Avni was kidnapped
Now MEND say they know the whereabouts of Mr Avni but have withdrawn a previous offer to help free him until Israel National News (Arutz Sheva) rescinds its description of MEND as a terrorist group and offer an apology in the next publication. MEND say, "If the founding fathers of Israel were not described as terrorists when they fought to liberate their people and bring hope and a future from the concentration camps, then we take very strong objections to that description for fighting to emancipate the Niger Delta from five decades of injustice and neglect".
Whatever the truth behind all this may be, I hope Mr Avni is released unharmed soon.
Air Logistics, a Bristow company, has sold off most of all their small ships, and two hundred pilots are at risk of losing their jobs as a result. The company wishes to retain them and most wish to stay with Air Log.
More than a few are looking towards Nigeria as a way of doing that.
So...ya'll malcontents run on in and drop of your notice papers....and make room for the latest roundup of new faces.
That was announced quite a while back and it also announced that many of them are being replaced by new twins. The market in Nigeria for single engine qualified pilots is pretty limited and likely to become more so when the singles in Escravos are also phased out. The other problem for FAA licensed pilots in Nigeria is that the NCAA won't recognise a type rating unless the pilot has done an approved or factory course as there are no type ratings on an FAA licence. Many of the pilots there have only CPLs, which would only qualify them to fly as co-pilots on twins in Nigeria and that possibility is soon likely to be phased out as more national pilots arrive fresh from training in SA and USA. If a pilot hasn't flown a twin before he's also now required to do an MCC rating and a twin upgrade course. Many of the single pilots in the GOM also have no IR, so I don't think it's by any means as simple as you think. When was anything in Nigeria ever easy
Location: Still on some west coast...but a bit further south
Age: 38
Posts: 512
The licensing thingy in this "wonderful" country
Firstly, all this crap is an extortion scheme on the highest level. An FAA license is an ICAO recognized license, AND THAT IS IT. I have applied for a Nigerian license last year and FU.K ALL has been achieved. Furthermore, the guys at National Co.k Addicts Authority should pull their heads out of the rear and start acting as professionals as such. Until then I would suggest they should all take a freakin hike...which of course will not happen. This swamp of corruption and illcontent. PFFFF
Location: Still on some west coast...but a bit further south
Age: 38
Posts: 512
Foamy Coolings
Foamy Coolings aka F.C.?!? By the way the initials are a striking coincidence of that dope sniffer sitting in Lagos who hides behind various emails and never takes responsibilty for anything
Reuters is reporting that an Israeli embassy source in Abuja said that gunmen holding the kidnapped Israeli are demanding $12 million for his release. They have not given a deadline for payment of the ransom.
The exodus hasn't happened yet. I guess the review, disappointing as it is still keeps Bristow as a better option than ADA or Gulf. Quality of life notwithstanding people still get on the plane and come back.
. The convoy commander reports that the convoy is under heavy attack by a group of armed militants who were trying to rob the bank and JTF immediately send an armed response team which arrives sometime later in the afternoon 
. Two pregnant women in the crowd are injured and rioting erupts on the street with one driver being beheaded. The convoy eventually starts on its way to QIT, but community unrest has now spread so widely that the gates of QIT are besieged by an angry mob with the driver's head impaled on a stake. It's decided to evacuate all Bristow staff to the MGH helipad by helicopter and that they will stay there for the next few days. As they are fed there by XOM they now have no need of their allowances anyway. The rioting is eventually brought under control after 3 days, during which time Darrel's is razed to the ground. A huge increase of telephone calls to the whistleblower hotline results in the Chief Pilot and Chief Engineer being sacked by the compliance officer and a committee is set up by the HRM in Lagos to look into the cause of the trouble and exonerate him 
Drink Star
Gulder is really antifreeze
Israeli envoy declares Rivers safe just before Israeli Kidnapped
Linear Mode
