Originally Posted by
Mr Proach
Quote: "......... please don’t think that pilots are a special group of employees who demand more respect than others. Respect is earned!"
So in your view you think an accountant/financial controller or some so titled "accountable manger" has the same level of responsibility and is monitored to same degree as a pilot?
Pilots "earn respect" by virtue of what they do every time they perform a flight which is infinitely more times than a fancy mouth HR/Manager who know how to fool an unknowing audience into believing that hey are instrumental to the integrity and safety practices of an aviation organisation. These are the same group of people that regularly engage in the organisational abuse, intimidation and victimisation of pilots. These people know that it is very easy to get away with these appalling practices because they know how to obfuscate the truth behind a labyrinth of manuals also knowing there won't be any extensive probing from the authorities because they can easily dismiss them at any time of their choosing. This is poles apart from a pilot who in this day and age will be investigated for any minor deviation (including non-safety related matters) let alone for a more significant event after which he/she will investigated to the nth degree by a panel of people who like said managers wouldn't have the remotest idea of what it takes to handle an emergency whilst trying to control a complex piece of machinery in a three dimensional environment.
And are all the participants who work in an aviation organisation monitored by recording devices? (ANSWER = NO) Will these people ever have to make to spilt second decisions under extremely traumatic conditions? (ANSWER = NO) Do these people have to operate under the weight of more than a million pages of complex rules and regulations all of which ensure the pilot will bear the ultimate responsibility? (ANSWER = NO). Are pilots remunerated commensurate for the accountability and legal responsibility they incur every time they step foot in a aircraft? (ANSWER = NO).
This only skims the surface of the burden that is placed upon a pilot throughout the execution of his/her duties, so does a pilot deserve more respect for their role & responsibilities within an aviation organisation? (ANSWER = IF NO, then remove all the rules, regulations and manuals that are binding on a pilot and remove all the recording devices that monitor a pilot's actions and reduce the degree of scrutiny that pilots are subjected to, otherwise, the ANSWER = YES)
Very thorough response, the only thing I'd just mention (I know you said are all monitored = NO but.......) some other safety sensitive areas are monitored such as Load Control. All conversations recorded and every single keystroke is recorded and accessible after the fact meaning that an error which might be a typo may not be dealt with that way by one of the glorified HR people you allude to.
However, while Load Controllers can make a mistake that can potentially break something or cause an accident, in airlines at least there are several other people involved in the chain that provide an opportunity for errors to be picked up beforehand. Load Controllers don't do their work at 40,000 feet in a potentially hostile environment either so that's something they don't have to contend with that a Pilot does.
What used to get right up my nose was not just these facile 'People Team' or 'HR' 'Consultants' that didn't know anything, but those that would pick up a phrase here or there and pretend they're an expert as if it would fool anyone.
Mind you, Pilots are people too and are subject to all the behavioural variations that apply to everyone else. I remember distinctly being verbally attacked by not just a Pilot, but a senior management pilot (not the CP, but a Deputy) who came into my office ranting and raving like a lunatic accusing me of something I never said or overreacting in a way that would rival that tennis player from the 70s (name escapes me).
It was SO EXTREME I had to yell at him to get him to shut the hell up for a nano-second so I could get a word in edgewise.
I have to admit, I walked away from that exchange thinking "Jesus, and they let you fly a machine with 100s of people's lives at stake".
Isolated incident I know but it just shows that while some jobs seem to attract narcissists (HR), there are also other jobs that have narcissists in their ranks.