D1C
You say " ..... when staff do ask for upgrades most people find that very cheeky and as such do not go out of the way to help that person!!!"
This is the part I genuinely don't understand. Why is it that you think someone in the company who if there any upgrades going, and if so can he/she have one of them, is cheeky?
Giving a colleague an upgrade costs YOU nothing and, especially where some pax are going to be upgraded for commercial reasons anyway, doesn't even cost the company anything.
If I'm told that the aircraft is full, and a fellow employee has ASKED if I'll allow him/her to sit in the jump-seat for the flight, I'll say yes. If there are truly exceptional circumstances which prevent me, I pass on an apology and brief explanation.
Using your reasoning, I should regard the fact that they've used a bit of iniative as cheeky, refuse because they asked, and take someone who hasn't asked.
That is the equivalent of what you said in your first post, although toned down a bit to "not going out of your way to help" (whatever that means) in your second post.
Whether having a seat at all is as much of a privilege as you make out, or a benefit which comes legitimately as part of the job is a separate issue. But, may be the key to the problem. Much of the problem is that those ground staff who share your view (thankfully the minority in my experience) seems to get rather too much pleasure from the one bit of power they have.
[This message has been edited by enntwo (edited 10 January 2001).]