Anotherthing,
I don't think I did miss the point of the post. I agree that even I have nearly choked on reading some VNs for strange posts that you wonder what they are for.
But from reading posts in this thread, it seems to me that a number of unit personnel come to CTC and see a lot of people that do not appear to be directly contributing to NATS income generation in the same way operations personnel do. The fact is that CTC has become one very large non-ops campus due to closures of West Drayton, Kemble Street and Spectrum House, not to mention moving a lot of non-ops employees out of Swanwick. So to the visiting unit personnel I could understand that it may seem like a big bunch of office types serving no purpose - but the total number is far less than when I joined NATS 10 years ago when personnel were scattered at a number of sites, each with own HR, accountants, security, adminstrators, managers, site engineers, safety managers, QA, etc, etc, etc.
Yes there are a lot of people at CTC that aren't in front of a radar screens, but the vast majority (i agree not all) are as important to NATS income generation as any operational personnel.
My apologies if this is coming across as a bit of a rant, but I read so much non-ops, engineer and CTC bashing on here I'm starting to lose my rag - which I don't want to do as i directly support operations.
