Ferris,
Things may be bad but I doubt they could be worse than:
- an organisation that lies through its teeth about being fully staffed (and has everyone believe it) while the controllers get worked harder every day because there can be no public acknowledgement (TIBA, NOTAM, etc) of the reality;
- an organisation that has just determined the 'safest' operations mode is for single person night shifts with three different managers (including one who hasn't been a controller and has no idea about what we do but is responsible for resourcing, ie bonus paid for cutting resources as much as possible!) having to sign off on any increase to that;
- an organisation that is using 'light traffic' ratings to allow its much prized reorganisation to go ahead (even though stats show the sector they were going to do this for had more traffic during the night than the sector they were going to bolt it onto!)...
All these things happen with a SMS and NOONE is held responsible! Could it really be any worse in the sandpit?