Nats dress code

[DC10RealMan]

This thread is directed specifically at the NATS employees at Swanwick and as one who worked at Swanwick for many years I have followed this thread with some interest and in my opinion the manner of dress of employees is a "bit of a red herring", but is or possibly was symptomatic of Swanwick and its culture.

I first went to Swanwick approximately one year prior to its opening to work in the ATC Training Section and was shocked by the culture change from the old ATC centre at West Drayton, near LHR. There were many disparaging remarks about "Those people from West Drayton" who were the operational ATC staff who were due to transfer to Swanwick when the West Drayton centre closed even though few operational staff had visited the Swanwick Centre.

In my opinion the Swanwick centre had an "office culture" which was ill-suited to the change to a 24/365 facility that it later became and manifested itself in the perception that "real people" worked in offices and the buliding and its facilities worked to that ethos, whereas the "operational resources" worked in the Operations Room. This perception resulted in the office working personnel working in the established shirts and ties whereas the "operational resources" dressed in "relaxed manner" because they did not matter anyway and attitudes became entrenched and became evident from their individual dress code.

I would also make the observation that this culture is not unique to Swanwick or NATS and I remember taking a friend of mine who was a British Airways training Captain to Swanwick for a visit. My friend had spent many hours with me on duty both at LHR and West Drayton and found the whole experience facinating, however after about one hour at Swanwick he asked to leave and even I could sense that he felt uncomfortable.
We had lunch at the Jolly Sailor and he confided that his experience at Swanwick was identical to his experiences at the new BA HQ at Waterside under the then Chairman Robert Ayling where real people worked at Waterside and then there were the "troublesome wasters" over at the airport who flew and operated aeroplanes and in my friends opinion at that time the airline "lost the plot"

I left Swanwick four years ago and my observations may not be valid anymore, but I would suggest that the dress code issue is more to do with individual, group, or corporate identity than whether one wears a tie or not.