Folks, from a management perspective, this is about power!.
The Board and senior management cannot stand the current reality that a " little person" an engineer, can stop the company from flying an A380 by refusing to sign a fcuking piece of paper saying it is airworthy. I know you don't do that, but the mere possibility that the narcissistic management is not totally omnipotent in this regard makes them howl, froth at the mouth, roll on the ground and chew the carpet. I cannot overemphasize this.
The aircraft is towed into a hangar, the tyres are pumped up, the oil and filter is changed, and then the thing had better come out and fly. They don't give a fcuk if there are dead apprentices stuck in the retracted flaps, make that fcuking thing fly and be quick about it! You are regarded unfortunately as a necessary evil, to be ignored, starved and minimized, you are the boiler room stokers in the good ship Qantas, never to be seen or heard - the modern day black gang.
Your previous union management tried to hide this from you - the kept appealing to your " professionalism", as did the company. Now that thanks to SP you have grown some balls, you get to see the company in all it's nastiness. They wish to exterminate you, not because they don't need someone to change the oil, but because they cannot stand the thought that the little man in overalls has any power at all.
Management would do the same to pilots too, if they could, but the general public flies with them, sees them and demands that they be autonomous and professional. However the general public don't see the black gang, except for the bloke in overalls doing something incomprehensible under the aircraft. The only way that would ever change, in my fantasy, was if the passengers had to board an aircraft through a long plastic tube that snaked through an overhaul facility so that they could see exactly what was involved in making that aircraft clear for take off.
Approach your dealings from this perspective. Nothing you can do will mollify management, you could even work for free and it would make no difference. They want unchallenged power and will stop at nothing to get it. That is why they are destroying you as a profession.
Last edited by Sunfish; 17th Nov 2012 at 17:47.