NN,
Waterworld does still have a river in its head-office, and I've no doubt that feng-shui consultants were brought in to advise on the supermarket's location. However...
That was all many years ago, when Waterside was first built. In the days BA made profits, the staff were proud to wear the uniform and BA was the one offering its consultants to Olympic - because BA knew how to make money. Let me assure you, they're not there any more and haven't been for many years.
These days the whole aviation environment is very different. I'm not denying that there is probably too much middle management, too much interfering and poor TU relationships, but on the opposite side there are still large number of people who work at BA who are unwilling to change their working practices and still want to carry on in the same way.
That's not to say that BA should be able to do what it likes, just that change must occur within BA for it to survive and whatever department you work in, from HR to IM to Enginerring, staff are most reluctant to change. On some occasions I would agree they are right to resist, but the fact still remains that as a company, BA staff are still very slow to change.
Every time news about Concorde FE's or Engineers or Check-in staff (or in previous years CC and IM staff) proposing to strike comes out, it must be music to the ears of BA's competitors. For those of us left within the firm who aren't striking, it just makes the future recovery all the harder. We have mouths to feed and mortgages to pay too you know!