The Latest Drivel
 

Anyone seen the latest drivel ??

An article in Saturday's (6 Nov) Grauniad (I think).

I am just wondering whether or not it's a joke - can't be I suppose, it's certainly not funny !

Sorry I can't find a link to it, but I have certainly approached my GATCO rep to complain about it.

Kinda makes you wonder what's next !!

:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

No, not seen it. Give us a clue... :confused: :confused:

Got any links for it?

Tried to find the article concerned but 'Indy' site about as good as you'd expect.

Suspect this could be the new man putting a shot across the bows of the TU's pre pay-round: 'Don't go asking for too much or you may find yourselves being paid in Euros'!

Cynical! Moi?

Rgds

T3

Sorry - but I thought this concerned the article in the Independent on Saturday 6th November about NATS being at risk of take over by the Germans or French if it doesn't get its act together. My apologies...

Well, he really did say it. Its part of the 21 (?) things that they will achieve.. or they might be destinations.. or something.....

But anyway, apparently this really is a target

Chips

It's good to be concerned that performance related pay might make is drive more planes through our airspace, after all, we don't really try at the moment do we !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
what a load of old crap.

That'll make it safer then.......................:hmm: :hmm: :hmm:

'Indy' website now working again:

http://www.news.independent.co.uk/bu...p?story=580037

Oh my God!

Talk about 70s style management technique. At least they don't mention KPIs (Key Performance Indicators), Mission Statements, etc.

Is Paul Barron really that obtuse that he thinks that "performance-based pay" for ATC management or ATCs will work. What a BURKE!

How about a Safety Management System to reduce ATC related incidents? Not a word!

What about a modern state of the art, integrated ATM system to cope with growing passenger and aircraft traffic. Not a word!

What about working with the airlines to target competitve scheduling and reduce congestion at major hubs? Not a word!

Don't worry guys, you're not Robinson Cruscoe here. This sort of management speak is uttered in other countries as well. Happens when accountants try to run public utilities like a profit makiang venture.

So when he joined morale was at an all time low and the company was run shoddily, eh?

He (according to the article) states that NATS was in a terrible state and that it will change, the inference I picked up (amongst others) is that we ran an unsafe operation.

Is there any wonder morale is low when management come out with this type of drivel?

The safety record is continually improving, with the traffic figures rising and delays dropping - what more can us mere mortals at the coalface do?

How can he say that he will eliminate ALL safety issues in the future? How can you say that when at the end of the day, human factors come in to play - all it takes is to forget an A/C or get distracted for a few seconds and you have a 'situation' which although not life threatening, would count as a safety issue. Does he REALLY understand the business he is in?

Performance related pay - is that not what banding is then?? And bonuses for traffic managers; would we end up in a situation where more traffic was foisted on us to increase someone elses salary?

Barron claims that the management used to be invisible and unresponsive - if this is his idea of reversing the management exposure, surely he should wait until he has something worthwhile and sensible to say.

Also, O'Leary reckons we are p***ing taxpayers money into the wind?? Does he want us to run our business in the manner that he does?? Does he even know what goes on at a busy ATC unit?? Does he realise that if we operated like his company, there would be a hell of a lot more delays in the long run due to the massive increase in safety issues.

When are we going to get supportive management who knows the ATC industry?

I appreciate that the report may have the writers spin put on it, but if so, why does NATS not come out and clarify exactly what was meant by any statements attributed to NATS staff?

Perhaps any controller who thinks they might cough or sneeze, or heaven forbid have to ask a pilot to repeat something, should stay at home in case they inadvertently wipe out the 6 seconds improvement in reduced delays he's after.
But at least we'll feel a little easier at work knowing there won't be any NATS attributable risk bearing incidents....
perhaps we'll all be working for someone else??

Perhaps we should e-mail the red barron and ask for some clarification on these matters, form what I remember of his personal briefings (apart from all the what I did at Alstrom) he said that he would read all e-mails sent to him by the workers and reply to them individually.

As for the 3 year plan, laugh, I nearly took up origami :\ :\ :\

caniplay.......
 

ref your post, there is no "r" in Alstom.
All the ars'es in Alstrom have been moved to NATS.
Seriously though...if we were so bad in the recent past pre-Barron era I shall expect to see a considerable change in what is currently a jobs-for-life management culture.
Watch this space......sorry "airspace".
I hope we can become as efficient as the rail industry...[thinking now ...Oh dear .....poor choice of words....must think of a positive example that doesn't require 672 job cuts.....aaah....got one], and I know how lucky and indeed fortunate we are to have acquired temporary staff with the expertise needed to persuade Government to write-off NATS' debts. I knew that there must be a reason why I couldn't find vacancy notices or job advertisements for a selection of recently-filled top posts...but I didn't check foreign sites.

I've never been shown how the e-mail system works at the blip factory so won't...in fact can't...e-mail the Barron. Asked about it yesterday and apparently I do have an "account" or something, which contains 2754 un-read messages. You see I'm just a controller, I go to work, control aeroplanes, and go home.....and beyond that the company has no interest in me whatsoever.
Thank Goodness for easy-to-use Pprune....God Bless to you all!

A man after my own heart !! :ok:

But I would change the wording slightly... .... "and beyond that the company has no interest to me whatsoever"

Especially not now that we have people "in charge" who obviously don't have a clue what safety is all about !!

Thank goodness I don't have that many years to go !!

:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

motivation
 

Correct me if I'm wrong. operational staff does not need to be motivated to do their job as required, that's what they're in this business for in the first place.

ATS providers however should start realising that operational staff DO need to be motivated to do the job for them. Ther are more options these days where this magnificent job can be executed.

From the Grauniad:

"When I arrived at the business, everyone was beaten up - as if they'd been through a trial," he (Red Barron) said. "Employees felt the management were invisible and uncommunicative and they didn't know where the business was going."

Actually, I think most people had considereble respect for his predecessor, Richard Everett, who came across as a normal decent man who did not insult the staff thus or their intelligence with such baldercrap as destinations, exciting journeys, paper darts etc.


"Flights across Britain are delayed by an average of 31 seconds due to air traffic congestion. Mr Barron wants to bring this down to 25 seconds".

How exactly (safely)? ...and will anyone notice?

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
.. would we end up in a situation where more traffic was foisted on us to increase someone elses salary?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I was of the impression that this was the case already. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Ahh, now, 2 sheds having gone to on eof these briefings yesterday, I can proudly announce, straight from the Red Baron himslef, the answer to your questions...

Now, don't leap to conclusions, don't think that I went but didn't listen. I did listen... and the two phrases that Mr Barron used most were "inspire you" and "I don't know". Honestly! He and some other bloke (not even our GM was sure who the other bloke was) showed us their "vision" of NATS in 2007. When asked how he intended to achieve these "visions" he basically replied with the words "I don't know"

My dear Mr Barron (its ok, when asked about PPRuNe, he had no idea what it was, but apparently isn't very good with email and stuff anyway) how do you expect to motivate, sorry "inspire" your staff when you don't know how to achieve these "visions".

If you haven't been to a briefing. Don't bother. A slick video of these "visions" accompanied by an Ella Fitzgerald track ("its a new dawn, its a new day... and I'm feeling fine"). A little hint to our corporate chums... if you want to inspire, use an upbeat piece of music.....

If you are not sure how good these "visions" are, its ok, the next video is of the board saying how wonderful the presentation was. Actually, I lie.. do go. The comedy moments are Ian Hall saying he doesn't know how we will achieve the operatonal "visions"... and Bill Semple "Goverment Representative" (remember him???) saying that this "vision" was of a NATS we all have dreamed of. So Bill.. why didn't YOU make it happen???

Chips
Not inspired

U. S. "FLIGHT PLAN"
 

In the U.S., we don't have a Vision, we have a Flight Plan. This was reviewed by the Administrator earlier this week and, guess what, we're well on our way to achieving all our goals! It's heartening to see what good government can accomplish.

Number One, of course, is accident prevention. As luck would have it, there haven't been many deaths due ot plane wrecks this past year. Mission accomplished!

In my view, however, the FAA policies had little to do with the low accident rate, and I predict that there will be aircraft accidents in the future - lots of them, unfortunatly - and then who is going to accept the blame? Will the Administrator stand before us next year and say that whatever accidents occured were the result of poor FAA policies? I kinda doubt it.

Two of the prime functions of government, no matter which country, are:

1) patting themselves on the back for past accomplishments that only they can see, and,

2) presenting a "vision" of the future that even they know is - the theme of this thread - merely the latest drivel.


ATC 24/7

Yeah, I read that.

At last I'm one of the controllers who can make a difference, as I turn up every day with my mind only half on the job, and don't really worry about delays, couldn't care less about giving a good service, and as far as I'm concerned safety can go hang, so long as I get paid at the end of every month.

Maybe if they introduce PRP I might bother my ar5e to actually do my job and be dilligent.:mad:

Is this what they think we're like?

Obviously it is !!

Obviously this dimwit has no conception whatsoever of who his staff are and what makes them tick !!

And I wonder if he can even spell safety ???? :* :* :* :* :* :*

Oh Mr Chips! Tut tut. You obviously were not paying attention during the gala performance. 'Twas not Ella Fitzgerald but Nina Simone we were advised. Go away and write out 100 times "I have an exciting vision of Nina Simone".

Well the briefing inspired me. I spent the entire time thinking of an ending for the phrase ' just imagine.......' which seemed to spend a lot of time floating around the video.

How about ' just imagine we had some effective management.'

Any other offers?:hmm:

With the exciting destination of no airproxes, (not to mention peace on Earth and the end of world famine), in view of the alleged airprox today (3 miles?!) with Prinny Anne, can we expect Barrow Boy to be falling on his sword?

Gosh 2 sheds you really need to get to one of these exciting presentations

If we fail to meet the visions, well then we, err.. have some more visions. If we fail, the red Baron will not quit.. he said so.

So, to recap.. the Red Baron had a vision... has no idea how to achieve the vision,and if he doesn't achieve the vision.. it doesn't greatly matter

and I got the singer wrong. It was still a funeral dirge though!

Remember - we don't know what to do, and we don't actually have to do anything.. that will be my new mantra in the office (very much like my old one)

:E

Charles Manson had a vision, didn't he ??

:E :E :E :E :E :E

Do management really think sector drivers and Tower parking attendants (:p) need motivation to do their jobs? Is it a lack of motivation that causes low morale? I don't think so.

...Jasper Carrott ...
 

is it just me or has anyone else noticed a stunning resemblance to the Red Baron in the New Dawn video ... ?

:E

Anyway, it seems to me that in the old days there were 2 NATS.

1 - full of fancy boards, 9-5, visions, yukspeak and mutual back patting

2 - those who actually do the job 24/7 and only ask for some respect and the tools to do it properly

..... in the new NATS ...... we have ....err....... 2 NATS ..... it's just that some of the tools are now in charge .......

In the words of the prophet ........ imagine ....... a .......

Pile of Pish

Is it true?
 

Is our new glorious management team actually handing out paper planes and NATS baseball caps?

I havn't seen any up here in the frozen North yet.


:yuk:

Now I know where at least one of the "exciting destinations" is. The vision of "expanding the business" is already bearing fruit, admittedly in a small way. However, great oaks from little acorns grow - or perhaps someone is simply going back to a business they really do understand.

Any re-arrangement of the words "off-licence", "organise", "p1ss-up", "couldn't", "in a", will be frowned upon.

Bern's piccies

Bern,


It takes a whole lot longer than 3 years to get a great oak out of an acorn :p :p

Perhaps the "flight time" to these exciting destinations would be more realistic over a similar time frame.

Haven't you read the small print?????
Seperation is going to be reduced to 100ft vertically and horizontally, et voila, No more airmisses!!

;) ;) ;)