What's New In W. Africa (Nigeria)

[Dangagan]

Bristows Obama

If Obama were a Staff of Bristow Nigeria, he may not even have been allowed to be a Community Organiser. Who knows how many Obamas are constantly bypassed in Bristow Nigeria, because they are Locals?

[Nigerian Expat Outlaw]

Dangagan,

Obama would never work for Bristow, he couldn't afford to live on the pay. I don't suppose he'll pay for coffee in the White House either...........

NEO

[affluent boss]

"Full many a flower is born to blush unseen and waste its sweetness on desert air"

[chuks]

The real reason I left...

(By the way, Petal, it is "its", not "it's"! But never mind that now.)

Where was I? Oh, yes, the real reason I left Bristow. (Can I say Bristow here? I thought this was anonymous?) I wanted them to develop a cure for cancer along with reforming the totally warped way Nigerian society operates.

All we ever got was full-time status for one driver, advanced for either being brave or stupid there when he stuck to his helm instead of legging it at the Chicken Tetrazzini Corral. Now even that has gone, seemingly but at the time I chose to count that as progress in reforming Nigeria.

Promotion on merit, rewarding competence, weeding out the dullards, drunks and obvious flaming feckwits... nope. That sort of thing was just left to life itself to get done, a slow, frustrating process.

But the final straw was wanting to see more effort put into developing a cure for cancer. There was a total lack of focus and when I mentioned that all I got was that tired old, "This is just an aviation company, not The Little Sisters of the Poor." That was it for me so that I just said, "I'm off!"

Here and now cancer research facilities are scanty so that I have turned to training Eric my pet camel spider to talk...

[SASless]

Promotion on merit, rewarding competence, weeding out the dullards, drunks and obvious flaming feckwits...

But Chuks dear lad....who in management would be left to run the place?

[chuks]

PM me your current address...

For Chrimbo this year you get a scratching post!

[biggestboy]

Hey Outatrack - your seniments are
The bitching whinging and whining going on resembles a bunch of "has been", "wannabees" and "neverbees" exwives on a girls night talking about their hubbies. They all want the money just not the company.

Lets we listen to the about Real McFly let it be know because of him we now get free coffee again. Yes FREE!!!! - you can all save your N150 and feel that step closer to financial freedom.

Have 2 cups guys and feel the power.

[MamaPut]

Hey BB,

Are you sure you don't also post under the title bristowmanagement . I thought some guy called Armlick made the decision about not charging for coffee in your guest house .

Over here, down the road, things aren't so good actually and rumor has it that our new American masters may have sent letters to some clients warning that we may have interruptions in our services in the next few months . However, hero pilot has now decided to seek alternative employment, so maybe he'll be visiting an HRM near you one day very soon . We're kinda wondering where that leaves the guy who promoted him to the position of hero? Yet again he's firmly fixed himself in our estimation. In Bristow you are hitting on your management right now - over here we're wondering if we have any and who on earth decided that L4 was the right choice to be our leader, also without advertising the job or interviewing any suitable alternatives such as Dayo

[SASless]

I was once told....correction....have been told several times that helicopter companies are not run to suit the hired help.

The thing that baffles me is how they find a way to completely alienate all the hired help.

That takes a tremendous amount of skill, dedication, and effort.

[outatrack]

Hired Help Conundrum

SASless,

And you have been in the industry for how long now?

Last I remember, it was the employee that asked the employer for work... What amazes me, is how, employees are always so keen on the job when they are in the interview process, when they are out of work, when they would do absolutely anything to get some cash in the bank account.

The deal is simple, you don't like it, move on. No one is asking you to stay and bitch and complain. A company is not about one individual. What I find even more incredible is how the whingers whinge, get fired and 3 months later, will march right up to Armlichs front door and kiss is royal A55, because the whinger can't find work any where else......

Whilst I would never put management in the catagory of being blameless in any respect, I certainly wouldn't discount the multitude of whinging Pilots who treat their trade like an uppity tradesman, and everytime something doesn't conform to their imperialistic way of thinking, they immediately blame the management and p**s off. Leaving behind them a confused work force. Which by some miraculous turn of fate seems to become less confused as time passes by, because the Whinger has left the building.

I wonder how many of you whingers out there have actually even spoken to Armlick, and asked him to solve your issues.......?

Yeah, thats what I thought.......

[Makila]

Oh dear I think we have caught another new "Bonga". Bring it on Mr F.Coolings!!!!!

[HeliJedi]

Fishing time....

Get the fishing rods out lads..... I think we got our selves a big one lurking in the Murky Depths......

Tell me something outatrack, do you walk around with a tube of KY, or does Armlich kiss your A55 first before penetration......

[chuks]

It is a fine line...

What, we should just sit there silent, taking whatever comes along? A lot of this discontent comes from being at the sharp end, knowing what the problems are but being told by someone who must be using the Psychic Hotline how things are going to work out.

Believe it or not, sometimes I was recruited when I was just sat there quite happily doing some other sort of work. (I guess this is the mirror image of what was just posted.) Gee, that must be the employer asking the employee to accept work. Okay, it was usually just that the incumbent was less competent /more dead than me but...

Having duly been recruited I then found myself treated with at best benign contempt since my name now appeared on a contract! I had to ask myself, if I am such a dud, why did they seek me out? Was someone just playing a joke?

Nowadays we get all this grand rhetoric about giving feedback, your opinion is valued, our employees are our most important asset, blah-blah-blah... when the reality is still that the guys at the sharp end are treated like children by management that has other priorities than sorting out problems. If you still have a pair this can cause friction, yes!

SASless, well, you have to know the man. Part of what he writes, he forgets to put his hat on out in the hot sun or a big one just got away and he has to work that stress off on poor old Bristow when it's really Count Tireburst to blame. That said there is always more than a grain of truth in his posts, I find.

Plus, like me, he is a well-balanced American, a very rare find! Ask any Brit and they will tell you what that means.

[SASless]

What Chuks means by a well balanced Yank is I drink till the beer runs out both of my ears.

Outa....being a new guy to the industry in reality....I shall defer to your seniority.....which is?

First we probably should decide upon the criteria that determines lengthness of tooth in the industry.

Shall it be on numbers of different ICAO recognized ATPL's, category of ATPL's held, makes and models of aircraft flown, hours flown, countries flown in, years total flying, staff positions held, training courses attended, given, Gann books read....how would you like to set up the matrix so we can qualify posters "Toothedness"?

Let's develop a matrix that will apply to all and we can then apply the result to our posts....kinda like intelligence agents do to their informants and their information.

I have seen an alpha numeric system....A to F (A being excellent...F being a pathological liar) and 1 to 6 ( 1 being lead pipe certain...6 being absolute porkie pies).

We'll get a board of long time and well known posters to act as a rating board and they can apply a rating which will show along with our room names and thus we all can know who is who in the ratings game.

Sound like something you would support?

[outatrack]

SAS,

Lets look a little closer at a few things:

You join in May 2002 until today. An average of 2370 days has passed since that time.

You have posted 6533 posts........ very good. All of which, are most enjoyable to read.

This gives you an almost average of 3 posts per day for the last 2370 days.

Tell me something, if we were to apply this rating, are you absolutely certain, you don't fall within the CIA's rating of F6...... Last I remember they spent a long time in Guantanamo, exceeding all expectations.

Facts are Facts, and the reality is, Pilots whinge! And with an avergae of 3 posts per day for almost a decade, I would statistically, class you an F6 whinger!

Lets play ball......

[Aviator609]

Outatrack: HEAR, HEAR!!!

[bristowburnout]

outatrack - management apologist

Well outatrack is obviously a fine apologist for management and seems a bit confused. Let's see, at one moment he's saying, "The deal is simple, you don't like it, move on", the next, "everytime something doesn't conform to their imperialistic way of thinking, they immediately blame the management and p**s off.". So which way do you want it? It seems you are a proponent of the good ole Bob Suggs management school with his well known quote "I can get all the pilots I need out of the gutters on Bourbon street,"

Actually it seems to me that pilots usually get jobs one of 3 ways. Sometimes they send out trawling letters (rather like his post) because they're looking to see if there's a better deal out there (the usual case in Nigeria), sometimes they're contacted by friends because managers in their company have said they're looking for crews and asked if anyone can recommend a good guy who might be interested and sometimes it's in response to an advertisement or via an agency. None of the pilots I met in Nigeria was unemployed at the time he applied.

If every time someone got p*ssed off he moved on there'd be chaos and that seems a pretty irresponsible approach, but rather typical of the response you get from some of the crappier managers in this industry . Maybe things were going okay before, but a new manager is brought in with a confrontational, aggressive, dictatorial management style and starts changing things and firing people with no consultation. Do you just expect people to do what you advocate, like a dog which has been kicked, lie down, roll over and wait for its tummy to be tickled . If the new manager is the one who has created the 'issues' and made it quite plain to everybody that nothing he has decided is open for discussion, what do you expect people to do? What I find sad is that people often feel forced to post on here because they're afraid that if they express their opinions honestly and openly they'll be fired or suffer some kind of disciplinary action. The days of draconian dictators forcing their will on the majority with no discussion should be behind us, but management apologists like you and Aviator609 would like to hold us back in the dark ages. You'd rather just go around praising everything which has done in the hopes of advancement and try and stop anyone else with a different opinion from saying anything, or trying to trash it by calling it whining or whinging. You'd rather try and trash SASless's opinions with pathetic references to the CIA and Guantanamo Bay - just the sort of tactic employed by unenlightened managers who we have had to suffer for far too long in this industry . It's the sort of approach which means that industrial relations here are still in the 16th century, rather than in much of Europe where legislation and acceptance of unions have meant that for the first time helicopter pilots are getting good conditions and able to work for the betterment of their companies by having an open discussion forum with management to make everything work for both sides. I tried expressing my approach to management reasonably, face to face and not from the anonymity of this forum, or the impersonality of electronic mail only to be openly threatened (behind the closed doors of a manager's office. You seem to me to be typical of the people with whom I was trying to carry out a reasoned discussion

[MagCheck]

Jobs in Nigeria

Hi there,
are there any companies recruiting in Nigeria these days.?..

[outatrack]

bristowburnout

bb,

I don't for one second advocate a mronic management system that exploits its pilots...... Possibly you havev felt this way for some time now.

However, the question begs to be asked, why did Suggs say what he said?? Yes the man, was horrible invention of a draconian, flawed, industrial system. Lets not forget though, that, that was his perception of a Helicopter Pilot.

Now you can argue all you want, but until pilots actually unify themselves and fight for what they actually want, and not whinge about stupid little things like, why must I pay for coffee.... How do you expect management to take those sorts of individuals seriously?
Don't lull yourself into a sense of security. Your, as in pilots, have only got it looking better than previous years, because industry requirement has made it so. In the last 5 years and over the next 3 years, the Helicopter Pilot work force, will decrease by almost 30%, and thats just in the US. The industry is feeling this pinch and as a result is being forced to pay more for their pilots so as to try and keep them. Their [Pilots] improved conditions is not as a result of negotiation and holding talks. It is as a direct result of those people who have retired.

As far as me being some one that you most probably had a reasoned discussion with. I doubt that very much, but I will say something, I wonder if your reasoned discussion would have been for your benefit and what you wanted, or for the benefit of your colleagues and what would have been best for all. The perception pilots give is anything but unity. You only have to listen to the crew room talk to realise that. Any operator will find some one to do the most insane job if he requires. Procedures can be published, agreements agreed upon. But make no mistake the Helicopter Pilot ego will come racing to the surface. Where one pilot turned down a job because he thought it was too dangerous, another will stand up and say 'I will do it'. As a result where industry should be improving as far as conditions are concerned, then hero pilot will screw it up for the team. And the sad reality is, the are too many egotistical helicopter pilots out there.

So in my opinion management will always win, and helicopter pilots will always be screwed.

Oh and just so we are crystal clear, an issue that should be discussed, rather than how much coffee you have, is real conditions like, not putting undue pressure on an individual pilot to do some thing the operator knows he should not do, but at the cost of commercial pressure will make him do it. That sort of crap is what needs to stop. That is a real issue.

[chuks]

Little things mean a lot.

When we meet you will make a lot of far-reaching assumptions just by my behaviour. Do I give a firm handshake, make eye contact, greet you by name, that sort of stuff.

I recently met a Chief Pilot for the first time. Let's call him John Doe. He came into the office to be told, "John, this is Joe Bloggs, a new Captain just joining us." A quick glance at me and on to more important matters! Wa-hey!

That was actually not so bad because that man had ZERO people skills, where Topic A here is an outfit with NEGATIVE people skills! The guy didn't go out of his way to insult or belittle me, it was just that he thought of me as a piece of wetware one inserts into an aircraft to make it function, no more, no less. Later, once I had sorted out learning a new operation, I sought him out to explain that I really needed to be treated as a human being and not just a pilot, when he did change.

I have always stood up for myself but maybe that's just me. Life is too short to grovel. It's not the way to get ahead in aviation but there is more to life than that.

Now I get a smile and a greeting when I see him, all that I want. On the other hand here we get coffee and water for free. If you ask you can even get free sandwiches! I am just sooo happy...

I read you loud and clear about how pilots often undercut other pilots. I seem to recall having experienced that myself, in fact. Twice, even! Golly, isn't that just what you were doing to SASless, though, without even knowing him or what he is writing about here? You really don't come across as someone who would stand up to management in any way, shape or form, just judging by your initial response to him or were you just having a bad day there? Now you say we should stick together. I agree but are there two of you?

You are right that it's kind of silly to moan about having to pay for coffee but I think complaining about the management attitude that thinks it's real smart to charge for coffee in the first place is spot on. There's a long history to that particular company that you might not know and that's really a big part of this back-and-forth you now are reading.

Bob Suggs was riding high when he said that he could get all the pilots he needed by waving a $5 bill on Bourbon Street but he was WRONG! Not right then perhaps but later on his contempt for his pilots helped to ruin his company. Many people just remember the quote but forget what happened to his company.