Originally Posted by TonyC

I had a Christmas Eve departure. Although the sort was projected to be late, we went to the jet pretty close to on time. When we arrived, it was already loaded. As I walked into the cabin, the ramp agent and a supervisor were waiting, and they explained how they were thanking the pilots with bags of cookies. The red paper sacks had a festive note attached, and the rampers were excited about giving us the cookies, and they wanted to take pictures of them giving us cookies. I wouldn't have thought for a second to insult them by refusing their offer -- they're hard-working employees at the bottom of their food chain just like we are. And guess what, they were working on Christmas Eve, too. They had worked hard to get us out on time, to boot.

I only asked that they take the picture with the much better looking First Officer when he finished his walk-around. They were almost giddy with anticipation, and it was a kick for the FO. (That's him in the picture on the right. He's a 5 million guy.)

Overall, I took it as a nice gesture in the Christmas spirit. Perhaps someone at a senior management level had other intentions (it would have been Ground Operations management, not Flight Management, anyway), but from a couple of grunts in the trenches to another couple of grunts in the trenches, I appreciated the gesture.






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