TonyC

WARNING: THREAD DRIFT AHEAD


Dues, not assessment. Or, for those who timed it right, a small retirement bonus.

About the lanyard ...

Nice lanyard, not cheap by any standard. All the bells and whistles, custom position printing on both sides, buckle on the bottom, breakaway on the top, union "bug" well-hidden from view.

Ostensibly, the design was motivated by the recent experience where pilots found themselves without their cell phones, and all the phone numbers stored in them. I double-checked the package which contained the lanyard, and I have not found a cell phone included. Apparently, the lanyard only addresses the issue of phone numbers. Had the pilots been wearing this lanyard, they would still be without their phones.

But, if they were wearing the "In Case of Accident/Incident" ID backers, the pilots would have had numbers for the ALPA Worldwide Accident/Incident Hotline and for the FedEx ALPA MEC Office. Sure, they wouldn't have the ASAP Hotline or DG Hotline numbers, but I think they might have had some time before those numbers were needed.

It seems to this penny-pincher that an updated ID backer with a few additional numbers would have been a more cost-effective way to provide phone numbers, and ID backers can be used with any and all lanyards, or even no lanyards at all. Even pilots wearing lanyards to support the Marine Corps or a non-SEC university [4th image not supported by APC's choice of vBulletin settings, so imagine a <wink> emoticon here to indicate teasing] can attach the ID backer between their Known Crewmember tag and The Company's Workplace Violence Prevention / Active Threat Event card.

So, as I said above, ostensibly ... This makes me wonder what the real motivation was for spending a bunch of money, by my estimation upwards of $15,000 conservatively, for fancy new lanyards when ALPA National provides the standard black lanyards for free. (That number is just for the lanyards; packaging and mailing probably cost as much.)

Are we looking for something to closely resemble (compete with) the lanyards with airplanes printed on one side (continuous printing, by the way, which is cheaper) and FLIGHT OPERATIONS printed on the other side? Should we be looking for free pizza and soft drinks to go with these?


I don't feel a need to blend in with those, so I'm thinking I'll stick with the black ALPA lanyard for now. Or, if it's not good enough, maybe it's time for my Tennessee lanyard. [another <wink> emoticon here]

Oh, and I'm keeping my cellphone in my pocket. It has all the numbers.


And maybe someday we'll see the ALPA logo on the marketing material for the FedEx St. Jude's PILOT car build.






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