I was a guardian flight pilot for a while. LOVED my job. Worked with some really awesome people. Had a job where I was making a real difference and getting to what was essentially a dream job.
However I take real exception to the idea that the company has a real focus on supporting their employees. I’d say just about everyone in corporate has their head up their neither regions.
Story time (it’s going to be long so I can explain how toxic the situation was). I posted about this last year when it all went down.
Hostile Work enviorment?
I was paired with a guy who had really bad anger issues. I suspect he has PTSD. I’m a veteran too so I feel for the guy. We actually had a lot in common and I liked the guy but he was just so angry all the time.
The guy had some weird quirks and was always complaining about something. I cooked microwave white rice in the microwave once. Plain white rice. He goes ballistic about the smell. The guy was just unhinged. He once ripped apart the microwave to clean it thinking it would get rid of the smell. Repeatedly poured carpet cleaner into the air-conditioning ducts to get rid of the smell. Mind you I never smelled anything unusual at the house. But everyone has different reactions to different smells.
He tried to find any way he could not to fly. He was very disrespectful to the med crews, and just about anyone he had contact with if he didn't need something from you. It got so bad I started asking to get moved to a different shift. I sent emails to the other pilots at the base to see if they would trade with me, they didn’t want to work with him either, and my boss. I started documenting his behavior and sending daily emails to our boss. I would hide in my room when he was home or outside. I was avoiding the guy as much as I could, hard to do in such close quarters. Any interaction with him was a just out of control.
So we get a call one night for a 400# patient out of Vegas. It’s his flight and the guy starts complaining up a storm about weight and balance issues and how he doesn’t want to do the flight. Has a “disagreement” with the medic out in front of base housing but they go anyway.
I am off shift so I go to bed. Apparently overnight they got to Vegas to pick up the patient and, surprise surprise, one of the nav lights is out. Automatic no go for night flight. The crew spends the night in Vegas and flies back at first light. I have no knowledge of this of course. The next morning he comes banging into the house screaming about why am I not at the airport? I’m not even on shift yet. He landed 10 minutes ago and somehow I was supposed to be in SLC with the airplane an hour ago. I point out to him I don’t have a time machine and he starts screaming at me. So I go get my flight suit and get dressed to fly the plane to the maintenance base. Meanwhile he is still screaming at me. It’s so bad the medic hears the yelling in the house next door and comes running over thinking we have gotten into a physical fight. Mind you I am not yelling I am not responding at all to this guy. Which makes him even more angry.
I leave for the airport and begin to start preflighting. On my preflight I find the nav cover just mangled. All the screws in the light cover are over tightened to where they have cracked the plastic cover.
It wasn’t like that the day before. I take pictures for maintenance. I have my suspicions about what happened to the light. Chief Pilot calls and wants to know what all the yelling is about. Med crew had called their management who called my management. I explain the situation and he says he will look into it. I get in to start the airplane and go to do the weight and balance on the Ipad. Captain Angry has maxed out all the weights, I assume so he can claim the patient will put the plane out of gross. Basically he has filled every fuel tank to full, and every seat is a heavy passenger. I take a picture of that too.
I talk with management and tell them I do not want to share housing with this guy. He is unstable and I haven’t done anything to invite this. Med crews have filed complaints about him. They are starting to refuse to fly with him. Even his last company called Guardian and told them not to hire him as a result of anger issues. I had a serious concern for my safety at this point with his behavior and I really believed he messed with the plane to avoid taking that flight. There were rumors that he had done similar things at his previous company. I explained this to management. They put me up in a hotel while they investigate.
Two days later during my morning preflight I get a call from the CP, my boss and some utter idiot from HR. They offer me a choice to either go back and co-habitat with this psychopath or pay for my own place in town. No offer of a different base. No, hey sorry you are dealing with this. I asked for some other option, I really wanted to stay with Guardian. I LOVED my job. I keep hinting for them to offer me a different base. CP and my boss seem like they are starting to get a clue when HR idiot takes control of the station. She reiterates my two choices. Either go live 2 weeks a month with this psychopath or get my own place in town at my own expense.
I offer them a 3rd choice they had not considered and tender my resignation immediately ending the call to go pack my stuff up.
30 minutes or so go by and I get a call from the HR idiot (who still works there by the way) who wants to know if I am
“safe”. It was surreal. I was angry myself at this point and let her know if she was really concerned about my “safety” the other pilot would be the one given a choice of where to stay. And a few other choice words for how poorly she has done her job if she was concerned about my “safety”.
A couple of months go by and I run into one of the med crews at a store. We spend a little time to catch up and I get the full story.
Captain Angry attacked one of the med crews at the base, a friend of mine.
They STILL didn’t fire him.
They moved him to another base. He AGAIN attacked a member of the med crew.
They STILL didn’t fire him.
He then had an altercation with a director at the company. Finally they fired him.
So the guy has rumors of anger issues at previous company. Anger issues so bad the company, a competitor, called to give a heads up.
He then attacks multiple front line employees. Drives off a valuable employee they just spent a ton of money training, that would be me. Med crews are refusing to fly with him. Is moved around to different bases in the hopes the problem will somehow go away. He continues his psychotic behavior. And driving good employees away.
And it isn’t until he
attacks management that the company finally gets rid of him.
So I find it hard to believe that “
Guardian Has a real focus on supporting their employees”.
I feel for the guy. He has real anger issues and PTSD. He very likely can’t help himself. He would be a great person if he could get over his issues.
I would go back if the company would admit I was right and apologize but at this point that bridge has been nuked.
That isn’t to say this wouldn’t be an awesome job.
But do not expect that management is going to support you.