Originally Posted by TheProfessor

After reading the MEC Chairman’s letter this morning, I had a thought that I’m sure will end up drawing a lot of spears from the APC crowd.

As previously discussed here, the letter talks about how Flight Ops has tried to pin previous disruptions on us and have waged a sort of internal PR campaign to malign pilots as greedy/lazy/other negative adjectives.

I’ve seen plenty of people here say something to the effect of “since the company is treating us this way, you’re not going to see me hand out a single card or do anything that’s not mandated in 14CFR/PWA/etc…”

I think the letter presents a counter-narrative that talks about how we’ve “continued to lead” by taking care of people and doing some of those very small very simple extraneous things many pilots love to hate.

It seems like the obvious counter to this campaign to malign pilots is not to become even more grumpy and curmudgeony, but to use the ol “kill em with kindness” routine. And by that I mean continuing to do just basic stuff like saying goodbye, handing out cards, flight deck visits, etc...

Obviously I say this within the context of maintaining unity first and foremost (e.g. if hats off becomes a thing then hats are most certainly off). I know this isn’t a popularity contest, but I don’t see the benefit to feeding a flight ops narrative that we’re difficult people by doing things that some people will perceive as being difficult.

inb4 “you’re a management plant/4th floor intern/whatever”. I’m all for extracting maximum value from the leverage we presently have. I’m just suggesting the most effective strategy might be to continue presenting ourselves in the positive way that many people currently view us. The best place to sight your artillery is often from the moral high ground.

Accepting spears.