Originally Posted by
nwaf16dude
"For many, commuting is a personal lifestyle choice, but the anxiety level can still be significant. "
I'm going to have to ask JG why he felt like he had to include this sentence. Read the paragraph without it. It makes perfect sense and changes the entire tenor of the message. That sentence contributes nothing to the message. All it does is make him look either ignorant of, or unconcerned about the great numbers of pilots that have been forced to make the difficult decision to either pack up and move, bid down to lower paying equipment, or start commuting.
It's a good policy, but the message was delivered poorly.
Yep, even when mgmt does good things (and this is a good thing, and I credit them for doing it) at DAL they
always make it a point to add some stupid statement to put a downer into the atmosphere. Here is a great example from shortly before the merger.
While he has his issues, I respect Steve Dickson, our current Senior VP of Flight Ops (or is it Executive VP? I don't know). He is an improvement over his predecessor, Joe Kolshak (who is now at UAL).
We used to call him "inaugural Joe" because every time we might pick up a new airplane at Boeing, Joe would add on his code-a-phone "I had the privilege of flying a new airplane from Boeing last week" blah blah.
So a couple of years ago we get our first 777LR (capable of nonstop JNB-ATL among other things, a first for the 777 at DAL) and instead of SD picking up the plane himself, he had two very worthy pilots do so--I'll leave the names out. He even made a special code-a-phone, which was great! It was great all the way until the last line which went something like: "and amazingly, in 50+ years of combined DAL flying, neither pilot has ever called in sick once!"
What was the point of that (subtle "and you shouldn't ever call in sick either")? JG's little "commuting is a lifestyle choice for many" reminds me of the same...and I don't even commute!