Airline Pilot Central Forums - FDX - The Monkey and the Light Switch

I had an interesting conversation with JetJok on the phone the other day. (One of the few guys I won't grumble too much to see limp back to the left seat wearing depends) ;-)

He told lme a story about an experiment with monkeys and light switches. Seems two groups of monkeys were given random, painful shocks. The first group had a light switch that they mistakenly inferred had some correlation to their predicament. They flipped the living daylights out of the switch trying to control their shocks. The other monkeys had no switch. Turns out the first group died earlier and had higher incidence of heart disease and stress. Hmmmm...

This bid thing, changes to the economy/Fedex is a lot like a Hurricane approaching. All we can do is board up, store water, remove projectiles from the yard and make sure our insurance is up to date. After that, anything more is counterproductive and builds apprehension and has no effect on the intensity or path of the storm.....it will either hit strong, hit weak, or miss.

As for me, I am facing the prospect of excess to a lower paying seat. So I am boarding up (staying on my financial plan, keeping liquid) and making sure my insurance is up to date (bidding what I want to fly). I will stay informed, but I am turning off headline news (APC) and only watch the news if I hear conditions are changing, or the time and information makes it appropriate. If it misses, I will be relieved, if it hits, I will recover one way or another. Either way it behooves me to lower my apprehension level and realize I've done all I can do at this point.

I have joked about bidding HKG CA for passover and seriously given it thought, however, In my opinion, this is akin to trying to up your insurance coverage right before the storm hits. If the insurance company (FedEx) actually let you do this, then no doubt, if you sustain damage, they would deny your coverage and take the premiums you paid (Award you HKG and make you go). For those that think "not signing a letter" is a slick legal manuever, all I can say is that it would be a lot like sueing said insurance company and could ultimately lead you to become uninsurable in the future. In additon, it would distract the insurance company from dealing with everyone fairly and helping them recover (future bid awards).

So I am bidding what I want to fly, preparing myself, plan on sleeping as much as possible thru the storm, and will read about the damage the next day in the NW Flordia Daily news.

Before anyone says it: I am NOT drawing parallels to the MEC and FEMA. ;)

Removing the lightswitch!