F/a Sicklist On The Climb!

[WingNaPrayer]

it's my duty to legally inform you that our conversation is being RECORDED

Actually, we put up with it everyday, everywhere. The official way to put it is . . . this call may be recorded for quality control or training purposes

Of course, the recording, once made and upon notification, can legally be used for any reason.

I've told agents before when witnessing an altercation with a passenger or even another employee . . Document the record . . . Document the record . . . Document the record!! I don't care if your tour report ends up being a small novel, with this airline, you must cover your ass!

Trust everyone, but brand your cattle anyway.

 

[Garfield1966]

Bear: Your first since your question is easy. I am recorded on every conversation of every day I am at crew skd. The conversations are recorded by FA employee number every time they call in so if there is a dispute, like the one Jim had it can be reviewed.

Jim.

I do not believe I ever said that these things never happened. For some of them there is not explanation nor any excuse and I wish the crew skds at fault would be dealt with but until the complaints build up on the individuals, I fear that nothing will happen. I will try and offer some explanations for the others.

1. If we are short staffed or in OSO where we have advisements or just plain too much to do we will sometimes call at weird hours. I get notes on my turnovers on a regular basis saying that FA “x†came in late, call after 8a to advise of the seq. Most of us do try to let you sleep but there are times when we can’t. Here is a twist for you to see it from my perspective. I assigned a seq to a FA the other day. He got in at about 10pm the night before. I knew that people had a hard time getting to the airport so I figured I’d be nice and give him a head start. Never had a note saying not to disturb on his rest so I called him at about 8:30 or 9am for a 1230 departure. He got all bent out of shape saying that I disturbed him on his rest. Said there was no way he could make departure, much less SI (he made both) because of his distance from the airport. I advised him that unless you tell us not to call, we will call. The kicker was that had I waited till rest was over, he would have had even less time to make the flight and might have ended up with a TM. Moral of the story, sometimes you can’t win even if you are trying to do something nice.

2. No excuse. With out seeing what happened I cannot even begin to offer an explanation if there even is one. I have never seen someone knowingly put someone on a seq that violates the 7d or 30/7. There are so many different ways to solve that problem, especially in DFW.

3. This could be traced back to my “30/7 and other favors†thread or the scheduler could be a dick, either one. I for one would have said the same thing but not as rude. Again, an example from my experiences. FA said they were going to grab something to eat or some such thing and to call their cell if something came up. No problem. 10 min later, need them for a seq, they are the only qualled FA for that seq (F100 or A300 as I recall.) Called cell, no answer, called cell again no answer… goes on for 20 min before they got back to ops and by that time it was too late and I had to RA someone (gee, can you guess how happy they were?). I issued a TM, flight service took it off saying it was not their fault (which it was not). So now, guess what I say when someone asks me to call their cell? I tell them no. Once bitten, twice shy. And, just as with you, I have been slapped in the face more than once for trying to be nice, sometimes it just gets old.

4. Have you ever been in crew skd on a bad weather day in Dallas? You should come up their and see the volume of advisements that we deal with. I have seen 30-40 sitting on DFW TDY desk at any given time. We cannot call everyone. When we get them, we disseminate them out to the other desks and we call what we can. If it is leaving in 2 hours, sometimes we don’t figuring that you are already head out anyway. Now this may sound cold and I do not mean it that way but did you check PC FOS and see if your seq was still leaving on time before you left for the ATO? If we figured you were already on the way, like I said, we might not call if we have 20 or 30 others we need to call. Another experience. FA calls (he is a real prick on any given day anyway) and is reaming me a new one for not calling about a delay. As he was calling the message from tracking is coming off the printer. We had just found out about the delay and he is pissing and wining to me. We call them when we get them if we have time. If there were delays in DFW on a bad weather day, advisements are pretty low on the totem pole for things the NEED to get done.

5. Agreed. A few bad apples screw it up for the whole bunch. You should all keep that in mind when you are curing Crew skd.

6. Already address that but I’ll give my $.02 wroth again. 1 occurrence is no big deal and to get harassed because of that is BS. I am allowed 2 a year before we go “unmanaged†as opposed to “self managedâ€. If we have more than 2 in a rolling year, then we get talked to see what the problem is and to determine if corrective action needs to be taken, I see not problem with this. There are over 17k FA’s out there. Whether or not a company has a department dedicated to attendance or not, there are people who are responsible for it. Could it be done better? Sure. But I do not know how. I have seen absence reports where the FA has been on family sick every single x-mass new years since date of hire. 2500 people called in sick over the holidays which ab=mounts to at the very least, 1000 false sick calls. You have to have a department dedicated when you have that kind of abuse.

7. The SARS thing is just stupid. No way she should have been allowed to travel.

You are the type of FA we need back. I wish the furloughs would have been based on performance rather than seniority. Sorry you are gone and I hope one day you get to come back because we need more like you. I do not excuse bad behavior. I know that I am guilty of it as well. If I have a bad call, it will flow to the next several sometimes. Just as it would with you if you have a bad experience with us. There are only about 70 of us dealing with 17,000 of you. Again, I am not offering this as an excuse, but when you get burned enough, you start to get pissed. And I think that is happening on both sides.

All I can say is that if we do something that des not seem right or that makes sense, ask us why. But remember, we are usually under stress, so ask nicely. Some of us will tell you why, some of us will tell you to go screw your self, shut up and do what you are told. But at least ask so if you get the former, at least you will know why we did what we did.

 

[Fly]

Why doesn't AA give the standbys beepers when they check in? It works over here at UAL plus the flight attendant is considered "on duty" until she/he turns the beeper back in (that's the incentive to give it back )

 

[jimntx]

Everyone bear with me. I've never figured out how to do the quote/response/quote/response format.

Quote from Gar:
Bear: Your first since your question is easy. I am recorded on every conversation of every day I am at crew skd. The conversations are recorded by FA employee number every time they call in so if there is a dispute, like the one Jim had it can be reviewed.

Me: Gar, that's just my point. It was ONLY when I started reminding scheduling--both scheduler and manager--that conversations were, in fact, recorded regarding the 7-day legality on the TUL fiasco that anyone from scheduling was willing to admit that MAYBE they had done something wrong.

Quote from Garfield: [edited for length]
1. If we are short staffed or in OSO where we have advisements or just plain too much to do we will sometimes call at weird hours.... Never had a note saying not to disturb on his rest.

Me: I forgot to mention that except for the DFW bad weather case, none of the other examples occurred on OSO days. Also, a lot of schedulers forget that contractually, I am not required to answer the phone during my rest periods whether I have sent you a do not disturb note or not. You can call all you want, but I don't have to answer the phone. I had another case where a scheduler called me between 0100 and 0200 when I had not gotten in until 1700. I did not answer the call. She called again and left me a very nasty message that I would get an MT if I didn't return her call in 10 minutes. I returned the call at 0415--46 minutes early--and quoted the exact sentence in the contract which states that I am not required to remain in contact with scheduling during my rest period. The contract say nothing about I have to request no contact. When I pointed her toward the specific Article, paragraph, sentence and page number from the contract, she decided that she would remove the MT. If I have to follow the rules; so does scheduling.

Don't misunderstand. I loved flying and waived my 30/7 more often than not. I even tried to volunteer to fly Christmas Day so that someone with a family could be off. Talk about your horrified looks from management and union-types alike! You would think I had just advocated overthrow of the government. (I was new to unionism at the time.)

Quote from Garfield:
2. No excuse. With out seeing what happened I cannot even begin to offer an explanation if there even is one. I have never seen someone knowingly put someone on a seq that violates the 7d or 30/7. There are so many different ways to solve that problem, especially in DFW.

Me: Oh, come on. On the TUL fiasco, if the scheduler had tried to enter the sequence into the computer before calling me, the computer would have rejected the sequence. That trick was used more than once on me and friends of mine. "We haven't had time to create the sequence yet. Pull up your HI3 when you get to [fill in the blank]."

Quote from Garfield:
4. Have you ever been in crew skd on a bad weather day in Dallas? You should come up their and see the volume of advisements that we deal with. I have seen 30-40 sitting on DFW TDY desk at any given time. We cannot call everyone. When we get them, we disseminate them out to the other desks and we call what we can. If it is leaving in 2 hours, sometimes we don’t figuring that you are already head out anyway. Now this may sound cold and I do not mean it that way but did you check PC FOS and see if your seq was still leaving on time before you left for the ATO? If we figured you were already on the way, like I said, we might not call if we have 20 or 30 others we need to call. Another experience. FA calls (he is a real prick on any given day anyway) and is reaming me a new one for not calling about a delay. As he was calling the message from tracking is coming off the printer. We had just found out about the delay and he is pissing and wining to me. We call them when we get them if we have time. If there were delays in DFW on a bad weather day, advisements are pretty low on the totem pole for things the NEED to get done.

Me: Yes, I did check the computer before leaving home, but being a good little Boy Scout, because of the weather, I left home almost 3 hours before sign-in (I live in Oak Cliff. It's 17 miles from my condo to the South employee parking lot).
But that's not the real point. I was at the airport in Ops. People were being paged left and right. I wasn't, but I was given a late sign-in anyway (which my FSM removed when I gave her names and telephone numbers of witnesses).
(Also, in your defense, let me say that you could not have paid me enough money to work in scheduling that day. It was that day in late June, 2003 right before I was furloughed when all hell broke loose at DFW. There was a case of one poor scheduler who had to tell a crew of 777 senior mommas that they had been reassigned to a 767 trip when they returned from their LAX turn!)

Quote from Garfield:
6. Already address that but I’ll give my $.02 wroth again. 1 occurrence is no big deal and to get harassed because of that is BS...Could it be done better? Sure. But I do not know how. I have seen absence reports where the FA has been on family sick every single x-mass new years since date of hire. 2500 people called in sick over the holidays which ab=mounts to at the very least, 1000 false sick calls. You have to have a department dedicated when you have that kind of abuse.

Me: I'm interested in how you know for a fact that almost 1/2 the sick calls were bogus during flu season, but we'll let that pass. We probably will never come to agreement on scheduling's medical diagnostic skills. However, there is a solution that does not require a separate department. It's called Flight Service Managers who have the guts to start termination proceedings on people who don't follow the rules! Yes, in a unionized environment it's hard and it requires some actual work on the part of management, but it can be done. Instead they hire sycophants in Flight Service who will kiss up to higher management, but don't actually plan to do any work--nor will they be required to do any. Now, of the 3 FSMs that I was assigned to, I would go to the ends of the earth for 2 of them. As we used to say in the Deep South, the other was useless as mammary glands on a male pig. If you said to her, "Dear, you're standing on my foot." Her first answer every time would be, "I'm sorry. There's nothing I can do about that." And, from my years of working in management at other companies, let me say that if you can document a person calling in sick on even 2 or 3 consecutive Christmases when they are scheduled to work, there's no court in the land that would call the termination unwarranted. Just as it is unfair to tar all schedulers with the same brush, flight attendants as a group should not be branded as lazy liars even though there is a large minority who do abuse sick leave. But the company should utilize the laws and the contractual avenues already available to them. This is not a scheduling problem, you just have to deal with the aftermath of Flight Service Management's lack of willingness to actually manage.

The reason so many flight attendants continue to abuse the privileges is because they are allowed to. And the company is an accomplice at this. I have been horrified by the company's abuse of the FMLA law. I've never seen an implementation of it like AMR's. This business of "if you stay off more than 4 days, we'll convert it to family leave" just encourages people to stay off when all they have is a 24-hour stomach virus. Also, there are no consequences for most flight attendants for abusing the sick policy. People will indulge in behavior as long as the price is payable. If I get to craving a BLT, and go to the store to pick up a tomato, and that tomato rings up at $20.95, there's a good chance I'll leave the store without that tomato. The price is too high.


Quote from Garfield:
You are the type of FA we need back. I wish the furloughs would have been based on performance rather than seniority. Sorry you are gone and I hope one day you get to come back because we need more like you.

Me: Thanks. I also want to come back. I loved being a flight attendant.

 

[Garfield1966]

Jim,

Just a few comments and I have to get to work.

I think you misunderstood my point with the rest deal. He answered the phone. Had he not answered then there would not have been a big deal because as you stated, you do not have to answer, but if you do not tell us not to call, then we can try to contact you. I was merely trying to be nice to the FA and give him a heads up on a seq. I do not know why they would call and disturb you if there is time for you to be contacted later in the day so I will not even attempt to justify that. The other point was that he was bitching about making a 4 hour call out. Had I waited till his rest was over he would have had a 2 hour cal out. Which is better? Basically I guess what I am saying is that there may be some situations (right or wrong) where we make a judgment call and decide on course “aâ€￾ which in the end, may or may not be what you would have chosen. In my example, I was screwed either way it would appear.

Re the 7D issue. Actually it’s not a trick that we use. If VMC sends us a message that a certain flight needs an extra if it goes over “xâ€￾ amount we just send the standby down to monitor the flight. Once the flight leaves, we then send a message down to VMC telling them that the flight went over, the FA is onboard and they build a seq for that FA so when you were told that there was no seq, in most cases that is actually true. I am not saying that is an excuse. The standbys in DFW are plotted by a computer which does not look at 30/7 or 7D problems.

As far as the sick list is concerned when the sick list more than doubles in a 1 week period and then goes back down to normal with in a week after the holidays end it’s sick abuse plain and simple. I have read numerous studies that have suggested that 50%-60% of the people on a sick list with in any given company are not sick when on the list, so given those statistics, the number of people on the sick list who are faking it is probably substantially higher. The only other option is to call the CDC and let them know there is some epidemic that effects FA’s only during the holidays and is cured shortly there after. It is simple law of averages Jim, nothing more. Over 1000 people do not just all of a sudden become ill in a week. Just does not happen.

The late SI is generated by DECS. We do not have anything to do with it nor can we remove them. As far as we are concerned, that is part of flight services job. We live it to them to sort the valid from the invalid late SI’s and what have you.

It sounds as if we have similar opinions of Flt svcs. We wish they would get a back bone and do their job. From what I have heard, whether or not someone is called to task for something is dependent on whom the FSM is. There should me some measure of consistency which seems to be very lacking. I have no idea what it takes to get someone canned with this company but it seems to be more hassle that it is worth for a lot of people.

Just out of curiosity, what do you think of that pager idea suggested earlier? That actually seems like a neat idea to me.

 

[silverbirdFLL]

"The late SI is generated by DECS. We do not have anything to do with it nor can we remove them. As far as we are concerned, that is part of flight services job. We live it to them to sort the valid from the invalid late SI’s and what have you. "

Garfield, now you and I and ALL the other F/A's & Skedulrs that read and/or post on this BB know's that while YES its is Sabre that generates the late SI right on the 6th minute past sked SI. That ALERT goes to you all right away.It used to be sent right to a printer on a Schedulars desk,that I know from my initial Purser training back in 1994 when we toured SOC so not sure how YOU get the alert now in the 21irst century.Anyway it is at the "6th min. mark" that I would imagin a schedular would begin the process of calling the stew tracker em' down and yadda yadda yadda. Then once the stew get's to the a/p and signs in Sabre sends the exact number of minutes he/she was late to the f/a's base MOD's (atleaste here in MIA & RDU when I worked SA as a FSR(Flight Service Rep) Sabre sent it to the MOD's office) then it would sent to the F/A's FSM (mind you all this was a paper msg by this point soooo ya know it might get to the FSM's desk or then again it might have ended up in "File 13"-LOL). However once again I am telling story here and I don't mean to but Garfeild my point in that wind I just wrote is that Crew Scheduling ABSOLUTLY has the POWER to REMOVE a Late Sign if it is so deemed. You all can even PREVENT a late sign in from even being generated just by SIGNING IN the f/a from your not so cozy chair there SOC.
I was told when I started flying 15 yrs ago out in SFO on my very FIRST trip by a VERY SENIOR f/a.Two thing's that she said are not tought at the Charm Farm-1)Never EVER turn in a fellow flight attendant to mgmnt.Call Proffessional Standards and let it be "handled" by a trained peer. 2)What Crew Schedule can GIVETH, crew schedule can TAKEITH away. That is very much a true statment.Hell if it wasn't true then why would you all have AAll those MISC. codes and esp "code 25" that's the magic code it seems. Just code 25 it and what was is now WASn't- Don't beleave me just ask Michelle on the MIA today desk,she knows how to "clean up" mess and it's all perfectly contractually legal. Why? Because what c/s can give,c/s can take away-falls under the generic "...to ensure the operation...yadda yadda" clause in every AA f/a contract as well as in the Pilots too.
That reminds me I have to call C/S and get a LR removed off my HI10M before my meetin w/my FSM. See it appears that I recvd a LR for 9mins because I was at the gate attempting to SI and DECS just froze up on me. Tryed the puter right next to and the samething occured. So I called C/S and you know how long it takes just get through the "greeting"/"enter ur pw/emp# by the time the gentleman answered ,by greeting me by my last name and very professional I might say, I told him what was "UP" etc... he proceeds to tell me that "Oh yeah it froze up on you because I was in the process of signing you in." Well that was a first but little did I know by him doing that "nice deed" Sabre generated a false 9 min LR. I didnt even know about it for over 2 weeks when my FSM called me at home while I was on the SK list no less to enquirer about the LR. It hadnt even occured to me at the time to ck my HI10M just incase.
Oh well I told her but she hasnt aclue so I told my APFA Chair I'd take care of it since I have a clue by the time we meet for the new" Lauri Curtess will not tolerate f/a's not being held STRICTLY to the letter of the Att.Policy" meeting . But tha's off topic and his a whole nother thread so hash out.-
Peace everybody.
SB
ps-its just been too darn cold for FLL so far this season-hehe #### #### ####-LOL

 

[jimntx]

This is kinda long; so bear with me.

Quote from Garfield:
I think you misunderstood my point with the rest deal. He answered the phone. Had he not answered then there would not have been a big deal because as you stated, you do not have to answer, but if you do not tell us not to call, then we can try to contact you.

Me: Oh, I understood. The guy was a jerk and should be treated accordingly. Gate agents use to write up f/a's for such behavior. Does c/s not do this? After all, you have the tapes to prove your case. If you don't, you should. Childish behavior is just that. The reason for punishing children for bad behavior is so that they will learn that actions have consequences, and that they are free to do anything they want in life AS LONG AS THEY ARE WILLING TO PAY THE PRICE. It's a lesson that a LOT of people in this society seem to have missed growing up.

Even better, there should be included in the preference system some questions that would cover these eventualities because you and I both know the day will arrive for each and every f/a where that f/a can either get a 4-hour heads up or a last minute call out. You know, something like the optometrist's "is this better or is that better?
Question to the f/a: If you are legal for a trip that signs in less than 3 hours after the end of your rest period, would you prefer to be called early (during your rest period) or would you prefer to be given a "short" call out at the end of your rest period?
There is software on the market now (in fact has been for over 15 years) that supports this kind of Decision Support business process. The computer would work its way through all this stuff and present you with a list of f/a's who want early warning vs. those who don't mind running around like a wild person at the last minute. Then all you have to look at is "whose next up." If it's a last minute person, you can put that call aside and go on to the next one.

How's this for an idea...(You can present it as your own if there is any hope of implementation by AMR)
Hotels today have software on their phone system where the guests program their own wake-up call, and the system calls them automatically without an operator or desk clerk having to bother with it. This software could be modified to automatically call a f/a at a particular time (set by you or "earliest legal call" --also programmable) to advise the f/a that they had been assigned a trip. The software could call both home and cell. Automated voice would say "F/A 593544 you have been assigned a trip with a signin of 1500 hours. Please call AVRS within the next 10/15/20 minutes to confirm receipt of this message. If you do not contact the system, a scheduler will call you. Failure to respond may result in a missed trip. Have a nice day." I would guess that a lot of f/a's might like this, and it would lighten your load to handling the last-minute sick call/car wreck/busted radiator coverage and OSO.
Here again, contractual changes or side letter agreements would probably be needed, but it is doable. I spent over 20 years in the computer business. The capability is there.

Quote from Garfield:
The standbys in DFW are plotted by a computer which does not look at 30/7 or 7D problems.

Does this make giving people illegal trips, ok? Garfield, my point in that story was I advised Crew Scheduling of the potential illegality over 24 hours in advance. What I didn't tell you the first time was when I talked to the Manager on Duty in Scheduling the day before, his response to me was [and I quote] "If you're legal to sit the standby, you are legal to go on any trip we send you on."

Quote from Garfield:
As far as the sick list is concerned...

Me: Hey, guy, I don't for a second dispute that there is some percentage of malingerers on any given day and a larger percentage of same on holidays. Again, the solution is for Flight Service to develop some cojones and deal with the obvious abusers.

I flew with a 15-year flight attendant shortly before I was furloughed who was in a panic about her FSM calling her to come in for a conference regarding late sign-ins and missed trips. This was her first time to be called in 15 years. She was really sweet and a good f/a on the airplane. At one of our intermediate stops, she went to a Sabre terminal and called up her HI10M (I think that's what it's called) to ask my opinion. [I'm not making this next part up, I swear.] In the past 3 years, she had had 5 late sign-ins, 4 missed trips, and 5 or 6 sick calls!!!! Flight Service should have stepped into this situation long before now. I know that she was a single parent with 4 children under the age of 12, but there are limits. As I said before, people will indulge in any behavior as long as the price is payable.

Quote from Garfield:
Just out of curiosity, what do you think of that pager idea suggested earlier? That actually seems like a neat idea to me.

Me: I think it's a fabulous idea. The flight attendant would have the freedom to go almost anywhere in the Terminal and still be contactable. This would be especially helpful in airports where the food vendors are some distance from Ops. I don't know if you are aware of the layout at ORD, but what they call Big Ops is all the way at the end of one of the concourses and BELOW ramp level. The main Food court is at the opposite end of that concourse. There is a smaller food court nearer, but it doesn't have the selection that the big food court has.

Potential fly in the ointment: There will always be flight attendants who will swear that they didn't receive a beep. It would have to be done as a pilot project, and all flight attendants would have to understand that abuse by some would mean the loss of the benefit for all. Flights have to be covered, period.

have a good day at work.

 

[operaations]

ok I am back.

Jim I agree with every thing you just said. Lets hope we could implement some of those things. The automatic phone call thing sounds perfect.

Keep your chin up and I hope we get you back real soon

 

[Garfield1966]

Jim,

No it is not ok to give a 7D problem. Did not mean to give that impression.

Ditto what Opps said.




Opperations...... I knoew you could not stay away. This forum just sucks you in and you're stuck.

 

[Garfield1966]

Silver,

I have been in Crew Skd for over 5 years and if there is away for me to remove a late SI, it was never told to me. We can send a message to the supervisor to waive a late SI should it occur, but we (as far I know) do not have the ability to remove a late SI. The 25 code you are referring to is a ADD code we use to put a FA on a seq if no other code applies such as a FFP who is being moved p to a open Poss 1 as Vol. In most cases you are right, what we put on can be taken off. When I was writing to TWAnr I was reffering to what we are permitted to do in terms of the contract. I can adjust a SI to what ever time I want to, that does not mean I will. If I call a reserve more than 3 hours out, you have 2 hours to make SI. That is what the contract states, and that is what I will go bye.. If flight service deems it appropriate to remove a late SI, that is up to them, I will not send a message to waive the SI. Yes, I do have the ability to sigh you in for your trip, but I will not unless there are extenuating circumstances. The only one I can think of is if I put a non-qual reserve into a purser position. They cannot sign in so as long as I can verify that they are at the airport, I will sign them in. Again, this all goes back to being burned. I signed someone in (they said they could not sign in) when it turns out they were not at the airport and missed the flight. I got my butt chewed out by a senior and a manager. Like Jim said above, one person can screw it up for everyone. There are a lot of things we “canâ€￾ do, but that does not mean we will do it. If I cannot justify my actions, I will not do it.

We get late SI the same way. A message comes off our printer and we start the search.

 

[Garfield1966]

This should be interesting. Over heard a flight service manager say that they are looking at the sick list over the holidays and comparing it to the non rev lists. I thought I heard them say that anyone caught non reving while they should have been flying might be looking for a new job.

Anyone hear anything? I’ll believe it when I see it. I just wish they would do it system wide for every department.

 

[kirkpatrick]

Over heard a flight service manager say that they are looking at the sick list over the holidays and comparing it to the non rev lists.

One of my favorite such stories goes back probably twenty years at TWA. A flight attendant called off sick and went on a Caribbean cruise, and who else was on the cruise but her supervisor.

MK