Category Archives: My Job

More Random Facts

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Here are 10 more random facts about me:

  1. I started at Southwest about 2 1/2 months before September 11. With no fulltime work experience, practically no seniority, and a job (tech writer) that many in the IT business don’t value highly, I probably would have been out the door at any other airline in the country. But Southwest chose not to lay anyone off, earning my lifelong loyalty with that one action.
  2. So far I’ve visited 10 different foreign countries: Barbados, Belize, Canada, Cayman Islands, France, Jamaica, Martinique, Mexico, Netherland Antilles (St. Martin/St. Maarten), and the UK.
  3. If you and I are grabbing a quick meal together, there’s a good chance I’ll suggest Chipotle. Try the chicken burrito with chili-corn salsa. Mmm…
  4. I think I am addicted to sugar. I crave it. Jenny got me a 1lb bag of M&Ms earlier this week. It’s already gone.
  5. I enjoy horror movies, even though I know they are terrible and I shouldn’t like them because they are so bloody and violent. Being scared is fun every now and then. Generally I have to watch them alone because they don’t work well for Date Night.
  6. When I find out someone smokes, I instantly lose a significant amount of respect for them. I wish the government would impose a nationwide ban on smoking within public buildings and triple the cigarette tax. Then they could use the tax revenue to help people quit.
  7. If I couldn’t be a dispatcher anymore, I would want to work in Schedule Planning, the department that hammers out Southwest’s flight schedule.
  8. The way our contract is set up in terms of pay and seniority, the longer I stay in Dispatch, the less likely I am to leave. Some call this the “golden handcuffs”.
  9. I constantly debate with myself whether to save, spend, or give away our disposable income.
  10. My sister and I used to catch jellyfish in sand buckets and bury them on the beach. I don’t know why that seemed like a good idea, but it was fun.

New Role at Work

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Starting sometime in October, I plan to take on a new role at work by becoming a trainer. I’ve debated training for a while now and finally decided to take the plunge once the training manager told me he needed some more trainers. Maybe 3-6 shifts per month, I will work flights with a trainee and trying to teach him/her as much as I can within a limited amount of time. Technically the trainee is dispatching with my license, so officially I’m responsible, but the trainee is doing most of the actual work under my supervision. All but one of the incoming trainees have dispatched before, so they mainly need to learn our software and policies. There’s only one other trainer on the midnight shift, so I plan to focus on the quirks of our shift since it’s very different from a day or afternoon shift. Pray that I can be an effective and helpful trainer.

TWU

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As a SWA dispatcher, I am all but required to be a member of the dispatcher’s union. Ours is a local union with no affiliations with a larger organization, so we handle everything ourselves. Our current contract is nearly the end of its 12-year timeframe, an extremely long time, so many of the members are eager to negotiate a new contract starting near the end of next year. Unhappy with the perceived level of respect that we get from management, the union’s board of directors has proposed affiliating with the Transport Workers’ Union (TWU), a large international union that represents dispatchers at many other airlines as well as the flight attendants and ground workers here at SWA. The board believes that this affiliation would give us more clout and more resources and would save us money. The vote will occur later this month. For political reasons I won’t offer any opinion here, but those who know me well probably know where I stand. From what I’ve heard around the office, I think we will vote to join TWU.

The Streak Has Ended

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I went to school with a girl named Megan. She had lots of good qualities, but the most significant was her perfect attendance record: Not one year. Not two or three. Twelve years. From first grade to senior year, she didn’t miss a single day of school. I think her older sister did, too. I always admired her for that and didn’t know how she did it.

I’ve worked at Southwest for over 7 years now. During that time, I haven’t used a single sick day. I don’t even know how many I’ve earned, but it’s probably several weeks’ worth of sick time. My “streak” came to be a goal I pursued, a source of pride, a way to contribute to the company’s success. Unlike with a normal job, when I call in sick, the company has to pay someone to work my shift at either time and a half or doubletime, which equates to hundreds of dollars each time. Although I’ve been sick a few times, it’s always occurred during my days off.

Until now. After dragging myself to work the last two nights when I would have been justified in calling in, I finally gave up and used my first sick day for tonight. At my appointment this afternoon, Dr. Phillips diagnosed me with bronchitis. Yuck. So I’m chilling at home, trying not to talk or move too much, letting my new meds work, and resting while I watch the U.S. Open and Palin’s speech at the RNC. I’m already starting to feel better and plan to return to work tomorrow night.

Another Reason to Like SWA

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As you’ve probably read, Hurricane Gustav is churning in the Gulf and appears to be headed straight for Louisiana. It’s already a Category 4 storm and could reach Category 5 today, so the residents of New Orleans are evacuating. The New Orleans airport (MSY) is closing at 6:00pm on Sunday. Since Southwest has lots of employees who work at MSY and need to evacuate, dozens of volunteers from other SWA airports are flying in yesterday and today to work our flights so that the local employees can wrap up their affairs and hit the road.

I spoke with one such volunteer last night, a great guy who normally works at Dallas. He said he grew up in the Bay Area and understands about natural disasters, so he wanted to help out in New Orleans. He’ll probably return on the last flight out of MSY this evening. I am proud to call him a coworker.

O Canada!

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Southwest and excellent Canadian low cost carrier WestJet have announced plans to codeshare starting in late 2009. That means we’ll sell seats on each other’s flights, allowing someone to buy a single ticket from Dallas to Vancouver, for example, flying part of the trip on SWA and the rest on WJ. I am SO excited about this! It will provide more options for our customers, extra revenue for each company, and some good nonrevving opportunities for the employees. Using a fleet of 737s, WestJet currently flies to Vegas, Phoenix, LA, and a few Florida cities where we could feed each other passengers. From what our CEO said in a Chicago Tribune interview, I suspect they will be adding service to Chicago Midway. Baltimore and Denver wouldn’t surprise me, either. Here’s a link to the story.