Category Archives: My Job

This and That

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We’ve been busy lately, so sorry for the lack of updates. Work has been busy the last three nights with thunderstorms, late flights, and helping balance the workload for us midnight guys. As you might already know, the Dispatch office divides up the work by desk, with each desk responsible for specific city-pairs (ex. all flights from Dallas to Houston or Orlando to Baltimore). The midnight guys take over all flights for 2-4 different desks in the evening, monitoring them until they land, and planning all departures for 2-4 different desks the following morning through a given time, such as 830c. To accommodate growth, we add one or two desks to the office each year. To balance out the workload when we add a new desk, we shift city-pairs among the regular desks and change which desks the midnight guys relieve in the evening and release in the morning. In designing a midnight “desk”, my colleagues and I consider many factors, including the relative difficulty of each geographical area (west coast flights are generally easier due to better weather), the number of different airports we have to track, the number of flights to plan, and how many flights depart before the midnight guy leaves in the morning. There’s no perfectly even way to divide up the work, but I think we’ve come up with a decent solution. We’ll see how it works starting in February. I keep volunteering to help with these changes because I like puzzles, although it’s a bit daunting to know that people are unhappy if you provide the wrong answer. =)

Jenny and I had a very nice getaway to the Gaylord last weekend, complete with two delicious meals at the Riverwalk Cafe, a very cold but very beautiful trip through ICE (sorry I don’t have any pics – I was afraid the camera would break at 5 degrees!), a beautiful and comfortable room, nice staff, and plenty to see. I’m on a 12-day stretch at work after picking up a few shifts for a friend of mine whose stepdad is having surgery. We took Christmas down, and now we’re trying to clean out our rented garage so we can quit renting it. Anyone looking for a large legal-size filing cabinet, or have a good place to store a nice gas grill for a while?

Last night we had our second CARES pizza party and game night, which was a lot of fun. No one really played any board games, but we had a decent crowd, and many people stuck around to hang out for a bit. Pizza Hut accidentally shorted us a couple of pizzas, but it turned out that our advertising signs had blown over, and attendance was lower than expected. It’s always cool to see how God can work things out.

Doubletime and Its Benefits

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One of the things I love about my job is the opportunity for overtime. Until I became a dispatcher, I was either paid either straight salary regardless of hours or hourly without any chance for overtime. But now if I want to make some extra money, I can sign up for extra shifts. If I’d rather keep my days off, I can. Well, except for Saturday morning, when so few people had signed up for overtime that they had to start at the bottom of the seniority list and find someone legal to cover a shift. That someone was me, so I got called around 3:30 AM and semi-forced to come in for overtime even though I hadn’t signed up. I was supposed to help Katy and Eric move that day. I hated to break that commitment, but I must say it was nice to sit in an air-conditioned office making time and a half instead of lugging heavy boxes and furniture around in the muggy Texas heat. Anyway, our contract says that if someone works two or more overtime shifts during scheduled time off, every shift after the first is doubletime. Since I’d already been “juniored” on Saturday and had several days off ahead, I signed up for every overtime shift I could get! I worked two shifts on Sunday from 6:00 AM to 10:00 PM and another Monday afternoon. I was tired by the end, especially after Sunday, but it will give me a very nice bonus in my next paycheck. Note: I’m not trying to brag. I just thought you might find this process interesting. =)

That bonus comes at a great time since we’ve finally decided to replace my beloved 1996 Dodge Avenger, Sarah (11 years, 137,000 miles, the car I’ve driven since my senior year of high school), with a black 2007 Honda Fit, a small SUV-hatchback type car that offers great gas mileage, mucho flexibility, and Honda quality. I had to reserve it because they’re hard to find and in demand. Mine is currently sailing over from Japan and should arrive within a couple of weeks. I’ll be very sad to see Sarah go, but I’m really excited about getting a new car of my own. I’m probably going to donate her to Irving Bible Church’s car ministry. I’m working on names for my new Fit already. Since she’s black with tinted windows, mysterious and sexy, the frontrunners are Elvira (as in Mistress of the Dark, not the Oak Ridge Boys song) or Avril (as in Lavigne). Write me if you have any suggestions.

PHX, OAK, and SFO

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We’re back! It was a stressful and draining trip, but also tons of fun and memorable in many ways. First, I put in my cockpit observation time requirement for the year by riding up front from Dallas to El Paso to Phoenix and then from Phoenix to Oakland. I always like riding up front because it helps me understand the pilots’ duties, pressures, and perspective better. I talked with both sets of pilots about fuel, one area of occasional disagreement between pilots and dispatchers. At Southwest, and probably all other passenger airlines, the dispatcher plans the fuel load and alternate airports well in advance of departure time after analyzing the weather, aircraft, airports, traffic, and other factors involved. The FAA requires a minimum of 45 minutes’ worth of extra fuel for domestic flights, and we always add varying amounts of extra fuel to account for possible reroutes, ATC issues, weather, or other issues that might increase the fuel burn. On the majority of our flights, the Captain accepts the planned fuel load. On occasion, he/she adds more shortly before departure, which gives the flight more time to deviate or hold before diverting but also increases the fuel burn and operating cost (extra fuel = extra weight to carry). Some pilots like to say, “the only time a plane has too much fuel is when it’s on fire.” Although we might quibble over the “right” amount of fuel, I was very impressed (but not surprised) at how seriously our pilots take their responsibility for the safe operation of each Southwest flight. The Dallas-Phoenix trip was boring weather-wise, but the nighttime Phoenix-Oakland flight was more interesting. We experienced turbulence for much of the flight, and the pilots worked hard with ATC trying to find a smooth altitude. Then on approach to OAK, we descended through thick layers of clouds and landed in rain and 3 miles of visibility. It wasn’t anywhere near the minimums for OAK, but there’s nothing quite like seeing lit-up clouds fly straight toward you at 250 knots.

The rest of the trip was busy but fun. We had a good turnout at both “LUV at First Bite” new-hire luncheons, both from new-hires and from our senior leaders. President Colleen Barrett was there along with several directors and vice presidents. They all had a great time and enjoyed the puppet show. Thursday night we attended the Oakland Message to the Field, where Gary announced SWA’s impending return to San Francisco after a 6-year hiatus. I think SFO will be a good airport for us, but its opening will increase our staffing shortage in Oakland. If you know anyone who might be interested in working for us in OAK, please refer them to southwest.com/careers. =) We visited the People Department’s field offices in each city and sold lots of goodies before each Message. It was great to get out in the field and see my coworkers from so many different airports, to feel the excitement of the new-hires, and to remind myself once again how many different people and roles it takes to run our company.

Off to the Left Coast!

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After my shift tonight, I’m off for the next several days, so I’m tagging along with Jenny as she flies out to Phoenix and Oakland for work. Like in September when we did Vegas, she’s helping run new hire luncheons and working a new hire booth at the annual Messages to the Field (a state of the company address/party) that SWA does. For this year’s luncheons, she and her coworkers put together an awesome sock puppet show that tells the history of SWA and shows our fun-loving and crazy culture. Despite hearing so much about the process of producing the show, I haven’t seen it myself. I’ve never been to PHX and haven’t see the Bay Area in nearly 10 years. Should be an interesting trip!

Another New Page and a Lot of Caffeine

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Hello again! It’s 3:29 AM on the first day of Feb. After over a month of mostly day and afternoon shifts, I’m finally switching to midnights starting tonight. To start switching my body from day shift time to night shift, I made some coffee last night and stayed up working on my website and surfing the Net. The dog and cat are probably confused; Daddy won’t go to bed, and Mommy isn’t here. (They don’t know it, but she’s in Orlando on business.) Anyway, the result of all this is version 1.0 of my long-ballyhooed investing page, where I talk at great length on a subject I only know a little about. =) Fortunately for you, I also give you links to some REAL financial websites. I am quite excited about investing and hope that all of you are, too. It’s quite fun, often profitable, and very satisfying, especially when you make a good pick. Feel free to email me with your own investing advice or favorite companies.

Living at Work

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Ahh, it’s good to be home. I had 3 midnight shifts scheduled over the weekend. Hearing all the forecasts about the ice storm, I brought some clothes, food, a sleeping bag, and a pillow up to work and stayed in Headquarters from Friday night to Monday morning to make sure I could work my shifts. I also thought that chances were very high that I might be able to get some overtime on Monday. I set up camp in a quiet, unused office, turned off the lights, and managed to get decent amount of sleep each day. I tried to stay out of sight so I wouldn’t have to explain myself to people. It felt a little like being homeless, sneaking through the darkness, walking softly, turning off the lights if someone was coming. Sunday morning a cleaning lady opened my door to vacuum and was quite surprised to find a strange guy on the floor in a sleeping bag. I showered in the locker room and used the computer in my “hotel room” to monitor the weather and email my people. Sure enough, I got called in for two overtime shifts on Monday. Finally, exhausted, I drove to my home in Fort Worth Monday night and slept in my soft bed, thankful for safe passage and a fatter paycheck but also thankful that it was over. I woke up shortly before noon the next day.