Category Archives: My Job

Whew, What a Week!

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This week I worked 6 day shifts, filling in for more senior people who took vacation. Working Christmas didn’t bother me that much except that I couldn’t see my dad’s side of the family Christmas Eve in Wichita Falls. It was a very busy workweek! One day Sacramento was fogged in, and two or three planes landing in SMF had mechanical problems. The next day San Jose was fogged in. Tuesday Reno was extremely windy, and one of my flights reported severe turbulence just before landing and diverted to Oakland. Thursday I tried to referee a battle between a Captain who wanted an aircraft inspected and the mechanics who didn’t think it was necessary based on the circumstances. Yesterday I had flights into Denver, a double-diversion at Albuquerque due to snow and fog, a charter to plan, and thunderstorms all over Texas. This is on top of our Christmas celebrations. Now I finally get a day off, and we’re having an 80th birthday party for my grandfather in Rowlett.

BREAKING NEWS! AN ANDYBOX.COM EXCLUSIVE!!! Thursday brought the birth of Paige Noel Cerney, the first daughter of my cousin Joe and his wife Erin. You won’t find this anywhere else, not even BabyCerney.com!

Five Years at Southwest

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Last week was my five-year anniversary at Southwest. I started on June 25, 2001, so I was quite grateful that Southwest didn’t lay off all the new guys after September 11. To celebrate our anniversary, many of the new hires from my SMART Camp group (Technology new hires fresh out of school) met for lunch, and I got to join them. It was great to see some folks I hadn’t seen in months and catch up. About 2/3 of us are left from the original group of about 22, which is pretty high for technology workers. I think the high retention rate is partly due to SMART Camp, which was 6 weeks of orientation to the company, its various departments, and its history along with lots of fun. Sure, it was a long program, but it helped make us die-hard fans of the company.

June News

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Whew! We’ve had so much going on that I haven’t made time to update the blog in a while. My maternal grandmother was in the hospital for a few days last week, but I’m glad to say she’s now home recovering and feeling better. Jenny got a promotion at work! Starting sometime next month, she will be a project specialist for the onboarding group in the People dept. That means she’ll be working on a variety of special projects, such as organizing events, gathering and analyzing data, designing forms, etc. The onboarding group tries to make sure new employees at SWA get plugged in the culture and love the company from the beginning so that they stick around. I’m sure many of you saw the Wright Amendment compromise that Dallas, Fort Worth, DFW, American, and Southwest worked out recently. I’m actually quite happy with it. Sure, 8 years is a long time, but if American was going to sign off on it, we couldn’t get any less than 8. The agreement lets us keep 16 gates at Love, which is a huge plus, and allows immediate through-ticketing, which will also be a big help. I expect Congress to pass it this year. Vegas, here we come, after a stop in Albuquerque! =) I finished my economics class (number 11/13). The garden is getting very, very crowded, but we finally have 2 cucumbers! It’s schedule bidding time at work, and I think I’m going to bid midnights for next year (Feb 2007-Jan 2008). I’m not senior enough to get day shifts, so midnights are the only way to see my wife much when I’m working.

Lunch, Dinner, and Breakfast

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I’ve been working some midnight shifts lately. They are great for school purposes, but I’m still adjusting to the weirdness of the schedule. It changes your days in ways you might not think of. For instance, the first meal of the day is generally lunch, since I wake up around noon. The second is dinner, often with my wife. The last meal of my day is breakfast at work. This morning my shift ended at 7:00 AM, so I went down to the People Dept. and met Jenny as she was coming in to work. To make sure I brush my teeth at least twice a day, I might do it right before going to work, even though I’m going to be up for several more hours and haven’t even had breakfast yet. =)

I finally put the car in the shop. They said I changed the wrong sensor, so I guess I didn’t outsmart the man after all. But the light is off, and they did some other good work as well, so I can’t complain too much. My goal is to keep her running until we can get Jenny’s CRV paid off.

Graveyard Shift

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I worked my first two midnight shifts over the weekend – Friday and Saturday nights from 10:00 PM to 6:00 AM. They actually weren’t that bad! The hardest part was an unpressurized ferry flight on Friday night from Phoenix to a contract maintenance facility in Dothan, Alabama. It was running 5 hours late, so it arrived around 3:00 AM, when the airport is normally closed. It caused me some problems, but it was good training. The second night I managed to finish my Airline Mgmt homework and complete my first Sudoku puzzle during the slow early morning hours when I had no flights in the air. After each shift I came home and slept. Then I woke up and hung out with Jenny some in the afternoon. I probably won’t bid the midnight shift for next year, but I’ll be OK if I get some midnights here and there.

Two Week Report

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Here’s the two-week report: 500+ flights planned and/or overseen. 11 shifts. 1 air turnback due to a bird intake. 1 weather diversion (thunderstorms in Houston). 1 very busy day (Dallas desk with thunderstorms near Houston plus a problematic charter flight). 1 overtime shift. 10 fairly easy and calm days (counting the bird intake day as a calm one). $1 million+ worth of fuel consumed. I’m having a great time!

In other news, Jenny and I have gotten much better about working out. The trick was putting a calendar on the fridge and recording the days we work out on it. If we miss several days, the calendar shows a big gap and makes us feel bad. =) We saw a great movie Saturday night called Hoodwinked. It’s very funny and clever, the voice acting is great, the computer graphics are well-done, and it’s just a fun movie. I’ll be done with my labor relations class in about a month. Despite my apprehension going into it, I must say I’ve learned a lot from the class, and I’m better off for taking it. I’m still not a big fan of unions, but I better understand their value and purpose. It’s easy to forget that not all companies treat their employees as well as Southwest does.