LafayetteLady
Posts: 7683
Joined: 5/2/2007
From: Northern New Jersey
Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: marie2
My first thought isn't that nothing DID go wrong, it's that something COULD have gone wrong. What if the kid was a smartass and decided not to listen to dad, and instead say something else? Or what if he misheard his dad and said something erroneous, or said Flight 171 clear for landing instead of flight 717?
Anyway, the harmless outcome doesn't matter...The bottom line is that when you take a job and agree to their policies, you have to be willing to pay the consequences when you break them.
First of all if the kid was a smart ass, I'm pretty sure dad would be aware of it, and wouldn't have let him say anything.
Second of all, you believe that ATC NEVER make a mistake that needs to be corrected? Are you really so naive that you think these people are the picture of perfection? Yes, there job is ridiculously stressful and difficult, but no one is perfect. I'm sure there are policies in place which give direction in the case of an error, there has to be.
quote:
ORIGINAL: servantforuse
Maybe it would have been a good idea if his kid was in school where he should have been. I guess he did learn something that day though.
Good thing you are not an air traffic controller, since you prove your inability to pay attention. The only reason the kid was there was because it was a snow day.
Perhaps adjusting policies and providing some type of child care when snow days occur or allowing those parents to have paid time off would be a good step towards preventing this from happening in the future.
Lots of people are going on and on about how so many people were "endangered," yet that is really only in theory.
quote:
ORIGINAL: LadyAngelika
Oh that is too harsh. Reprimand, a fine, short suspension, perhaps. He broke the rules, rules that are there for a reason. It seemed like an infraction, something done with lack of judgement, but not a malicious and saboteur act. They only reason they fired him was to appear tough in the eyes of the media and the people.
- LA
As crazy as it is, for once LA and I agree on this point. Yes, there should have been repurcussions, but to fire them was a direct result of the media making it a huge deal.
Something NO ONE is mentioning is WHY the kid was there in the first place. It wasn't "take your child to work day." School was cancelled due to snow, but that doesn't mean that parents have the day off. Most companies in this country do not have provisions for employees with children when for reasons like snow days, there is no child care. Hell, very few organizations even provide day care.
We live in a time when there is an abundance of single parents and even in "intact" families, both parents need to work to make ends meet. The Family Leave Act doesn't apply to situations such as snow days. Parents use their sick time and vacation time to stay home with their children in cases of snow days or kids being sick. If the parents have no paid time off available, they lose money by staying home and possibly even their jobs.
Was there an alternative for the ATC who brought his son to work? What if he had called out of work that day? One less controller would have endangered people that much more.
I don't think that anyone believes there shouldn't have been some kind of repurcussion for this father or his supervisor. They did break the rules. Firing is overkill. So now there is one more unemployed person. He will have a 6 week penalty on collecting unemployment because he was fired for cause. The job market sucks big time right now, but I guess the bright side is that this father won't need to worry about snow days for a while. Meanwhile, that kid is dealing with the guilt of getting his dad fired. But hey, I'm sure the rest of the ATCs at JFK are completely perfect and never make mistakes so those of you who are so horrified and believe that those remaining never make mistakes can fly without worry.
Incidentally LA, there was in recent months several reports of drunken pilots in the tri-state area. They may not have been "big" enough stories to have reached your area. They weren't posted by someone on the net, so they didn't have the opportunity to go viral. There was another where the pilot was checking his schedule on his personal computer while in flight also. Drunk pilots and pilots doing things on their laptops while in the air are more worrisome to me than a kid repeating verbatim what his father tells him to say.
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