Um, well...if you don't help yourself, there, pilot, how can anyone else be expected to help you?
I'd imagine the stereo nature of "NE yelling in my ear while being put in my other ear via interphone" would drive people nuts too.
Oddly enough I was working an Ameriflight contract. I took a break from full time work and full time school because I was getting burnt out. I'd been working 40hrs/wk as a line guy at KBUR and going to school 35hrs/wk and I heard Ameriflight was looking to hire part time evening workers on weekdays to support UPS when they started flying a 757 into and out of KBUR so I tossed my hat in the ring. I might've been the only applicant that already had an airport badge. Part of my interview was driving a brand new 50,000lb tug pushing the 757 tow bar. Moving airplanes around at that point was second nature so tootling down the service road pushing the tow bar without jack knifing it was easy and I impressed the interviewer enough that I was offered the job on the spot. That was before they actually started operations but I said goodbye to my line service friends and jumped on board for a massive amount of training regarding policy, shipping regulations and a bunch of other nonsense (ever heard of ORM-D?). I also learned UPS is actually two different companies and their junior managers will do anything required to move up regardless of morality. One of their dorks drove a red '74 Corvette and my partner in crime in the tug (the person who'd unhook the tow bar on the taxiway) was a salty lady older than me with a sharp tongue. She had a family to take care of and this was her second job just to make ends meet, she hated the dork in the Corvette and would constantly tell him she was sorry about his dick. It took forever for him to catch on and he started showing up in some late model econobox. In retrospect it was a lot of fun. Maybe because we were starting a new base for UPS they were adamant about how things were done and we adhered to their policies. Except for one night when I broke barehanded the seal on a container so the crew could load the boxes into the FWD belly and cut the first two fingers on one hand down to the bone and started bleeding everywhere. They took me into the hangar to wrap my hand up and then realized I was the only person who'd ever pushed that loaded 757 through the uphill 180 degree turn onto the taxiway. I can remember being a bit woozy as I pushed the airplane up the hill and my salty partner questioning about my well being but we pushed the airplane and once I'd parked the tug I was put in a truck and whisked away to a hospital where I received a bunch of stitches. This was during push and it was a Friday night, I'd been planning to go to Big Bear directly after work to meet some friends and go snowboarding and I mentioned that to the doctor, he said that's not happening, stitched me up and wrapped my first two fingers in enough gauze that I had a temporary peace sign gesture. When I got back to the airport I jumped in my truck and drove to Big Bear, but that's a story for another day...
I've worked 5 towers and only 1 of them put intra facility coordination on the recorded line. I hated it at first but by the time I left I began to appreciate it because it helped stifle complacency. That was the slowest of all the towers I've worked in.
Probably because if you ground it at this particular time of year 25% of the crap everyone purchases between now and the end of the year doesn’t show up. So to sum it up in one word… “peak”.
Guess you are a better pilot than I.
This is not even including our "secretary of war" sharing attack plans in a chat group as if he were telling people about a dinner reservation.
Well at least we got 8 pages in first.
Well I’m not sure what that has to do with anything but I may be inclined to believe I’m a bit less of an alarmist.
