Amazonian Space–Time Continuum
Who likes to wait? Not me! That’s why I went back in time to write this post. Ah, here it is! What took so long?
Once upon a time I was in a serious quandary. I wanted some cheap, plastic, materialistic consumer shit made in China and I wanted it now. What to do, what to do?
As I saw it, there were two choices.
I could haul my fat ass up and out of my chair, somehow make it to the car, drive to a big-box store, somehow make it inside and navigate the maze to (hopefully) the right section where the object of my desire might be found. All the while being blasted by a tasty mix of songs scientifically designed to make me spend more money. (The mix is a rotation of two songs. Happy, by Pharrell Williams and anything by Mumford & Sons.)
I say “might” because I’ve tried this in the past and it didn’t quite work out. Ever go to the store to buy one specific thing? After expending incredible effort (see previous paragraph) you learn it isn’t even there. Out of stock. I do not believe there is a worse feeling in the entire universe.
And that other choice I mentioned earlier? Amazon. Duh.
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The China Monologues
China, the largest creditor of the United States, has been in the news of late. On Sunday the CBS news program 60 Minutes had a story about a Chinese company called Huawei, a company that makes internet and networking equipment like routers, switches, and has the capability to build things like 4G networks. Huawei has become the largest telecommunications equipment maker in the world.
I’d never heard of Huawei before but apparently my iMac already has. As I write this post the text “Huawei” is already recognized by my inline spellchecker dictionary.
A U.S. congressional report recently released worried that Huawei and ZTE Corp., another Chinese company, have become too powerful and are a potential threat to U.S. national security. The report was produced over the last 11-months by the U.S. House of Representatives’ Intelligence Committee and concludes that the companies could be working with the Chinese government for non-commercial reasons.
The pursuit of a position in the profession of plane procedures
The most modern facility we've got. Credit: Wikipedia.
Pompous pricks! (Clarification: I’m not talking about the controllers here.)
How y’all feeling about the “friendly” skies right about now? There have only been six or seven incidents of air traffic controllers found sleeping and/or unresponsive on the job this year so far.
It turns out that some controllers are sleepy. And that they sometimes have to work night shifts all by themselves.
It also turns out that current rules require only eight hours of time off between shifts.
Wikipedia says:
A typical work week for a controller is an 8 hour day, 5 days per week.
So, how in the name of Zeus’ butthole do you get to any scenario where you need employees to work shifts only eight hours apart?
Unless it is a veritable emergency, there are only two possibilities. Employees doing dumb ass shift trades and managers incompetence. And the former is subject to manager approval and also an example of incompetence.
As an aside, in my experience, companies just love to treat the word “emergency” as a euphemism for gross incompetence. “What? We failed to schedule enough employees for this shift? What? We incorrectly predicted workload? Fine. This is now an ’emergency’ and we can chuck all the safety rules out the window. It’s ‘mandatory’ time, baby. Do what we say or you’re fired.”
Yes, I actually worked somewhere like that. Fucking dumb asses.
Sorry. I strayed off topic. It is being reported in the media that “some scientists” say that “carefully controlled naps” would help address controller fatigue on the job.
Ray LaHood. Credit: Wikipedia.
Cue the Secretary of Transportation, Republican Ray LaHood. He’s now being quoted all over the media as saying, “On my watch, controllers will not be paid to take naps.”
That sounds nice and hard ass. And it makes a nice sound bite, too.
Of course, that also disregards the input of said “some scientists.”
So what new anti-fatigue rules we will see? The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has announced this whopping change. Controllers will now be given nine hours between shifts instead of eight.
Controllers will also be prohibited from switching shifts that would result in less than nine hours between shifts.
You’re shitting me, right? That is the solution? Is this some sort of dumb ass joke?
LaHood’s quote, in more context:
On my watch, controllers will not be paid to take naps. We want to make sure they’re well rested. We want to make (sure) that in the workplace there’s the ability for them to do their job, but we’re not going to pay controllers to be napping. We’re not going to do that.
I’ll bet that “some scientists” are feeling disappointed their input was disregarded.
I might be missing the point, but what the fuck is the difference between eight and nine hours between shifts? Is that going to magically solve this problem?
In addition, FAA “managers” will now working more late-night and early-morning shifts to monitor controllers when they are most likely to be fatigued. What? They didn’t already do this? These poor managers are going to have to give up their banker’s hours? Bloody hell!
So, here’s the deal. I have a solution. It might not be favorite of these so-called “managers” who make the big bucks to make dumb ass decisions, but I’m pretty sure it will work.
Give employees a schedule that doesn’t require them to have only eight (or nine) hours between their fucking shifts.
Try that on for size, LaHood and the FAA.
I’m no scientist, but my theories show that, in general, this will result in controllers being less fatigued.
Call this one a freebie, FAA. I won’t even charge my normal consulting fee.
I used to work for a shithole of a company that would do things like this. (I plan to write about this company much more. There are lots of stories.) Employees were treated like pieces of equipment. Employees were batteries to be used and then discarded. (And this was decades before The Matrix.)
It was routine to be scheduled for a #2 shift followed by a #1 shift. It happened almost every single week. A #2 shift, or the “swing” shift could end anywhere from 11pm to 1am. A #1 shift, or the “day” shift, started bright and early at 6am.
Let’s do the math. That’s five to seven hours between work shifts. And it was just a matter of routine. They didn’t even bother to declare an “emergency.” That’s just the way it was. And these employees worked around loud, heavy machinery, with forklifts zipping around the room often passing within a couple feet of clearance. Fatigue much? Tough shit.
The other thing they did was alternate shift by work week. One week you’d have #2 shifts and the next you’d have #1’s. This wreaked havoc on me. It made me physically ill and I had an extremely hard time getting my sleep.
Don’t forget you’ve got to commute between shifts, too. If you leave only 30 minutes away that’s an hour shot to hell. And, speaking from my experience, I couldn’t just walk in the door, hit the bed, and fall fast asleep. It didn’t work like that. I’d be “wired” after a work shift and would need like an hour to wind down. And the more I knew I needed my sleep, the less I’d actually get.
It was a fucking travesty of justice.
To be fair, most situations that call for only one controller in a tower are on the mid-shift where there is very little air traffic, so the danger is low. Similarly, aircraft land at airports with no control towers at all every single day. So it is generally safe but that’s not the point.
Either way, whether you are a lone ranger air-traffic controller working the night shift by yourself or a lowly grunt working in a production department, you deserve a humane work schedule. There is no reason to allow rules that provide only a minimum of eight or nine hours between work shifts.
TED: Ideas Worth Sharing
“Work-life balance, says Nigel Marsh, is too important to be left in the hands of your employer. At TEDxSydney, Marsh lays out an ideal day balanced between family time, personal time and productivity — and offers some stirring encouragement to make it happen.”
This is my “P” post for the April 2011 “A to Z Blogging Challenge.”
Human behavior needs an airlock
Houston, I am now ejecting myself out of the airlock without a spacesuit. My beggings will commence in 5... 4... 3...
In space no one can hear you be a dumbass…
“To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.”
–Isaac Newton’s Third Law of Motion (loosely paraphrased)
Of course Newton’s Third Law says pretty much diddly squat about human beings!
Let’s say you are in space and you wish to be a dumbass. What is something dumb you might do? Well, you could load yourself into the airlock, forget to bring your spacesuit, then punch the “open the pod bay door” button.
If you ever get the chance, give it a try. I highly recommend it. Don’t forget to document your results! Should be interesting.
The point here, one that is alien to most of us in America these days, is that actions have consequences. Well, they should. But once you involve those frisky humans consequences can become a quite murky thing.
The thing about the airlock example above is: It is absolute. The situation doesn’t allow for compromise, remorse, begging, forgiveness or anything else. There is no higher reality or force with which to lodge your request for something like a second chance. If you punch that button without a suit you will be sucked off into outer space and die. (Some of you might point out that “sucked out” might be a better choice of phrase. I can only say, “To each their own!”)
There’s a wonderful short story that illustrates the concept of choice and consequences when it is absolutely absolute. It’s called The Cold Equations and it was written by Tom Godwin back in 1954. I first encountered it in a book called The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, which is an incredible anthology of science fiction short stories.
Here’s the summary of The Cold Equations from Wikipedia:
A starship makes the rounds of Earth’s colonies, adhering to a schedule from which it cannot deviate. When reports of a fever outbreak on the frontier planet Woden reach the starship, it drops off an Emergency Dispatch Ship, a space vessel of limited range, with a pilot and the serum that will cure them. The pilot discovers a stowaway, an 18-year-old girl named Marilyn who wants to see her brother, a colonist on Woden. The girl believes that she will have to pay a fine, but the situation is far more serious. The ship only has enough fuel for the pilot and his cargo. Her additional mass will cause the ship to run out of fuel before it can land, dooming both the pilot and the sick colonists. The pilot tries frantically to come up with a solution, but there is no way around the “cold equations”; he does not have sufficient fuel. The best he can do is to alter the ship’s course enough to give her a single hour’s reprieve before she must be jettisoned. In that time, she writes letters to her parents and her brother, talks with the pilot about death and, in the last few minutes, is able to speak with her brother on the radio, allowing them to say their goodbyes. When the horizon of the planet breaks up the radio contact, the girl enters the airlock and is ejected into space.
Now that is the kind of consequence I’m talkin’ about!
That sort of thing, however, is totally and utterly alien in the world of human behavior. In the vast majority of cases boorish human behavior goes completely unpunished and unchecked. There are, in these cases, absolutely no “consequences.”
In some cases, a person may actually be held partially accountable for their actions. (I consider this outcome exceedingly rare.) You’ve heard the expression, “It is easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.” That is this concept in a nutshell. Whine, beg, show remorse, make deals, pray, etc. Do whatever it takes to slither off the hook either complete or partially.
I find myself thinking a lot about this concept after a friggin’ asshole who wouldn’t obey the rules on an aircraft became the straw on some camel’s back. The “camel” will be dealt with by our system, but what about the “straw?”
When has an airline passenger ever faced “consequences” for the behavior we saw in this incident? I’ll bet it’s more rare than me winning the lotto. (Or almost as rare as me buying a lotto ticket.) Does anyone who disobeys the “remain sitting” rule ever get punished? Banned from the airline? Do they even get a stern look from airline management?
Take a look at the world around you. How often can you see the airlock on human behavior being overridden by indifference, injustice or deliberate unfairness? And what are the consequences of never having actual consequences? Is a society totally devoid of civility the ultimate result?
Shouts from the Abyss 
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