I Just Do Not Understand

Blade damage-Big Time!!!- Thanks AzWoman

I claimed I was not going to complain anymore about how people work, but I can not let this go. I really love being an aircraft mechanic and I come from a pretty strong background of folks who work hard. I know that I am not always motivated and have off days-everyone does.

Why would a guy complain about me not doing his work and then complain about having to do his work? I know that's not real clear so let me give an example. This just happened to me:

I'm working swing shift on a Saturday. Saturdays in OAK are not the busiest days. The terminating planes usually come in early on Saturday as well. There were four of us working, me and three midnight shift mechanics. Now this whole thing between midnights and swings has been going on for a couple of years now. The midnight guys want the swings guys to "bust out" or work on planes that come in early, reducing the amount of work they have to deal with at night. Sounds good. The problem is that even when two or three planes are knocked out there are a number of midnight shift mechanics who will still complain about what they are assigned to work. Then there are the guys who say "wow you guys could only finish up three planes?" or "yeah swings did three plane, but they were only MV-1s."

These kinds of comments do not sit well with people who are on swing shift. They get no benefit from working the RON planes and then they get complaints about doing it. So the thing is-why help RON knock out planes when the RON guys just say that it is not enough?

We have all worked midnights and we all know how it is to stay up all night and get broke planes when you thought you had a relatively easy night. ALL the guys on days and swings worked graveyards, and  a lot of us worked graveyards at other airlines that had no "down time" when you finished a job, only more work brought into a hangar etc. We know what it is like. To say things like "you could only knock out one plane?" to us is very condescending.

Back to my story:

I was Lead and I like to run the shift with out having to keep a "list". A list is simply that, we list the mechanics working on a piece of paper and go down the list in turn when a gate call comes up. Most grown up people do not need a list to govern their actions but apparently a lot of mechanics do. Usually when no list is used we simply take turns and believe me you know who went before you and when you need to volunteer to get up and do something. Again this only works with grown ups!! As I was the lead I went to the first terminating plane. While there a gatecall came in for hydraulics at gate 25. I got on the radio and asked if someone could get it and after a pause one of the guys said sure.  About this time the terminaters started to come in hot and heavy and of course the three guys went out to work on them so they could have a few less planes at night, I understand that. What I do not understand is that when SWING shift gatecalls came in and I asked someone-anyone to get the call I got no answer on the radio. It went like this:

Ops: "Maint. Gate 28 wants oil"
Me: "Copy that, can any one get that?"
Others: ".........................." (silence)

So I had to call out names just to get the gatecalls done. Then I come to find out (the next day) that one of these guys was overheard saying that there were four guys on swings, but only three guys working. He thinks that I did nothing all shift!

I can't believe this but I should not be surprised. I did not work on any terminating aircraft. My job, my responsibility is for through flight planes. We were working SWING shift, not coming in early as sometimes happens to knock out RON planes. Plus the three of them were ALLOWED by ME to work on those planes. I could have stopped them but I didn't. Why would this guy say this about me? Why let me do you a favor and then turn around and spit in my face? Why complain about the work you are assigned? Why get so mad as to kick tool boxes, throw tools, yell at the work board? The simple reality is that some of us are not mature enough to have reasonable responses when things do not go our perceived way.

It's amazing how the same 8-10 guys are the ones who have problems with their work assignments and these same guys are the ones who concentrate more on what other shifts are doing than how they themselves are behaving on their own shift. It's called projection folks! You know you suck so you try to PROJECT that same attribute onto others.

I learned my lesson, I will ALWAYS take the Lead when it is available to me and I will ALWAYS keep a list when those guys are on shift. And I will ALWAYS make it clear that the gatecalls will take top priority. I guess the days of working with grownups are over. Oh and I will be having a "come to Jesus" talk with this one loud mouth.