Crack down in Res!

Nov 20, 2002
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www.usaviation.com
Heard from a agent in MCO that a supervisor posted the below message in their team page. Hopefully the CWA will take action on this situation.
Everyone, please give your full attention to your work. We all must do this in order for us to emerge from our financial difficulties. When you observe someone doing something that you recognize as time consuming, please alert a supervisor so they can address the rep at once.
 
Oh Lovely!! ...Now the gameplan is to turn employee's against one another. That's real productive (NOT)!

What's next?...[img src='http://www.usaviation.com/idealbb/images/smilies/15.gif']
 
Yes there is an active attempt by res management to destroy the will and the spirit of the res agents...kind of a special thank you...Thats why you wont find one agent who's not thanking their lucky stars that their leaving...and for those who are staying it's hell!!! The only reason I can think of the company acting this way is during contract negotiations there must have been some agents who really pissed Dave off...So you know the old saying Paybacks are hell...
 
A day in the life of a typical overpaid underappreciated reservation sales agent:
1-Walk thru front door and sign in on paper first at a podium.
2-Sign into computer and phone pad within a minute or 2 of shift start time or face occurrence against attendance stats or use up a free late (up to 12 minutes twice a year allotted.)
3- read briefing or socialize, depending on the agent, preferably within 7 minutes of official start time.Hope you can get through and comprehend anywhere from 2 to 12 topics in briefing and the pricing bulletin depending on the day, no avenue to ask questions on vague or unclear info or procedures in the bulletins.No time alloted to read USAIR TODAY or any in house bulletins as most of the time is needed to understand and mentally try to process and remember normal briefing info, therefore any important newsworthy goings on within the company are learned thru rumour, word of mouth , or the typical general grapevine.
4- Take calls, such as sales, reissue ,awards, info ,sched change, agency,etc ,depending on your training. Must rigidly work within the guidleines prescribed Re: fare rules, ticketing policies,inventory of seats or lack thereof especially re: dm awrd tkts... virtually no waivers unless apparent agent error involved. No medical or emergency waivers of any kind including jury or military.Sometimes having to correct prior misperceptions created by misinformation disseminated by agents who don't follow briefings and stay current or who don't take the time to fully explain a policy because of time restraints.. On average, 1/3 to 1/2 of a typical day is spent telling pax NO NO NO/Cant Cant Cant or It's gonna cost ya, which often leads to intense stressful agent/passenger discourse and sometimes elevation to CSD desk or C/A. No sales blitzes, no pep talks, no meetings to discuss or voice concerns that would be heard, analyzed ,and perhaps modified if need be. No time to spend with the passenger selling our product and its benefits if applicable. It's all about quoting schedule, a fare ,ya want ir or not? And get off the phone. It's basically Sit down, shut up, and take calls. Nothing varies day to day, not a thing. No initiatives, no postive reinforcements, just cracking whips.Like a bandaid over a gushing wound.No one will initiate change. Bad business model and bad management overall. And cutting labor is not the answer.

From what I understand in the American businesss model, this is not how many sales oriented companies operate, is it?? Or am I wrong? Am I thinking of the 80s and 90's too much, and the new century of sales is now patterned different in order to succeed?

5-Hope that if necessary through the course of a day, that who you call in rates desk or customer service help desk is skilled, qualified, and sympathetic enough to handle unusual situations,questions and the like. Recently, both departments have been flooded with newly trained rookies lacking these 3 important qualities.

So one might ask, who would endure this both company and self inflicted torture professionally and courteously longterm for 7 bucks an hour? Joe BigMac? I don't think so.
The company will never survive BK with the modus operandi I described above , which is quite a true reflection of a typical day at US res.

 
Sorry, not my day to babysit. If the supervisors jobs are worth keeping, then they need to earn their pay and be out on the floor checking on things themselves and not relying on snitches to get their job done.
 
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On 11/20/2002 2:31:31 PM Do_it_for_Dave wrote:

Heard from a agent in MCO that a supervisor posted the below message in their team page. Hopefully the CWA will take action on this situation.

"Everyone, please give your full attention to your work. We all must do this in order for us to emerge from our financial difficulties. When you observe someone doing something that you recognize as time consuming, please alert a supervisor so they can address the rep at once."
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That super has since apologized for offending anyone and removed that paragraph from her home page.
However,Truth be known ,there is a fair amount of abuse of time, especially agents who work queues.
Books?,needlepoint?,deck o'cards?,newspaper??I sure don't have the time, I am constantly on the keyboard and the monitor. Color me either confused,baffled, or an overworker.
 
Most supervisors I have dealt with in reservations over the past 23 years never directly address the person not doing their job. The supervisors are now so scared they will be the next one to lose their jobs that they are like flies on **** on reps. Once again they are targeting and questioning reps that are doing their job, and ignoring those that are not...the stress level is increasing daily and many that are still here wish they were old enough to retire or would be involuntary furlough. It
 
CS-pro...you are like me....do my job and I do not care what someone else does. We are all held accountable for what we do. Now that is not saying that I do not take a few minutes a shift to gather my thoughts and still my numbers are in line, in fact well over what the company is expecting for us. The point that is bothering me is all the micromanagement that I see going on. Do not like it and will not stand for it either. Amazing how some can get away with doing something and others who are doing the same thing are ignored. Guess this is the employee friendly management that we have all dreamed about......
 
Forgot one important point especially to anyone who works RI/Preffered....you all do realise that once this next round of furloughs are done that will increase the RI and Preferred calls since the majority of the ones that will be no longer with us were RI/Preferred agents. Will be more than likely a longer wait for our Preferred Pax also...