Ukridge
Senior
This little gem was forwarded to me by a friend from BA. Wish I could have claimed authorship! After reading it, go back and look at the date... Seems to be a trend that could very likely spread to every industry.
Mods: Did not know where to put this but since it mentions United I would ask that you leave it here. Pip!
Wolfgang Mayrhuber watched his six iron shot fade markedly from the track that he had intended for it to take to the green. Yes there was a tufting breeze blowing on this late March day in central Spain, but Mayrhuber was not satisfied with the vagaries of the atmosphere as an explanation why this shot was the fifth of the day that had run so errant of its intended course.
With typical Teutonic precision Mayrhuber fell silent as he contemplated the speed of the hosel, the angle of the club face, and a hundred other details of his less than satisfying swing.
Yet propelling a golf ball toward the pin was most likely the least of his worries on this day. As he made his way around the links he was joined, not only in his foursome, but in a wider array of duffers by the helmsmen of the world’s best-known airlines. Gathered near Madrid for a three-day meeting of carriers within the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the talk, even while on the golf course, was never far from work.
One could see, clad in a range of sartorial style ranging from the informal to the foppish, the likes of Mr. William D. “Wee Willie†Walsh of British Airways, Chew Choon Seng of Singapore Airlines, Mineo Yamamoto of All Nippon Airways, Jean-Cyril Spinetta of Air France, and huffing and groaning under the burdens of a weighty and cumbersome remuneration package Mr. Glenn Tilton of United Airlines.
These executives were of split mind during this conference and it had fallen to Herr Mayrhuber to try to resolve the discord that had arisen over two rather delicate yet quite contentious issues. Working across the boundaries of airline alliances and groupings, the real subtext of the IATA conference seemed to be to try to bring resolution to the problem that some of the airlines within IATA had actually grown and booked profits over the last few years as well as to come to a consensus put forth by the American and Irish contingent regarding a novel and subtle plan of having employees pay for the privilege of working.
The first issue of course has been a thorn in Herr Mayrhuber’s side for some time. Almost shunned by many members of this elite corps of frequently corpulent airline chiefs for his persistence in trying to run his airline like a business, update and purchase aircraft, and make a go of it running the enterprise, he has been increasingly isolated and herded together with those like Spinetta, Seng, and Yamamoto who seemed never to have learned the basics of airline economics that profits and gains are to be immediately decanted from the firm to be safeguarded, even vouchsafed, in the banking accounts of the executives themselves. The other CEOs have grown increasingly frustrated that Mayrhuber seems to be on a continual fool’s errand in believing that talent and skills should be hallmarks of a managerial team and if those elements are not evident then why should one pay to keep such a team in harness? If one can replace the manager of a less than successful European football club, one not an airline management team?
Sources who wish not to be named at this time in order not to compromise their access to senior airline leaders have long noted that many airline executives wished that they could pull Mayrhuber and his fellows aside and whip some sense into them just as one would have done at an elite English Public School in the days of old. Even in the wake and flotsam of the world’s economic crisis, the idea of actual profit from a sound and producing business model seems to be foreign to many in the airline executive suite. Therefore, faded six iron shot or not, he is branded as one who simply does not “get it†even though in the shadow of the financial crisis, he has deftly trimmed a number of sales and parked airplanes that he does not feel need to be in the air. In an industry in which actually focusing on the basics such as owning the planes that fly under the company’s colors seems to be gauche and distasteful, Mayrhuber is singing off key.
The second problem that Mayrhuber faces however, is one that he, even as an executive, considers beyond the pale—that of crafting plans for employees to pay for the privilege to come to work. He knows that such schemes have been carried out for years under the most elaborate guises, but heretofore not in such a brazen manner. Continual erosion of living standards, ever more unremunerated time, pay cuts, doubling of duties have all brought the current workforce to the unenviable position of going to work being a revenue neutral proposition—for the employee!
Yet the cry for an updating of this ruse has become even more strident in past months and the Americans hand-in-hand with the self-admittedly odious and potty-mouthed Michael O’Leary of Ryanair have hatched a sophisticated structure whereby employees, out of dedication to the firm’s mission statement and the love of a good day’s labor, will actually pay three or four days a month to be able to use the companies resources to engage in said labor. By doing so, the companies will return to profitability all the sooner and the idea of a common sacrifice for the greater good will infuse the workforce with a self-satisfaction and self-realization of a job well done that would make Dr. Maslow beam with pride.
Not taking quite the foul and vulgar tact of O’Leary in openly taunting and ridiculing his workforce, the Americans are launching their assault on those with the temerity of wishing to be paid for work in a much different manner.
Drawing on their strength of obfuscating and vacuous language, the American contingent of airline CEOs is hoping that mailings, emails, and stultifying and numbing presentations from managers will leave the workforce clear about its duty in reporting for duty with the wallet open. “We will appeal to the sentiment of pride in labor that Western society has been inculcating since the Reformation†said a spokeswoman for a major U.S. airline. “No worker wishes to put down his or her tools—they are too much a part of the soul. The workforce wishes to be part of a greater good and this is their chance to do so."
This thought might be breathtaking to those outside the airline industry, but it seems to have worked before—most recently in the spirited defense that airline executives have used to defend their groaning pay packages. It was during this defense in depth that the spokesmen for such remuneration excesses perfected a language and grammar that would have made Orwell’s 1984 Newspeak take second place in the competition.
Mayrhuber though for reasons yet unexplored is wracked by conscious. He seems that such an act is indeed a bridge too far. He has expressed on many occasions his feeling that employees and rank and file should indeed be low, even barely, paid, but paid they should be!
It will perhaps not be long before it is known what was settled on the golf course in Spain and in the conference rooms of the IATA meetings but close observers are anxious to know just which party—employer or employee—who will be opening their wallets when the gates are opened and the time clock is punched in the morning.
Journal E/B
1 April 2009
Mods: Did not know where to put this but since it mentions United I would ask that you leave it here. Pip!
Wolfgang Mayrhuber watched his six iron shot fade markedly from the track that he had intended for it to take to the green. Yes there was a tufting breeze blowing on this late March day in central Spain, but Mayrhuber was not satisfied with the vagaries of the atmosphere as an explanation why this shot was the fifth of the day that had run so errant of its intended course.
With typical Teutonic precision Mayrhuber fell silent as he contemplated the speed of the hosel, the angle of the club face, and a hundred other details of his less than satisfying swing.
Yet propelling a golf ball toward the pin was most likely the least of his worries on this day. As he made his way around the links he was joined, not only in his foursome, but in a wider array of duffers by the helmsmen of the world’s best-known airlines. Gathered near Madrid for a three-day meeting of carriers within the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the talk, even while on the golf course, was never far from work.
One could see, clad in a range of sartorial style ranging from the informal to the foppish, the likes of Mr. William D. “Wee Willie†Walsh of British Airways, Chew Choon Seng of Singapore Airlines, Mineo Yamamoto of All Nippon Airways, Jean-Cyril Spinetta of Air France, and huffing and groaning under the burdens of a weighty and cumbersome remuneration package Mr. Glenn Tilton of United Airlines.
These executives were of split mind during this conference and it had fallen to Herr Mayrhuber to try to resolve the discord that had arisen over two rather delicate yet quite contentious issues. Working across the boundaries of airline alliances and groupings, the real subtext of the IATA conference seemed to be to try to bring resolution to the problem that some of the airlines within IATA had actually grown and booked profits over the last few years as well as to come to a consensus put forth by the American and Irish contingent regarding a novel and subtle plan of having employees pay for the privilege of working.
The first issue of course has been a thorn in Herr Mayrhuber’s side for some time. Almost shunned by many members of this elite corps of frequently corpulent airline chiefs for his persistence in trying to run his airline like a business, update and purchase aircraft, and make a go of it running the enterprise, he has been increasingly isolated and herded together with those like Spinetta, Seng, and Yamamoto who seemed never to have learned the basics of airline economics that profits and gains are to be immediately decanted from the firm to be safeguarded, even vouchsafed, in the banking accounts of the executives themselves. The other CEOs have grown increasingly frustrated that Mayrhuber seems to be on a continual fool’s errand in believing that talent and skills should be hallmarks of a managerial team and if those elements are not evident then why should one pay to keep such a team in harness? If one can replace the manager of a less than successful European football club, one not an airline management team?
Sources who wish not to be named at this time in order not to compromise their access to senior airline leaders have long noted that many airline executives wished that they could pull Mayrhuber and his fellows aside and whip some sense into them just as one would have done at an elite English Public School in the days of old. Even in the wake and flotsam of the world’s economic crisis, the idea of actual profit from a sound and producing business model seems to be foreign to many in the airline executive suite. Therefore, faded six iron shot or not, he is branded as one who simply does not “get it†even though in the shadow of the financial crisis, he has deftly trimmed a number of sales and parked airplanes that he does not feel need to be in the air. In an industry in which actually focusing on the basics such as owning the planes that fly under the company’s colors seems to be gauche and distasteful, Mayrhuber is singing off key.
The second problem that Mayrhuber faces however, is one that he, even as an executive, considers beyond the pale—that of crafting plans for employees to pay for the privilege to come to work. He knows that such schemes have been carried out for years under the most elaborate guises, but heretofore not in such a brazen manner. Continual erosion of living standards, ever more unremunerated time, pay cuts, doubling of duties have all brought the current workforce to the unenviable position of going to work being a revenue neutral proposition—for the employee!
Yet the cry for an updating of this ruse has become even more strident in past months and the Americans hand-in-hand with the self-admittedly odious and potty-mouthed Michael O’Leary of Ryanair have hatched a sophisticated structure whereby employees, out of dedication to the firm’s mission statement and the love of a good day’s labor, will actually pay three or four days a month to be able to use the companies resources to engage in said labor. By doing so, the companies will return to profitability all the sooner and the idea of a common sacrifice for the greater good will infuse the workforce with a self-satisfaction and self-realization of a job well done that would make Dr. Maslow beam with pride.
Not taking quite the foul and vulgar tact of O’Leary in openly taunting and ridiculing his workforce, the Americans are launching their assault on those with the temerity of wishing to be paid for work in a much different manner.
Drawing on their strength of obfuscating and vacuous language, the American contingent of airline CEOs is hoping that mailings, emails, and stultifying and numbing presentations from managers will leave the workforce clear about its duty in reporting for duty with the wallet open. “We will appeal to the sentiment of pride in labor that Western society has been inculcating since the Reformation†said a spokeswoman for a major U.S. airline. “No worker wishes to put down his or her tools—they are too much a part of the soul. The workforce wishes to be part of a greater good and this is their chance to do so."
This thought might be breathtaking to those outside the airline industry, but it seems to have worked before—most recently in the spirited defense that airline executives have used to defend their groaning pay packages. It was during this defense in depth that the spokesmen for such remuneration excesses perfected a language and grammar that would have made Orwell’s 1984 Newspeak take second place in the competition.
Mayrhuber though for reasons yet unexplored is wracked by conscious. He seems that such an act is indeed a bridge too far. He has expressed on many occasions his feeling that employees and rank and file should indeed be low, even barely, paid, but paid they should be!
It will perhaps not be long before it is known what was settled on the golf course in Spain and in the conference rooms of the IATA meetings but close observers are anxious to know just which party—employer or employee—who will be opening their wallets when the gates are opened and the time clock is punched in the morning.
Journal E/B
1 April 2009
