Southwest disaster

[Pat]

And it sounds like the airlines are particularly a mess because of the mergers over the years and all the different antiquated systems all being mashed together with duct tape.

Yeah, that definitely hasn’t happened in banking, insurance, or healthcare. Nothing to see here.

 

[SCNCY]

Having worked in this type of industry for years, these companies call everything an emergency. It is their normal tactic for forcing their policies on the employees. Almost always, these so called emergencies are totally self created or completely avoidable with proper management, or in other cases said emergency is completely made up.

I can concur. I worked for a company who, during my little over 2 years there, had two company wide meetings where the executives talked about operational failures towards our customers (This was a trust company with company employees at about 70 people). In both instances, they made some minor changes to reporting structures and revised some procedures, but didn't really solve the root cause, which was upper management continually spinning their wheels without moving forward and whenever a project was "completed," who ever was doing the project usually just rushed the end report. This resulted in no actual changes being made at the conclusion of said project and the project manager got a nice good job from upper management.

The surprising thing about this company, was it was ran by a West Point graduate. I worked with two previously before this place and couldn't believe the lack of leadership with the former. I was told my my chief compliance officer (my manager) that in a meeting with the Board of Directors, our regulator (OCC) just stopped short of telling the board the the CEO wasn't fit to lead the bank.

 

[somecyguy]

Sure, but I don't think you could find one entry level airline pilot making $40k, like you stated and I'd buy you lunch if you could find me one flight attendant making that much.

Full disclosure, I live with someone who deals with this subject directly.

You could be correct. It was at the beginning of the pandemic when I was told 40K. It very well could have increased by now.

 

[RoseClone]

Companies severely underfund technology even when it is at the core of their business. First thing cut when when cost savings start is all the long term IT upgrade projects. And then it massively breaks and everyone acts surprised.

Amen! I've lived this most of my career.

 

[Cyfan2901]

This is type of **** is why I fly Delta. Never seem to have many delays or issues. Southwest is an awful airline

 

[bluestarcyclone]

This is type of **** is why I fly Delta. Never seem to have many delays or issues. Southwest is an awful airline

The issue I remember from delta is when they ****** up and gave away their flights for cheap as ****. Flew to Puerto Rico for $75 round trip.

I'd like them to **** up again, please

 

[iowastatefan1929]

Im sure HR has filtered all sorts of excellent candidates while the executives are planning meetings in Cancun for February. Meanwhile the middle managers as usual have no answers for anything but to do the bidding of executives and make sure the workers have doctors notes and write them up if they show up 2 minutes late.

 

[cowgirl836]

Southwest is pretty well known for having a lot of cash on hand as a business. That's going to go away over the next month as they reimburse people for this mess.

Maybe it was due to not funding infrastructure. This seems not uncommon in the corporate world. I work with a client now who has a major platform they use going OUT OF LICENSE in 2023 and because they don't have budget to deal with it, they are basically hoping any glitches they can deal with internally because there will be longer be software support. It's wild to me.

 

[cowgirl836]

This is the same story for a lot of industries. Baby boomers are retiring and there's just not enough in the workforce to replace them. You then have companies that are so focused on shareholder returns that they are unwilling to raise wages to attract new talent. So they are seeing short term gains, but it's going to hurt them in the long run as their reputations are killed by poor service.

And so much specialized knowledge living in the heads of Boomers without documentation or automation so when they up and leave after 30 yrs, **** slowly starts filling apart.

 

[JP4CY]

This is type of **** is why I fly Delta. Never seem to have many delays or issues. Southwest is an awful airline

I would fly Delta more but out of DSM I feel like its Allegiant, SW, or AA.

 

[CycloneErik]

I can concur. I worked for a company who, during my little over 2 years there, had two company wide meetings where we executives talked about operational failures towards our customers (This was a trust company with company employees at about 70 people). In both instances, they made some minor changes to reporting structures and revised some procedures, but didn't really solve the root cause, which was upper management continually spinning their wheels without moving forward and whenever a project was "completed," who ever was doing the project usually just rushed the end report. This resulted in no actual changes being made at the conclusion of said project and the project manager got a nice good job from upper management.

The surprising thing about this company, was it was ran by a West Point graduate. I worked with two previously before this place and couldn't believe the lack of leadership with the former. I was told my my chief compliance officer (my manager) that in a meeting with the Board of Directors, our regulator (OCC) just stopped short of telling the board the the CEO wasn't fit to lead the bank.

Believe me, that's not surprising.

 

[AttackOfTheClones]

after a few years of Frontier and Allegiant, we went back to United (Baltimore/DC) and realized how much more professional United is..... So we booked to London, and UA was flawless

 

[CloniesForLife]

And so much specialized knowledge living in the heads of Boomers without documentation or automation so when they up and leave after 30 yrs, **** slowly starts filling apart.

It's crazy how many big time companies don't have better systems in place and instead rely on just knowledge sharing and seem to have lots of things that only 1 or 2 people know how to do. Even in engineering departments where you would think things would be more systematic.

 

[LivntheCyLife]

I'm scheduled to fly to Florida on 12/31 on Southwest. Don't quite know what to do. Any other airline looks very expensive now.

 

[Gunnerclone]

It's crazy how many big time companies don't have better systems in place and instead rely on just knowledge sharing and seem to have lots of things that only 1 or 2 people know how to do. Even in engineering departments where you would think things would be more systematic.

People also protect that **** at all costs. If you’re the only person doing a job that is job security.

 

[cowgirl836]

People also protect that shut at all costs. If you’re the only person doing a job that is job security.

10000000%.

 

[isuno1fan]

It's crazy how many big time companies don't have better systems in place and instead rely on just knowledge sharing and seem to have lots of things that only 1 or 2 people know how to do. Even in engineering departments where you would think things would be more systematic.

Manufacturing is very much this way.

 

[Entropy]

Companies severely underfund technology even when it is at the core of their business. First thing cut when when cost savings start is all the long term IT upgrade projects. And then it massively breaks and everyone acts surprised.

Yup.

 

[MeanDean]

It's crazy how many big time companies don't have better systems in place and instead rely on just knowledge sharing and seem to have lots of things that only 1 or 2 people know how to do. Even in engineering departments where you would think things would be more systematic.

My experience is antiquated, but my biggest problem was IT mega-companies coming in and telling management that their systems would do everything our legacy system would do. And they could transition the workforce easily in a short time. The workforce gets no chance to look at it in depth and verify if it will work or not.

What really happened was their new system was incredibly more complex to do simple things on. Then a week after it was implemented someone in management would ask for some report that they used to get. The new company's system could not duplicate that report because certain data was not tracked in it. So management would make employees and IT keep both the legacy and the new system in place in perpetuity.

Meanwhile the mega-company makes beaucoups bucks and leaves a **** product with employees, who out of necessity, develop their own workarounds.

So yes, when those employees leave, the company will flounder.

 

[wxman1]