I’ve mentioned several times my disdain for hierarchies at the airport, particularly in regard to Operations, the alleged “brain center” where scheduling and load determination takes place. I’ve mentioned how in my particularly line of work, I am able to note the incomprehensible and occasionally maddening frequency of printing out a gate sheet (indicating the location of flights) that is utterly worthless an hour later, and the last minute “corrections” on loads; on one recent occasion, I delivered and then retrieved a load three times before someone figured out how it could be loaded. It’s like playing Scrabble with people who don’t know how to spell, or make-up words. One thing I know for certain is that it is one thing to press a computer key; it’s quite another to actually have to fix the mess.
But that’s old news; these people revealed themselves in quite another way, today. I printed out a gate sheet Christmas morning, and discovered the spare gates were identified by “Merry Christmas” in English, Hawaiian, Thai, Vietnamese, Gaelic, French and Dutch; I supposed that they didn’t have it in Chinese or Russian because they couldn’t insert the correct characters (someone could have cut-and-paste). I also figured these languages also represented the “ethnic” make-up of the people in OPs. I have to admit that it fascinates me how people reveal something not just about how they separate themselves from others, but how society shakes itself out along ethnic and racial hierarchies. Note that Spanish—which is just as widely spoken in the Western Hemisphere as English—was not included. Whether this is due to discriminatory attitudes or the assumption by the self-absorbed people in OPs that Latinos are a subset of the human race (thanks to the media and racist politicians) that need not be considered I can only conjecture, but I am quite willing to consider the truth of it based on observed body language and attitudes.
Merry Christmas? They don't even like us. Hum-bug—especially when it is done merely to demonstrate conceit.
No comments:
Post a Comment