They need to put somebody from management with firing power and not a unionized FA with extra pay as a purser. Then the dead wood will dissipate and the trees will have space to grow!

BTW, it was striking to hear on CX a welcome announcement stating that the cabin director and his crew were there to make the trip "more comfortable and pleasurable" and asking passengers to contact anyone on the staff or himself if there was anything they could do to make the trip more so. He also did the rounds to introduce himself directly to passengers, calling each one by name -- and thanking me for being a oneworld emerald! -- at least in J. On the return leg same treatment, but in addition I was thanked personally for flying CX at the end of the flight (maybe I slept through it).

A few days later on an award flight on AA back to Asia the purser told us that the FAs were there primarily for our safety, didn't offer to ask anything of them, and did not introduce herself to passengers in J, even if AA's 777 J cabin is far smaller than CX's 744's. The service was marginal at best, and had to fight the FAs who would take, without permission, my half-full glass of water. Similar treatment on the way back, except that I had a young FA who was shocked to have been assigned to a new route with his low seniority (note that seniority trumps objective measures such as skills in serving passengers); when I woke up and he was on break, service was nonexistent and the J cabin was unmanned.