canadiancow

My suspicion is that they wouldn't refuse to print a boarding pass or give you a ton of attitude about it.

I've had at least 10 lounge agents ask if I'm doing a mileage run. That's a perfectly acceptable question, as long as it's "Oh, are you doing a mileage run?" and not "UGH YOU'RE DOING A MILEAGE RUN, AREN'T YOU!?!?!"

YYT82

The purpose of the experiment is to test whether one can do OLCI with similar convoluted itineraries on AA, UA, or DL. Not about agents printing BPs. You missed my discussion with DC on this technical issue earlier.

And I've had both questions asked of me before, I smiled and said "yes" and carried on with my day. I can't choose how others interact with me, but I can choose how I react.

canadiancow

This thread is about staff attitude, not technical issues.

cur

ha wow this thread has gotten sociological

but i fully agree with this

whenever i leave canada it typically takes me a few weeks to start behaving normally again. i notice this with others too.

DrunkCargo

Isn't all of FT sociological?

Normal being passive-aggressive, or just directly aggressive? =P Aren't the British this way too? Is this just an Anglophone thing?

cur

i thought ft was industrial and operational. however outsiders would def see the discourse on aircraft scheduling and debates on whether takeoffs or seats qualify a certain airline as being the "biggest" at lax as sociological

normal in canada is passive aggressive. don't you live there or are you just so used to it that it's normal. i did for the time i grew up and chose to live there.

DrunkCargo

Operations research, actuarial science, and all the other "firm" engineering topics engaged in at FT are most certainly all artifacts of sociology, a branch of social sciences. The mere fact that society feels it valuable (the measurement and prediction of such value being the subdiscipline, economics) to convey goods/people from A to B is sociology. Seasoned business schools of thought spun out of social sciences, and the air carrier business is merely that, a business, which ultimately is merely the collaboration of a "company" of people to achieve goals to serve society, the consideration of which is sociology.

Ontological classifications aside, society is ultimately the only reason for any engineering to exist.

Just wasn't sure what you meant by
As in, when you're outside Canada or when you return to start acting "normally", or when you're oustide of Canada you return to "normal" (being the other 7 billion people on Earth). For me, 4 gen North of the border I certainly have the "Sorry" thing embedded in me, to mean "Pardon", "Hello", "Excuse me", and a bunch of other things besides "I apologize". For me, normal is to say "sorry" to nearly everything. To the world, this is abnormal. =)

And I'm not convinced this is the case in Francophone Canada, but I am not Francophone.

As for the OP, I'd say this is not normal behaviour for Canada and I'm not convinced that AC is able to attract the top skill of Canada, CEO possibly notwithstanding. The total compensation offered in an extremely competitive industry is not commensurate with such attraction, and the socialist effects of unions erodes any extrinsic motivation to excel in the trenches. (I am not anti-union btw) The nature of airline operation is inherently "globalized", and no amount of protectionism will impede this... that is, unless you're talking merely regional operations, which I think AC is trying not to be. Dunno, just a musing. Not my business. I outsource my conveyance requirements by renting seats operated by others, but I do have to hold my business partners accountable for delivery.

flyquiet's discourse was spot on. Mine meander because I'm inarticulate, but somewhere in there might rest a point. I feel all of FT is sociological. Ops and technical goes to PPRUNE, but I like the armchair approach on FT too. =)

cur

oh your god how ft.com/forum/ac we are getting

i meant epistemologically speaking we (the users) do not see this as sociology, the same way hells angels hanging with HST did not see it that way. of course this is sociology, we're all a bunch of glorified bus travelling dorks arguing with each other. but we don't see it that way until we start talking about the character of canadians (i was back for a week for the first time in 14 months.....canadians really worry about the small stuff...people were freaking out over dogs lying on a patio or someone using the "emergency exit" on a patio to the st instead of walking around 300ft to smoke from the same spot)

too bad ac (or may profitable airlines) doesn't employ many sociologists beyond maybe its CSMs who have to deal with people like the op and the dragons they clash with or the one staff photographer ac has on hand. i mean, ac's hr is outsourced...it's all spreadsheet types

flyquiet

Thank you for saying that -- this is so fundamental and so often missed. As an engineer, I find it exasperating when people dismiss studying engineering because they "want to do something more people oriented". Engineering is the profession that protects society from science. What is more people oriented than that? That said, not enough engineering education studies people, their characteristics and needs. The focus around the periphery of technology itself is on engineering ethics and law, which is not the same as human centred design. If more people did engineering because they wanted it to be about people, it would be.

At this point, I am moved to think that maybe this thread should have stayed in the Lounge thread...

Stranger

Wow, interesting statement...

I will have to decide if I hate it or I love it.

(I am an engineer. But in some ways more of a scientist really... And happily so. And our children may well be in a similar position, engineers by training, more like scientists occupationwise.)

But definitely "applied science" just as any hyphenated science is just BS. "Social" science, whatever.

flyquiet

^
I do say that to be provocative.
But what makes engineers engineers is not just the applied nature of the science but the obligation to see that the science doesn't hurt people. This is reflected as variously as the Obligation in the iron ring ceremony and the Professional Engineers Act or its jurisdictional equivalent. Morality and ethics may govern the conduct of scientists, and ideally they will, but the buck stops with engineers, legally and of course ethically.

DrunkCargo

I don't know how to quote to accurately reflect the discourse at hand, but... I need to get a coffee crisp for flyquiet, and I think cur and I should meet. =)

I'm not an engineer. Not a programmer. I actually do not do anything very directly useful. Yet, I spend most of my time trying to keep people moving around the world peacefully. I need to sharpen my skills to out-spreadsheet the spreadsheeters.

I didn't know AC's HR was outsourced. I'm surprised, with all the unions they deal with. Makes me not want to renew my HRPA membership (overdue since Feb or something like that)

cur

yet if you ask an engineer how to best plan a city, you get soulless places like calgary

Stranger

Engineers are not city planners and should not even try. This said, I would have thought Calgary had been planned by the real estate industry...

Our current mayor has a degree in city planning OTOH. And no realtors don't like him.

Admiral Ackbar

Edit: Never mind shouldn't feed the trolls