Amateur Night Again
This post originally appeared on December 30, 2005 and it as just as important now as it was then. Please take the time to read it and pass it along to anyone you think might benefit from it. I have updated my contact information, and I'll keep the cell phone handy in case you need me. Best wishes for a peaceful, joyful, prosperous and blessed 2009.
Amateur Night
When I was working at the Chicago TRACON some years ago, we came to refer to New Year’s Eve (and, to a lesser extent St. Patrick’s Day and the other 100-proof holidays) as “Amateur Night.” For seasoned pros it was the night when people who usually stayed home came out, got smashed and then proceeded to wreck the joint, their car or something else equally deadly.
We would usually opt to stay home and play cards or watch the ball drop. In one far Western Chicago suburb there was even a local tavern that held what they called “European New Year’s Eve.” The place would open early and by noon people had filled every bar stool and table. Party favors and noisemakers and confetti and dice and cards were passed out, and at 6pm we would watch the New Year come in……via satellite from Europe. Then everybody would drink up and get out, rolling home at around seven pm, just as the amateurs were slapping on the last coat of Jovan’s Musk Oil For Men and the night shift cops were getting their roll-out briefing.
The point of this blog entry is this: Don’t be stupid. If you occupy a safety-critical position (and even if you don’t,) act like you’ve had a drink once before in your life. This blog is read far and wide so I’ll take the opportunity the bully pulpit offers me to say this: whether you are a controller, a pilot, a student or Joe Citizen: Do NOT drink or act irresponsibly. Know when to say when. If you’ve had one too many (or, as I used to refer to it, if you’ve been “over-served,”) call a cab. I don’t care HOW far you live from the bar. I don’t care if you live in Chicago and you are partying in Milwaukee. Do the math and call a cab, or stay put and get a room.
If you are a CTI student or college graduate eager to join the profession, just don’t. Don’t risk millions of dollars in income and benefits for one slap-happy evening with your buds. It isn’t worth it and on January 1st your pals aren’t going to come bail you out, explain your stupidity to your parents, help you pay off your student loans and assist you in looking for a new career that appreciates your degree in air traffic control.
Air traffic control isn’t like doctoring or lawyering or engineering or dentistry. Your skills are not portable. There is only ONE employer for your services in this country, and if you blow that chance…..it’s sayonara, Buffalo Bob. Your next transmission is going to be either, “All checkers to the front, please” or “did you want to supersize that meal?”
Do not, under any circumstances, get behind the wheel. A cab ride or hotel room, no matter how cheap or expensive, can save you a lifetime of heartbreak. The agency is in a firing mood and I am NOT going to be the one to tell your family how bad you messed up their lives and yours by getting arrested for a DUI. YOU ARE. So do us all a favor and if you plan to drink, drink responsibly.
If you are hosting a party this New Year’s, remember: you are a “social host” in the eyes of the law, and many states impose legal liability on social hosts. Your liability could be limited to the premises, or it could extend to traffic accidents and injuries involving the person to whom you served the alcohol. It is almost always going to concern you if you are reckless in serving alcohol or should have subjectively recognized your guest’s intoxication. If you are going to be a social host, consider these tips. Encourage your guests ahead of time to designate a driver. Collect keys from your guests upon arrival, and know the condition of your guests before returning their keys. Be prepared to arrange a ride for guests, a hotel room for guests or invite them to spend the night. Serve food and non-alcoholic drinks along with libations. And be aggressively responsible.
You can count on cops to have it in for people who lose control on Amateur Night. They’re angry at having to work, they’re sick and tired of running around chasing down teenagers popping off firecrackers or gunshots, and of course they are the ones who have to scrape DUI victims out of cars, ditches and off of trees so they get to see first-hand what those “two beers” did to that nice family of four.
Cops also know that grabbing a DUI and hauling him back to the station will take up two or three hours of the lousiest shift in all of Copdom. Busting YOU will get THEM in out of the cold, and also get them off the road and out of harm’s way while drunk drivers turn the nation’s highways into hash for an evening. Do you think they want to be standing on the side of the road, butt hanging out in the lane, checking registrations and sniffing for booze fumes all night while Joe Amateur weaves towards him at sixty miles an hour? It’s a smart play on their part.
I read something interesting on another web site regarding drinking and driving. It said, “When Joe Citizen gets a DUI he says, “Oh, man! I knew I shouldn’t have had that last beer!” When an alcoholic gets a DUI he says, “Oh, man! I knew I shouldn’t have taken Main Street!” If you are the former, don’t let it happen again. If you are the latter, get help before it’s too late. If you are an FAA employee, there are plenty of places to turn. I make no representations concerning how good the FAA’s resources are, but they are there just the same. Whatever you do, don’t turn to your Uncle Jim Beam or his Bud, or to your Old Granddad and his Mexican friend Jose Cuervo. They’re the ones who got you in this mess in the first place.
If you don’t know what to do or who to turn to, call or write me. We’ll figure it out together. My cell phone number is 727-871-4158 and my email address is john@teamcarr.org .
Happy New Year!!! Be safe, be responsible, and encourage others to do the same. I hope you’re still around and reading this blog in 2009, and I hope I’m around to write it.
Good advice JTB. All the best to you and yours in 2008. Thanks for help keeping us sane out in the trenches!
Posted by: XXX@WTF | December 31, 2007 at 01:06 AM
John, Thanks for still caring.
I will be working late tomorrow though. We only have 9 scheduled tomorrow night. It ought to be interesting here at ZTL with 9 working 6 sectors.
Posted by: Bruce Beaulieu | December 31, 2007 at 01:24 AM
Once spent the entire night on a bus after a binge at Brudders in Chicago. Back and forth throughout the night til the drivers shift ended and he said "Get off my bus ass...." Cant believe I still had my wallet. Unfortunately had no cab fare to connect at the end of the line. Moral of the story...Bring more cash and hide it in your shoe for the ride home. It sucked walking the rest of the way. http://www.mefeedia.com/entry/new-b-train-blues/5255295/
This is me commuting to Ohare.
Posted by: bjm | December 31, 2007 at 01:40 AM
Oh and dont pass-out on the bus.
Posted by: bjm | December 31, 2007 at 07:54 AM
You should have changed the millions in compensation line.
Posted by: Shamalamadingdong | December 31, 2007 at 11:01 AM
For once John I am in COMPLETE agreement with you and the comments so far. Our job is critical, but it (and we) can be replaced...human life cannot. And don't forget to leave additional room for those that do choose to party too much tonight. Let's not loose someone on their way home from a 4 to mid shift tonight! Watch out for the other as...le ... I mean guy!!
Posted by: Charliefox | December 31, 2007 at 11:05 AM
I always preferred Hai Karate
Posted by: p745 | December 31, 2007 at 11:19 AM
"You're risking a million or two less than you would have been risking before, but you're still risking at least a couple of million dollars. Well, if they don't change the pay scales again. And if they let you retire."
Here's a New Year's Eve resolution for anyone not making the Green Book money: get a new job skill.
213 days.
Posted by: I <3 the FAA | December 31, 2007 at 12:11 PM
Thank you for this post - very good advice for ALL to read, whether you are ATC or not. Thankfully my hubby works a 1500-2300 tonight, of the amateurs should be stuck to their barstools, drink in one hand, noisemaker in the other, waiting for the ball to drop, when he leaves work. So when 2430-0100 rolls around, he'll be home, motorcycle safely tucked inside the garage, and away from the chaos sure to be out there.
John, a blessed New Year to you and Team Carr - I hope 2008 brings you loads of happiness and good luck! Unless things change drastically in the FAA, I'm thinking 2008 may show us what life after ATC is like.....
Posted by: "Wife of ATC" | December 31, 2007 at 04:11 PM
Make that "ALL of the amateurs"....oops!
Posted by: "Wife of ATC" | December 31, 2007 at 04:12 PM
Yeah - we will see what real life is like IF that MegaMillions ticket that "Wife of ATC" bought pays off!
Excellent message, Mr. C. We had a guy at my facility who had a DWI and another controller was killed in the accident. The Man came after him with a manslaughter charge. Yet another controller went to crew briefings taking up a collection for this fine individual's legal fees. Since I was a trainee at the time, I held my tongue. But it'll be a cold day in hell when I help defend a drunk driver.
My Union Brothers and Sisters (and that includes Retired Brothers and Sisters), PLEASE be careful out there. My Beloved Agency can't afford to lose any of you. LOL. They need you to hold them accountable.
Oh yeah, the fund-raiser guy is now a supe. Figures.
Posted by: Husband of Wife of ATC | December 31, 2007 at 08:41 PM
Feds will soon get to retire online
By GREGG CARLSTROM
December 28, 2007
Federal employees can soon start retiring online.
The Office of Personnel Management outlined new rules today that will enable feds to apply for retirement benefits and insurance online, bypassing much of the paperwork that is typical of the retirement process. And according to OPM, less paperwork means less processing time, especially with the impending wave of baby boomer retirees.
OPM is also creating a set of Web-based tools that provide a breakdown of individual benefits. This will include a detailed, paycheck-by-paycheck accounting of retirement contributions, instead of simple annual totals. “The new electronic retirement and insurance processing system will provide employees, annuitants and survivors with access to their retirement and insurance information in a manner that was not previously available to them,” the agency said.
The move, outlined in today’s Federal Register, is part of the agency’s Retirement Systems Modernization program.
OPM noted that paper-based retirement procedures will continue “for some time” so that less tech-savvy employees won’t be forced to use the Web.
For those using the Web to process their retirements, there will be security measures: OPM will verify the online identities of retirees through an “electronic signature.” The agency has identified at least six possible signatures, ranging from PIN numbers to biometrics, but it hasn’t formally approved one.
The agency hopes to start phasing in the online retirement program in 2008. Employees at the General Services Administration can use the program in February, followed by postal employees in May. Employees government-wide can start using the online program by early 2009.
(I can see it now. Everyone on a shift all go to the OPM website together, and set a common retirement date. But don't tell the FAA. When shift time comes, and no one shows up, be sure to tell the FLM "Hey, I'm retired- you should have checked your e-mail this morning. All of us retired today".
Posted by: Aluminum showers | December 31, 2007 at 09:37 PM
From AVweb ...
FAA Blunts NASA Safety Data
The FAA moved on Friday to cast doubt on the accuracy of aviation safety data that will be released by NASA today. NASA will release results of four years of telephone surveys with pilots taking part in the National Aviation Operations Monitoring Service (NAOMS).
The report is expected to suggest that close calls in the air and on the ground happen more frequently than the FAA has reported. But in a news conference with members of the mainstream media on Friday, Peggy Gilligan, the FAA’s deputy associate administrator for aviation safety, said the NASA report is based on anecdotal evidence, not the "hard data" the FAA collects. "We collect hard data, while the NASA study is based on pilot perception," Gilligan said. "They may give the best answer to their knowledge, but it might not be the way the FAA collects data."
The report will be released on New Year’s Eve to honor a promise made by NASA Administrator Michael Griffin to Congress two months ago. Griffin was called to testify to a congressional committee about NASA’s decision to withhold results of the $11.3 million survey despite a freedom of information request from The Associated Press. NASA told the AP it wouldn’t release the results because doing so might undermine consumer confidence and hit the bottom lines of airlines. Griffin told Congress he’d release the survey results by the end of the year after staff had a chance to go through the data to ensure no one’s privacy was violated.
Posted by: Aluminum showers | January 01, 2008 at 03:55 AM
From AVWEB:
December 31, 2007
NASA Says Study All But Worthless Email this article |Print this article
By Russ Niles, Editor-in-Chief
Well, suppose they held an aviation safety study and nobody (except, perhaps, one particularly ticked off news agency) cared? NASA Administrator Michael Griffin told a news conference today that it has no intention of trying to glean anything meaningful from a four-year, $11.3 million survey of pilots on air safety and that if anyone else wants to wade through the 16,000 pages of gap-filled responses they're welcome to. Oh, and he doesn't expect them to find anything.
"It's hard for me... to see any data here that the traveling public would care about or ought to care about." he told puzzled reporters who thought they might be covering a press conference about aviation safety. Instead they witnessed the political lid being firmly closed on an issue that has dogged NASA for two months and which Griffin clearly wanted no more part of.
The release of the data came after a heavily publicized series of stories by the Associated Press on NASA's refusal to release the documents under a freedom of information request.
The normally staid news agency made it clear it was less than satisfied with the culmination of its investigation. [more] AP said NASA "begrudgingly" released the material and suggested it's purposely making it hard for anyone else to sort through the data.
"It published the findings in a format (PDF) that made it cumbersome for any thorough analysis by outsiders," the AP account reads. "NASA did not provide documentation on how to use its data, nor did it provide keys to unlock the cryptic codes used in the dataset." Griffin defended the PDF release saying it ensures the material can't be edited and said NASA always releases information this way. However AP says there are plenty of easy-to-analyze documents in NASA's extensive online archive. Regardless of AP's disappointment, Griffin said the study suffered from flawed methodology, was never properly reviewed and simply can't be trusted as a snapshot of air safety.
He suggested the FAA agrees with that assessment and will not be analyzing the data in isolation but rather as part of its overall safety data compilation.
Posted by: Aluminum showers | January 01, 2008 at 04:01 AM
A little late on the advice (31 Dec).....But nice try
Posted by: The Nite before X-mas | January 01, 2008 at 11:28 AM
Some moron from Michigan killed a Mother and 4 of her kids last night in a head on collision in Ohio. What a shame.
Posted by: FED up | January 01, 2008 at 12:08 PM
my resolution is to get CIC pay back that was illegally taken from my paychecks a couple years back. i was going to use that money to take an old friend to a babeball game in chicago. Now that is gone. Somebody stole it and now i want it back. Wheres Obama? i will talk to him myself.
Posted by: leroy | January 01, 2009 at 07:37 PM
John,
Excellent post!!! I hope that you and your family had a great holiday season!!!
Regards
MD
Posted by: Mark DiPalmo | January 02, 2009 at 11:50 PM
best amateurs pics and videos on
www.worekamatorek.com
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