It’s what he does

There’s another whole post about how I feel like what HE does is what WE do (yet I don’t feel like what I do is what WE do). Regardless, I have partnered with this man from the beginning, offering my support, my encouragement, my passion. I continue to do that and I unashamedly use this blog to spread the word about his job and about the threat to his job … which, unfortunately, is also a national safety threat.

Read these previous posts for more background information:

Trouble in the Air

Safety is Never Compromised?

Was Safety Compromised this time?

Finally, more public light is illuminating the problems and the potential consequences for everyone.

Here’s a letter to editor in USAToday by Pat Forrey, the NATCA President, drawing attention to the staffing shortage and why raising the mandatory retirement age is not the solution. The comments offer personal testimony to the exodus of experienced, valuable controllers.

Dick Meister gives attention to the expectations of current controllers as well as effects of new imposed work rules that make a stressful job even more so. There is no incentive to stay and even less incentive to join. Staffing is plummeting, work environment is hostile, safety is being compromised.

I believe that the future of air travel in this county has already been altered. The FAA has done too little, too late … in fact, if anything, it seems the FAA has purposefully sabotaged the foundation of air safety. As one commenter to the letter linked above said, “The FAA is entering the final phase of the dismantling of the greatest Air Traffic Control system in the world.”

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Immersed in the Mystery,

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Related Tags: Air Traffic Control, Air Traffic Controllers

So, who’s Leon?

You may be wondering about all these pleas to Leon. There is no real Leon in my life. The phrase is taken from a book

My husband and I purchased a book titled Good Husband, Great Marriage by Robert Mark Alter. There is a His Introduction and Hers Introduction and here is the excerpt from the Hers Introduction that makes the title of my post make sense:

I purposely wrote this book to men — because they’re the ones who are mostly responsible for marital unhappiness and who need to change the most, and they’re the ones who need to be spoken to in the way I speak to them here — but I knew that you, the wives, would be the first readers, before your husbands. It doesn’t take a genius to know that. Men on their own don’t typically read relationship books like this. The dozen or so who do are scattered around the country and won’t admit it.
So here’s what to do.
When you’re done reading Good husband, Great Marriage, casually hand it to your husband and in an indirect, roundabout way, ever so gently hint that he read it — as in, “READ THIS BOOK, LEON! OH DEAR GOD! PLEASE READ THIS BOOK!” — and then maybe he’ll read it, and like it and get it, and change, and then things’ll get a lot better in your marriage.

So, now whenever we want to HIGHLY recommend something, we use that phrase or a variation of it.

BTW, my husband read the book, he does get it, he is changing … as am I … and things have gotten a lot better in our marriage.

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Immersed in the Mystery,
Cynthia