Leaderboard

I think we all know you need to take what your read in the newspaper with a grain of salt. I worked on a project this summer looking at all the costs of the organization and each group was tasked with coming up with cost saving initiatives. Since a very large proportion of the increased costs are due to the workforce maturing through the bands many of the initiatives were aimed at employees. I can tell you I was disappointed in the results as Gregg specifically did not want to take on the ideas that would lower employee compensation, he wanted to find other areas for savings as well as focus on employee efficiency. I can tell you there are areas where the sick time is at ridiculous levels, that’s the kind of things Gregg is interested in fixing. I find the low cost culture from when I started has been slowly replaced by an entitlement culture and it scares me. It’s natural as the young workforce has aged and gone through life events like marriage and kids to want more compensation and benefits, but nothing will kill this company faster than replacing ‘how can we succeed’ with ‘what’s in it for me’. I think the pilot agreement coming up will be very telling of how this company is going to move into the future, and if it continues to go down the path of what’s in it for me, I may have to ask myself the same question as a lot of my coworkers will. If I’m going to work for a ‘what’s in it for me’ company I might as well go work in oil for a lot more money. I literally took a 39% pay cut from big oil to come work for WestJet, and most of my coworkers took significant pay cuts as well because we were excited to be part of this company, I sure hope that doesn’t change.

Interesting comment posted to this article: http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/12/07/john-ivison-f-35s-officially-costed-at-45802000000-in-new-report/ on national post.com (italics and bold mine): "The report validates much of the costing done by National Defence. The acquisition costs are identical at $8.9-billion. DND calculates sustainment costs will be $7.3-billion, while KPMG says $15.2-billion. On operating costs, DND estimates $9-billion, whereas the accountancy firm calculates $19.9-billion. But the vast majority of those cost differences can be explained by the different time-scales used – DND’s costs are for a 20-year period, while KPMG fulfilled the mandate given it by the Auditor-General to give Canadians a full costing over the 42-year lifespan of the F-35s. people need to understand that the acquisition costs of 8.9 billion is what we're REALLY talking about. the sustainment costs will be similar with ANY new fighter acquisition and the operating costs will be in the same ballpark too. if you want to have a conversation about whether we SHOULD have advanced fighters, or which ones are the best fit for our requirements, go to it. i welcome that conversation, but the F35 program and it's proponents are being railroaded."

I think every one of us thought that the nurse would lose her job though, even if we didn't state it, and that was more punishment than she deserved. I don't find this sort of "pranksterism" funny at all. it is always at the expense of someone else who is not going to find it very funny.