Asymmetrical Information

The laid off Northwest employees had better be careful in those dumpsters. They might encounter some ex-customers they "trashed" in the past.

Wait a minute -- the handbook is encouraging people to engage in misdemeanor theft?

There is also advice to grow your own vegetables and herbs.

I have the list in its entirety:
Northwest Airlines List Of 101 Ways To Save Money

http://www.mnheadhunter.com/mh/2006/08/northwest_airli.html

Okay, that's just offensive. Seriously. It's sort of a 'let's add insult to injury' thing.

Northwest has the right to lay-off anyone they damn well please, but that's just cruel.

They'd be better off advising their employees how to get enormous salaries from moronic boards of directors by pretending to be competent managers.

They'd be better off advising their employees how to get enormous salaries from moronic boards of directors by pretending to be competent managers.

The executives may very well be overpaid, but the typical rank-and-file Northwest employee, in my experience, isn't worth more than minimum wage. Every time I've flown Northwest during the last ten years the experience has been miserable.

Dan's right. I think about a real NW bankruptcy and about no longer having NW's commuter airline service locally. (Or is that an independent company that could just change their name and keep on flying.) Then I remember the effups every time I've had to fly that commuter airline into Detroit and change to a NW airplane - if you go through DTW, you're almost locked into NW, because NW has a lock on most of the departure gates. I certainly hope they go deep enough into bankruptcy to put those gates up for grabs, so a less incompetent carrier can get some of them!

you sure this wasn't just in jest or a prank?
My company once smuggled the following suggestion into a new expense policy: "Save per diem meal money by buying a large pizza for dinner and then
, to save lunch money next day , warming up the leftover slices on your engine block." For good measure, a "road kill" recipe was included.

I don't think this ever happened in a Dilbert strip, though it will now ...

It was reported on the local news last night, with interviews and statements from NWA, so looks for real. Probably a careless oversight -- some group puts together a little mailer and doesn't think about how offensive it would be. Major PR black eye.

The fates of people who actually expected their employers to properly manage their retirements will always be a source of laughs for me.

The fates of people who actually expected their employers to properly manage their retirements will always be a source of laughs for me.

Yeah. Watching people who aren't as smart as you lose the retirement income they were promised is so awesome.

You know what would be even more awesome? Watching someone with the squirts take a watery dump in your mouth. I'll pay you a dollar if you let me do it.

There's a reason why NorthWorst Airlines has its nickname, and I found out why several years ago. Practically everything that could go wrong did go wrong, both on the flights out and on the flights back.

When I boarded a new leg in Detroit, I sat next to a lady who lived in Detroit and had to travel a lot on business, and being in Denver, didn't have much choice of airlines. She told me that she had never, repeat NEVER, been on a NorthWorst flight that didn't have some problem or major inconvenience on it.

And the attitude of the employees was amazing--they always blamed other fellow employees, saying, "That's not my fault; that was the flight crew on your previous flight." or, "That's not my problem; the reservation system is messed up." (referring to the fact that I was bumped from my seat because a boarder on a later leg had a boarding pass, as I did, with my seat number on it. Why I was the one displaced when I had already flown one leg of the flight instead of the newcomer is still a mystery to me. And it took me two days for my return trip (so-called maintenance problems) and they wanted me to RON in Detroit, getting in after midnight and leaving before 7:00 am, but I insisted that I stay in Minneapolis for the night and travel at a reasonable time the next day. The next day would have been shot, either from lack of sleep or from traveling during the better part of the day no matter what I did, so I opted for a decent night's sleep.

I won't bore you with the other hassles, but somehow everything that happened was always the fault of someone else at NorthWorst.

Any organization that doesn't project at least the outward appearance of loyalty is not long for this world.

And good riddance.

Never-to-be-forgotten tip on how to cope with recession (Queensland, Australia): Finding it expensive to butter your bread? Rub the bread with avocado instead.

...if you go through DTW, you're almost locked into NW, because NW has a lock on most of the departure gates.

Much less true now than several years ago. When the new terminal was built, NW moved its gates there and other airlines picked up the gates it vacated in the old terminal. I live in Ann Arbor, fly out of DTW, and have never had a really bad experience with Northwest (we had excellent service on a recent trip to Europe, for example).

But we often fly other airlines simply because the NW hub is in DTW which means NW flies a lot of non-stops which are generally priced higher than other options. Still, I wouldn't be happy to see NW go under.

Immortalist:

You know what would be even more awesome? Watching someone with the squirts take a watery dump in your mouth. I'll pay you a dollar if you let me do it.

No thanks. Unlike airline employees, I'm not stupid enough to believe obviously ridiculous promises. HOWEVER, if you do my job for a year for free, I'll pay you a $1 million per year pension. I assume you're not going to think about how I plan to get the money, or what will happen in the event I can't pay, right?

Person:

HOWEVER, if you do my job for a year for free, I'll pay you a $1 million per year pension.

Unless your job title reads "Professional Pussy Inspector," or if you're willing to give up your genitals as collateral, I'm not interested.

Well, there went the neighborhood.

I remember the good old days, when insults on AI were Churchillian or Twainesque in nature...

Ah yes, this site certainly was the old Algonquin Round Table of website comments ... I'm sure Twain would have accepted the job title in question. :)

Anyway, back to NWA, please.

el jefe: If you are familiar with what gets posted on this blog, and are capable of reading in context, you would have realized now that regarding airline bankruptcies, Jane Galt typically (and rightly) discusses the role of the pension programs in the airline's failure, as well as the questionability of a worker relying on one. Those were discussed in my exchange with "Immoralist". Please read future discussions in context, and welcome to the Asymmetrical Information blog.

I fly NW about three times every month, for the last three years. (I'm in MN.)

Mostly reliable company, nice employees. Just a horrible, crappy business model, and the ill timing to be out of cash when fuel futures were available.

I honestly doubt they can gain enough in concessions to make up for the huge hit in current expenses. I think they're, ultimately, toast.

Which would be bad for us here in MN. We forget that, in many parts of the country with econ stats like ours, they don't get the direct and frequent flight options we get. I'm the envy of many a person I know in non-major-cities. I can go almost anywhere, when I want, in one jump. (Since work pays, the $800 routine ticket cost doesn't bother me.)

But, to the brochures - I think they were a nice impulse by a concerned HR department, that unfortunately were a prime target for ridicule. I know one of the people connected to the effort, and they were dumbfounded and discouraged that someone could pull "heartless and irony-ignorant" from that effort. The negotiators or the big bosses didn't drive that effort - it was driven by the line-level HR people who really wanted to help their laid-off co-employees.

Person, I agree with Jane about the ill-advised natural of relying on a corporate pension. I have an IRA and a 401k, index funds, building equity in my home, boring stuff like that.

If you want to comment that people are making a poorly-informed decision to count heavily on that pension, I'll agree with you.

But for you to take pleasure in others losing their retirement indicates a leaning more to sadism than financial acumen.

I'm glad this blog has so little name-calling.