August 26, 2010

Interdependence

Written by: CITC Staff Member

As the winter sun inched over the horizon, the dark sky turned steely gray and blurred with the snow-covered ground with every wind gust. The wind rattled the metal building and everyone wore coats inside. The rising sun marks a new beginning of the day, but not during winter in Bristol Bay. It only meant you could see how bad the weather was. Today was going to be work.

The terminal was busy with ticket counter ladies checking in passengers for the return leg to Anchorage. The air taxi counter checked in passengers heading from Anchorage to the Villages. I took my cup of cheap coffee with me and joined the other pilots on their way to the storage area of the hangar. We needed to check how much freight we had to move that day. The ramp crew was there, filling out their load sheets. It was always a good idea to know what needed to be done before the counter ladies and rampers argued about who and what was a priority and needed to be moved that day. All of this coordination and teamwork and all of these people trying to work together didn’t matter. Johnie could trump everyone’s plans.

Johnie was the most senior pilot, son of an original owner of the company, and himself older than God’s dog. He was short, wiry, and flipped his Leatherman constantly, effortlessly and mindlessly as he surveyed his domain. Making decisions according to his plans and plotting how he thought the day should go; his intentions were always to get the job done. He had more energy than most 20 year olds. He called us all Yuppie Pilots. It was not a compliment.

The coordination of all of us was required to get flights out timely and safely, but the lack of acknowledged interdependence made for long, hard, frustrating days in an environment where additional stress was certainly not needed.

This is a story of interdependence as I experienced it in Bristol Bay, Alaska.