Quipper, No. 8 "Recall Edition", May 1982

              NO. 8 MAY ’82
RECALL EDITION
BEYOND THE BASICS
Excellence demands standards.. It does not usually flourish in the midst of rapid, hectic change. After a decade (like the '70*s) of absolute chaos, "any business that wants to stay in business has to stop and catch its breath. It has to re-establish standards of excellence so its employees will know what it takes to stop being mediocre.
In the do-as-little-as-possible world of the Flight Attendant, •'Back to Basics" has arrived on the scene to set a new tone. The class not only re-establishes standards, it actually pinpoints what the Company expects from us? and what the Company expects is excellence,
So now what do we do? For years it’s been easy to do very little and to bitch a whole lot, because everyone in Pan Am was doing precisely that. It was, in fact, "standard" to imagine our present situation as an ignominious comedown from better days when airlines ran on time and workers worked and managers managed to manage. The lament for vanished standards became an art form and each of us tried desperately to scream the loudest; after all, it was easier than working, right?
But now survival has become the Issue and excellence the standard, and some F/A ’ s are finding this notion too difficult to handle. But take heart. For those who can’t muster the energy to help co-workers or can’t survive the separation of Clipper Class liquor or can’t serve more than ten meals without fainting, "Back to Basics II" is coming. In this seminar Pan Am will present something really basic; i.e., what it would be like to have to work for a living.
WILLIAM SEAWELL MEMORIAL ANNOYEE OF THE MONTH
You're not going to believe this, but last month we got the wrong Casey. SureT J.J. is a super guy and all, but it's his brother, Albert, who really should have been our Annoyee of the Month. You see, Albert (the head of American Airlines) tried desperately, last February, to expedite the bankruptcy of Braniff by slapping his brother J.J. with a 9 million dollar bill for unpaid tickets. It didn't work, but it did succeed in giving the world the best case of sibling rivalry since Cain and Abel. Then to really complicate matters, Albert decided in mid-April to bail out Braniff if the CAB would give American a stab at Braniff's South American routes.
Ah, but the real turn of the screw is this: one week later, the CAB gave the South American routes to Eastern on a silver platter ... along with Pan Am's head. So, a "Dishonorable Mention" for this award goes to the CAB. We're glad they won't be around much longer. After all, in the cut-throat, backstab, dog-eat-dog arena of de-regulation, Pan Am cannot afford another Government Agency that only responds to under-the-table persuasion.
CCP
Management's "Change Customer Perception" program has been a wonderful vehicle toward inflight service excellence, and QUIPPEH couldn't agree more with their latest bitch* poor purser announcements As a matter of course, eye shades and ear plugs (if provisioned) should be distributed to all passengers before any announcements are made. But the problem is not purser ad-libbing and the subsequent Emergency Demo Gong Show* most pursers know they can't trust their ozone-maimed memories and they really do read straight from their handbooks. The real problem is that the handbooks, like their owners, are so confused and out-dated they're obsolete. No wonder no 0o demo was given: DC-3a didn't have 0?.
QUIPPER agrees that "oddball" announcements should be standardized and, in the spirit of inflight excellence, we offer this new, easy-to-rernember arrival announcement to be made during taxi after each landing;
"HEY YOU! You in the gray coat! SIT DOWN before you drop your briefcase on the little old lady in front of you!"