Poor Jane Allen.  I've never met her, nor do I really know anything about the woman.  Yet, her latest message to all Onboard Service employees is very interesting and warrants discussion:

On Nov 16, 2004, Jane Allen conducted a 'town-hall' style meeting in Chicago.  According to various message boards and email:

"She concluded the meeting (which began at 0930) by saying, 'Guys, I have to stop here, I have been on my feet since 0930 this morning!' It was 1240."

That story was posted on discussion boards and sent in email/newsletters around the internet.  When I received it, I had a good laugh and published it on JSN, introducing it with:

I don't know if the following story is true or not---it's filled up enough flight attendant inboxes and discussion boards that's for sure---but it's hilarious!  Besides, it's gotten Jane Allen more attention than anything I've seen yet since her arrival at United!

Three days after the incident, Jane Allen published her regular message to all Onboard Service employees.  It covered the usual topics: quarterly goals, record-setting meal ratings, and the usual GO TEAM GO department head messages.

However, included in her message was the following statement:

I also understand that a comment I made at the O'Hare caused some concern. Let me explain.

The session went long, and a few minutes before 1:00 pm I said I needed to break since I had been on my feet since 9:30am and needed to break to use the ladies room. I don't think everyone in the room heard the last part of my comment. Obviously, my choice of words was poor -- especially since I appreciate how long our flight attendants are on their feet when they are working. When I say I appreciate your hard work and the great job you are doing for our customer, I sincerely mean it.

Despite this, I believe both the Chicago and London meetings were very good.

I about fell out of my chair when I read that.  I rubbed my eyes.  I pressed the DEGAUSS button on my computer monitor just to be sure there wasn't accumulated magnetism that might have caused the letters to rearrange in some weird fashion.  No dice.  The message was broadcast to thousands of employees.

I was not in Chicago on November 16, 2004. Nevertheless, here's what I perceive:

1. Jane reads information that flight attendants share electronically.  If there were no internet or email, I doubt this incident would have gone much further than the walls of ORDSW.  Maybe a few laughs on a few jumpseats, but that's about it.  Consider the speed in which it traveled:  On Nov 16, Jane makes statement; postings appear.  On Nov 19, Jane publishes reaction. That's three days.

2. Jane takes personally what UAL employees think of her.   I admire her for addressing the issue quickly.  But I believe it was a mistake to do so directly inside a message to all Onboard Service employees.  Perhaps she could have sent a Unimatic e-note to all attendees of that meeting if she felt that strongly about publishing a rebuttal.  But no further than that.

Jane Allen is the leader of the Onboard Service division.  The last thing she should be concerned with is what an electronic he-said/she-said posting mentions or what was FW:FW:FW:FW:forwarded in email.  Those things quickly die off like spam and nobody cares after a week, particularly when we're headed into more pay cuts, pension gutting, and possible employee strikes.

3. Out of place.  It was very strange to mix, in the same message, a bankruptcy judge ruling on the 1113(c) scheduling motion together with the fact of whether or not meeting attendees heard if Jane had to use the ladies room.  In fact, it called more attention to that incident than if she had simply said nothing.

Unless people were rioting, waving ice mallets, shouting at her in the concourse or storming her office in WHQ, most of her information about this incident probably came from electronic means.*  Between the discussion boards, email, websites like this one, and word of mouth, I'd guess that news of this incident reached a few thousand people within the last 48 hours.  It's probably less, but why be conservative here?  My point?  It is a drop in the bucket compared to the thousands of employees that have access to her Friday system-wide SVP message.

Besides, everyone already knows that WHQ employees will always be disconnected from issues that plague flight attendants flying full lines each month.  And the opposite is true as well.  They are completely different jobs.  Anyone who thinks otherwise is living in Fantasyland.  Or in a coma.

Jane, we know, we know...if you ignored the whole thing, then some people would have criticized you for not being 'in touch' with the concerns of the employees and 'sensitive' to the 'feelings' of the---whatever, you get the point.  You probably feel you can't win either way.  But that's the whole point: you can't please all the people all the time.  No need to take a statement about being tired on your feet personally to the point of broadcasting a rebuttal out to all employees in the Onboard Service division.  There are much bigger fish to fry right now.

It's interesting that you take it seriously enough to compose a rebuttal for all employees to read---and quickly too.  But, laugh it off.  It doesn't really matter.  And for heaven's sake, don't mention it anymore in system messages to employees.  Rather, focus on ZED fares or implementing unlimited trip trades or whatever SVP stuff you do.  :-)

*NOTE: The JSN commentary you just finished reading has been published on an independent website that features a dog heading security, a parrot posting side notes, Melvin, and sporadic articles from Wicket, a cockroach that lives inside the overhead bins and provides late breaking news on the pillow count on international flights.  Read any electronic posting such as this with caution!