| Table of Contents Being Cabin Crew | The Ugly Truth Part 2 Page 1 – When Employees Tell Lies Page 2 – A Hideous Bunch of Misfits Page 3 – Bart’s Performance Feedback Page 4 – Quite Why… Page 5 – Cabin Crew Managers Being Cabin Crew | The Ugly Truth Part 4 |
Quite Why…
Having written countless performance feedback assessments over many years, I had never received any criticism about the words or language that I used. I believe I have a good command of English and can express myself in writing quite well. Therefore, having received Bart’s grievance, I was surprised to learn that he described my use of the words “quite why” as “ridiculing and condescending.”
The following extract comes from documentation submitted as part of my defence.
The following paragraph comes from Bart’s performance feedback, but first, I’ve included an explanation of terminology:
‘Order Sheet’ – a form that’s used to record customer surnames, and details of their after-take-off drink order and choice of meal for lunch/dinner.
‘Meal breakdown’ – the number of hot meals allocated to each crew member after the total number has been divided among the three crew members serving in the aisles.
After take-off, once instructed by the Purser, the crew ask each customer what they would like to drink. Once drinks have been served, the crew return to each customer in their area to ask what they would like for lunch/dinner. This is a standard part of the service that’s repeated on every single flight and never changes.
“There was a slight delay on the ground departing Heathrow, and Bart was in the cabin talking to his customers, which impressed me. I thought he was introducing himself and explaining the operation and facilities of the First Class suite. However, as I realised after take-off, he had also been taking drink and meal orders.
When I told him that’s not how the service is done, he said customers started telling him what they wanted to eat/drink, so he wrote it down. I told him he should have explained at that point how we do the service. Quite why he even had his order sheet with him at that time I’m not sure. If they were volunteering that information, then it’s clear they haven’t flown with in that cabin before, hence it’s a perfect opportunity to explain how the service is done.
At that point, the galley had not even given Bart a meal breakdown, so he would not have known how many of each hot meal choice was available for his side.
Bart’s complaint regarding my use of the words “quite why” was upheld by Cabin Crew Managers Lana, Hayley and the Head of Cabin Crew.
During the investigation, because of what I’d written in his performance feedback, I was accused of being in breach of the company’s ‘Our Standards’ policy. This extract is from that policy:
Neither Lana, Hayley, nor the Head of the Cabin Crew had any concerns about anything Bart wrote in his grievance or that Anna or Ven wrote in their witness statements. None of what they said was deemed to breach the Our Standards policy.
When you read my performance feedback, you’ll see that nothing I said was rude or disrespectful. However, much of what Bart, Anna, and Ven wrote was unbelievably rude, highly offensive, and incredibly disrespectful.
In his grievance, Bart describes me as “inflexible, robotic and only wanting things to be done his way or face the wrath of a long-winded email.” He goes on to say, “I am open to feedback but to include my manager in a manner which he (Laurence) did was an underhanded tactic. This could have seriously damaged my reputation, average scores and progression aspirations in the future.”
I didn’t want things to be done “my way,” I wanted them to be done as they should be done in accordance with the Service Procedures Manual, which is how all cabin crew are trained. It’s also how his colleagues who worked alongside him in First Class on that flight delivered the service.
As his manager on that flight, I find it extremely disrespectful that Bart referred to a performance review that was written for the purpose of development as “long-winded.” But then he also refers to the way I asked for the service to be delivered as “excessive and long-winded” and describes my onboard announcements as “long-winded and rambling.” He also wrote, “I felt Laurence was speaking in a long and rambling tone, and there was no need for him to lift a policy and send it to me.”
In accordance with the company’s Anti-harassment and Bullying Policy, I found all of these statements personal, offensive, and disrespectful, and furthermore, Bart did not consider how I may feel when I read them.
I say “how I may feel when I read them” because Cabin Crew Manager Lana states that I did not give appropriate consideration to how Bart may feel after having received my performance feedback. She said, “You did not give due consideration to whether Bart may be rested or in a good place when he read your review.” Cabin Crew Manager Hayley and the Head of Crew agreed, and his complaint was upheld.
Bart’s performance on the aircraft was nothing short of shambolic. He had no idea what he was doing, and a First Class customer even complained about him because he didn’t deliver the breakfast service in the way it should have been delivered. Therefore, a customer who had been woken up was left sitting with nothing in front of him for the duration of the service.
Bart received his performance feedback by email more than twenty-four hours after we landed home. By that time, he would have been very well rested.
I want to take this opportunity to mention something that I’ll talk about in more detail in a later chapter. I had written to Cabin Crew Manager Hayley to ask her to be mindful of when she sent me the outcome of her disciplinary investigation. Having struggled with my mental health as a result of dealing with Bart’s spurious grievance, I didn’t want to receive the outcome, unless it was positive, while away on a trip or just before operating a flight.
In response to my correspondence, Hayley said, “In terms of the outcome letter, I am always mindful of flying duties and intend to send the outcome by email after I have reviewed your roster.”
I received the outcome, which was far from positive, three hours after I landed from a flight. I’d been home for less than an hour. Flying as Cabin Crew is extremely tiring, and flying long haul, you’re constantly fighting jetlag. Night flights are particularly exhausting.
The term ‘landing day’ is widely used to describe the day you land from a flight. You’ll often be over-tired, physically exhausted, and emotionally drained. When speaking to friends or colleagues, as soon as you say it’s ‘landing day’, they know to tread carefully.
In the outcome of my appeal, the Head of Cabin Crew wrote:
She says Hayley was conscious of how long the process had taken and wanted to ensure I didn’t wait longer than necessary. I had waited six weeks to receive the outcome of her investigation, so another twenty-four hours would not have made the slightest bit of difference.
Hayley made numerous mistakes during the handling of this investigation, which, as you may recall, was her first grievance investigation since joining the company. Despite this, the Head of Cabin Crew insisted that she was a highly experienced manager. Meanwhile, I was held fully accountable for my actions, with the company showing me no leniency whatsoever.
Bart’s complaint regarding the timing of when he received his performance feedback was upheld.
Here’s more from Bart’s grievance: (quoted verbatim)
“I believe Laurence is very clever with the wording of his email. He structures it to appear as “constructive feedback” when in fact it is personal, bullying and targeted. He hides behind written feedback and fails in his role as a Flight Manager to deal with any issues in the moment or face to face. Instead he has chosen to write long-winded emails during rest days when most of the crew were celebrating their Christmas causing undue harassment, distress and jeopardising a healthy work-life-balance, negatively impacting my mental health.
Laurence’s feedback is disguised as constructive but is cleverly worded. I believe it is personal, bullying unwarranted harassment. I believe Laurence regularly behaves in this manner but due to the nature of crew not regularly working with the same Flight Manager it has gone unreported. I feel I have a duty to report this bullying behaviour and request a full investigation followed by an appropriate sanction.
Laurence did not allocate (inflight working) positions on the ipad which led to no crew member being able to score or provide feedback to him. I believe this is a deliberate action which he has completed in the past.
I have discussed this with the union and they agree, it seems an intentional way of stripping the crew of any opportunity to provide much needed feedback to the company and Lawrence.”
None of this was deemed offensive by those investigating Bart’s grievance, yet my use of the words “quite why” breached the Our Standards policy. Having spoken to the Union, I was told Bart was not told what he claims. He did speak to them after receiving the performance feedback and was advised to go through mediation. Not long afterwards, he cancelled his membership.
To reiterate what I have said previously, I spoke to Bart numerous times on both sectors of our flight. Regarding the issue of not putting cabin crew working positions into my iPad, that has already been explained. Having informed Bart how the system worked, Crew Manager Lana told him this complaint had to be removed because it was not valid.
When writing developmental performance feedback during a flight, I never once informed a crew member in advance that I would be writing it. Once it had been written, I sat with them and discussed it. Except for Bart and one other occasion, this feedback was always written and delivered during the flight.
With the new performance feedback system on the iPad, it wasn’t possible to write more than a couple of paragraphs. After raising this with the appropriate person in the office, I was told that if a longer review is needed, it should be done on paper.
Regarding the only other ‘developmental’ review that I wrote from home, before sending it to the crew member, I sent the following email to their manager. Some details have been redacted for confidentiality.
This was three months before my flight with Bart.
The following extract comes from the minutes taken during my appeal meeting with the Head of Cabin Crew. Although I spoke to Bart about several performance-related issues, I didn’t advise him that I was going to document what we had spoken about. With the flight being so busy and stressful, it wasn’t at the forefront of my mind. It was only once I arrived home and rested that I thought it really needed to be documented.
L = Laurence / FM = Flight Manager
This comes from the company’s procedures manual:
Despite still being in probation, Bart told his manager that he wanted the matter dealt with as a grievance. According to the minutes of his meeting with Cabin Crew Manager Lana, he said, “I expect the maximum sanction and am happy for that to be as severe as loss of employment for Laurence.”
He had been in the company for eleven months and had never flown previously as Cabin Crew.
Regarding crew rest breaks during a flight, the company preferred they be divided into three shifts, with each crew member allocated to the first, second, or third break. However, many Flight Managers still split them in two, which allowed for a longer rest period and was also more practical, especially on night flights.
On our flight to and from Atlanta, I organised breaks in two shifts. Despite Bart, Anna, and Ven complaining about every aspect of my conduct, behaviour, performance, and professionalism, not one of them mentioned breaks being split into two instead of three. I mentioned this several times in my defence, but like so much else, it fell on deaf ears.
As a rule, whenever I needed to speak to a crew member about a ‘developmental’ review that I’d written, which I hasten to add, didn’t happen that often, I would ask one of the Pursers to be present as a witness. Had I written Bart’s review on this flight and then spoken to him about it, I would not have done that because Katrina and Tommy were both the same rank and were not trained Pursers.
When I spoke to Bart about missing the customer out at breakfast, Katrina happened to be present.
Considering what Bart wrote in his grievance, I’m fairly confident that if I had written feedback and discussed it with him, he would still have submitted a similar complaint.
The following screenshot is from documentation submitted as part of my grievance against the company for the way my appeal was handled. Bear in mind, we landed from Atlanta on 26th December 2018.
I sent Bart’s review to him early afternoon, the day after our flight. We landed the previous morning at 07.00. This extract comes from meeting minutes taken by Employee Relations Consultant Pedro during the first investigative meeting with Cabin Crew Manager Lana. They were poorly written, difficult to understand and often didn’t accurately reflect what had been discussed. Having received a copy, I made several corrections.
This next extract comes from evidence submitted as part of my appeal. I begin by responding to a question that Lana asked me during the first investigative meeting, which was, “Did you consider speaking with Bart’s manager to allow her to deliver his feedback?”
“With regards to allowing a manager to address the issues instead of me contacting the crew member myself, personally, I would be more offended if someone wrote a ‘constructive’ report on me and sent it to my manager instead of sending it to me directly. I would find that cowardly and an underhanded tactic.
Having copied Bart’s manager in on the review, I expected to hear from her quite quickly. I didn’t receive an auto-responder email to say she was out of the office, so assumed she had received and read it.
Not having heard anything from her, I emailed again on 7th January to ask her to confirm that she had received the email. Considering the nature of the review, I was surprised not to have heard back. I even raised my concerns with my own manager.
When she did finally reply, she just said, “Myself and Bart have received your feedback and will meet to discuss.”
The first correspondence from Bart to his manager regarding a complaint about me is dated 26th January 2019, a month after our flight.
This next extract comes from amendments I made to the meeting minutes taken during my appeal meeting with the Head of Cabin Crew:
In hindsight, I understand that I should have spoken to Bart and that’s a failing on my behalf. I think there were a number of reasons why I didn’t, most of which are not his problem.
With him having struggled so much on the inbound flight to keep up with the services and the fact that I had to compensate a customer who he had missed during the breakfast service, plus the mistakes he’d made on the outbound flight, I should have found time to speak with him, especially considering how much time I spent talking with Katrina (who worked up as Purser in First). I also spent time speaking with Lottie and Tommy (who worked up as Purser in Economy). Lack of time was definitely the main reason, but I could have and should have told Bart after landing that I was going to write something up. I think by the end of the flight I was so tired and my mind was elsewhere because of what I was coming home to.
Having emailed Bart’s manager, I expected her to get in touch to discuss the matter further. Considering Bart was still in probation, his manager should have advised him the correct way to deal with his complaint was by the three of us getting together to talk about it. I know he was advised by the union to go through mediation.
This is the email sent by Bart to his manager. It’s followed by other correspondence that’s self-explanatory:
Bart didn’t want to go through mediation because having told a pack of lies, he knew it would be very difficult to uphold his version of events in a face-to-face meeting with me. He also mentioned in his grievance and in his meeting with Lana, that he didn’t want to come face to face with me at Cabin Crew Check-In, or for us to end up on another flight together.
Bart was not only a prolific liar but also a coward. It should be remembered he was a serving police officer for eight years.
In witness statements completed by the operating crew, nobody except his fiancée, Anna, confirmed that they were aware of my apparent dislike for Bart. They all stated that he was treated the same as everyone else and were unaware of me ignoring or excluding anyone at any time.
This next extract comes from the minutes taken during the investigative meeting between Bart and Cabin Crew Manager Lana. The second extract is from the minutes taken during my disciplinary meeting with Cabin Crew Manager Hayley.
Bart left the airline after less than five years and now works as a ground trainer with an airline in Ireland.
The following extract comes from the appeal that I submitted to the Head of Cabin Crew.
Anna’s witness statement is the most vile and disgusting account that I have read in my 29 years with the company. Bart and Anna are two peas in a pod. They’re as nasty and devious as each other.
I am curious to know whether either has received any written constructive feedback from an onboard manager since joining the company. I feel this is relevant because I believe Bart, in particular, does not understand the purpose of feedback.
Having written a constructive report quite recently from home, which I felt may not be well received, I brought it to the attention of the crew member’s manager before sending it to her. Had I believed Bart’s report would have had the same reaction, I would have done the same.
Had I sent the report to Bart’s manager first and asked her to address it with him, I doubt the outcome would have been any different. I must reiterate once again that while the report was constructive, it was not written with malice or bad intent. What I wrote was exactly what I saw.
In my experience of writing constructive reviews, people never agree with what has been written, so the fact that he didn’t agree with it is fine, but the correct course of action would have been to arrange a meeting with his manager and myself where the three of us could have discussed it together and ironed out any misunderstandings.
Instead of doing that, he wrote a pack of lies filled with libellous allegations and insisted the issue be dealt with by means of a grievance. He also made disgusting allegations of inappropriate touching and colluded with several members of the crew regarding witness statements.
This next extract comes from Anna’s witness statement. She initially says, “I did not personally witness this,” but then goes on to paint a detailed picture of what apparently was going on. As you’ll see when you read Anna’s full witness statement, she’s a fantasist and a sociopath.
Katrina and Claire, who worked alongside Bart and me in First Class, had each been flying as Cabin Crew for thirty years. Lottie, who also worked with us in the cabin, had been with the company as Cabin Crew for eight years. According to their witness statements, they stated they were unaware of any unusual behaviour. The same was said by the Captain and First Officer in their statements.
In Lottie’s statement, she said nothing about me picking on Bart or any other crew member. Nor did she have any concerns about my ability or competence as a Flight Manager. Anna spent a few minutes in the front galley on our inbound sector and that was the only time I saw her at the front of the aircraft on both flights.
Following the initial grievance investigation carried out by Cabin Crew Manager Lana, she said the following:
In Bart’s feedback, I reminded him that when working in First Class, he must remember to check on the pilots regularly. Needless to say, he argued that he did and even claimed he served them their food.
It was another lie. On our outbound flight, Bart was working in the Premium cabin alongside Ven, and the cabin was full. The First Class cabin was half-empty, which is why I moved Bart into Premium. Therefore, one of the crew in First would have served the Flight Crew on this sector.
On the inbound sector, Bart struggled to keep up with the main services, so would definitely not have served the flight crew. He was the last crew member to finish serving in the cabin, and by the time he finished, they would already have been served.
I cleared their main meal away and also did their desserts. I remember that because the First Officer asked me to warm a mince pie.
Witness statements written by the Captain and First Officer confirmed neither had any recollection of being served by Bart.
Considering that Bart wrote in his grievance, “as a fairly confident ex-police officer of eight years”, you would have thought he would have mentioned to the Captain and First Officer my constant inappropriate touching. He could have done that when he served them their food or during one of the visits the crew are required to make during the flight. As far as I am aware, Bart didn’t go into the cockpit once on either sector.
The following extract comes from Bart’s grievance.
These next extracts come from Tommy’s witness statement. He came to the front of the aircraft a few times during the inbound sector and helped in First Class during the latter part of the dinner service.
It’s interesting that Tommy observed a slightly strained relationship between Bart and I, yet didn’t witness any communication between us.
Despite Bart being so vocal about my performance and ability, it seems he forgot to mention anything to his colleagues about inappropriate touching or that he felt he was being bullied. According to witness statements, except for Anna, nobody saw or was even aware of this behaviour.
This extract is from Lottie’s witness statement:
Please share your observations on Laurence’s management and leadership style.
Laurence is what I would describe as ‘old school’. I feel he takes his role as Flight Manager very seriously and likes to coach. Laurence was very hands on and he worked equally as hard as everybody else.
Please share your observations on how Bart was with his product knowledge (i. e First Class wines and service delivery.
I was not working in the same aisle as Bart but from what I observed he seemed confident. I know he took his drink/meal orders on before take-off on the outbound sector.
Please share your observations on Bart’s professional delivery or behaviour towards customers and the crew.
I found Robert very pleasant, helpful and what I would describe as laid back.
Please share your observations on Laurence’s professional delivery or behaviour towards customers and the crew team.
Any engagement I had with Laurence was very professional and pleasant and we had numerous conversations related to work. Some were to do with my development, as Laurence encouraged me to apply for Purser and commented that I was very good at my job. Some were to do with his opinion of the way the service ran in First Class, most of which were negative. He felt it was slow and disorganised on the inbound flight.
When Laurence addressed the crew as a whole, I found at times his delivery came across a bit patronising. I do not think this was intentional but I know this feeling was shared with the crew. However, Laurence was not like this on a one to one basis with me.
With regard to his professional delivery and behaviour towards customers, I find it hard to comment as when he was out in the aisle so was I. I remember on the outbound flight that he took over from me when I was standing with customers at the First Class bar, so I could go and eat. I saw him chatting happily with customers. I didn’t witness much else of any significance. I remember the inbound flight was particularly busy.
It saddens me that the crew felt I came across as patronising because that’s not in my nature. With upward feedback having recently been introduced, I’m sure if this behaviour had been noticed on other flights, it would soon have been brought to my attention.
In feedback written on me anonymously in the twelve months prior to being made redundant, nobody mentioned anything about me being patronising. I may have come across that way on our inbound sector because the environment was incredibly stressful and disorganised.
In witness statements completed by Claire and Katrina, who also worked in First, neither said anything about me being patronising. Nor was it mentioned in their anonymous upward feedback.
Being Cabin Crew | The Ugly Truth 