Y'all want a new coffee maker?

All,

The coffee maker in the area seems to have brewed its last pot. I was thinking for its replacement we should get something commercial grade. Here is what I have picked out:

https://commercial.bunn.com/13300.0001

Shipping is pretty expensive on this hoss so all said and done with tax and a carafe, ordering this bad boy would be $502.39. I know there is some sticker shock there but hopefully it would last us a long time.

If there is enough interest in people wanting it and wanting to chip in on it, I will order it. Please let me know if you are interested in throwing in or just go ahead and send money to Venmo @Drewtality.

If this doesn’t come to fruition, I will just refund the money. I am planning to throw in at least $50.

Drew

Thank you.

All,

Thank you so very much for the gifts and the very kind card. I was completely overwhelmed and almost speechless when I opened them. You guys are the best. It’s nice to feel like I had a positive impact while I was rep. Y’all really know how to make a guy feel special.

Thank you again,

Drew

End of the Line

All,

It’s officially my last day as rep and I wanted to send out a quick email to say thank you for letting me be your rep and also thank you for keeping it exciting. That last 2 years have been quite eventful. It was an honor to be your rep. I have learned so much about myself, our Union, all of you, and about how to be a better rep.


I am very happy to hand the keys over to Trevor, I think he is gonna do a great job. I will still be around to help whenever you guys need me but I am looking forward to a little break from the rep game.

I also want take one more chance to give major props to everyone who stepped up to help make our area better by sacrificing their own time and their breaks for the greater good of the area. This list is far from everyone who helped out but just a few who deserve some recognition.

Angie — Y’all don’t see the behind the scenes work she puts in on our schedule. She goes way out of her way and makes sure all undesirable shifts are evenly distributed and tracks it all. Other areas don’t do that, she goes above and beyond for us and we are lucky for that. Tell her thank you next time you see her.

Garret — Garret is also invaluable to the area. Anytime some complicated airspace issue comes up that is over my head, which to be honest is pretty much all of it, Garrett is always there to type up a thorough email explaining it or to do the aims tickets to get stuff fixed. Tell him thanks next time you see him too.

Matt, Steve, Zach, Theresa, Amy, and anyone else I may have forgotten who stepped up over the past few years to be either Article 5 trainers, Refresher, IST, all that stuff. It is really hard to get volunteers for stuff like that and we are constantly leaning on the same people for it.

Also thanks to everyone who for the last 2 years just showed up, worked your airplanes and went home. Even if you don’t volunteer for stuff, you do help carry the weight when those who do volunteer are away from the operation. I appreciate you for that.

It takes all of us helping out to make our work environment as good as we can get it.

Thanks again to everyone for bearing with me and helping out when I asked. Couldn't have done this term without you guys.

In Solidarity,

Drew

Weekly Update 12/22

All,

Christmas is Wednesday! Better start prime-ing the hell out of some gifts! Just one quick thing for this week.

BTG Times

Jason Revercomb in FAST has built us a lab scenario where we can see the BTG delay. This will help us to see how it effects the lists and our data blocks. I was going to try to see it last Friday but short staffing and all that got in the way. This likely won’t be readdressed until after the new year but I just wanted you all to know we are still working on it.

I hope you all have a fantastic holiday season whether it is at home or at work.

In Solidarity,

Drew

Weekly Update 12/15

All,

Hope you guys are all getting your Christmas shopping done! Don’t forget that one person you always forget about.

SECTOR 14 MAP NUMBER

So this is quickly becoming the bane of my existence. To this point, I have been unable to convince Randy Vincent that this MAP number needs to be lowered. He said he watched 2.5 hours one day last week and there were 16-17 planes in Sector 14 and by his estimation that wasn't busy enough to be red. I have repeatedly made the case that this is a safety issue. I will continue this fight as long as I have to to get it done. One thing that everyone can do to help is file ATSAPs on it. You don’t need to have a specific event, just file it as a safety issue. Make sure you mention that you have already brought the issue to your area rep and I have brought it to the TMO but nothing is getting done despite our urgings. I have trouble understanding why in this safety culture, doing something to improve safety is met with such resistance. Either way, the fight goes on…

ATSAP Website

SEA/PDX CONFLICTS

An issue was raised by a recent ATSAP report that mentioned MFR departures to SEA. The B area said that there are times when they are having to deconflict the PDX and SEA traffic. That should never be the case. I can’t imagine any of us are actually stacking the SEA guy under the PDX guy or leaving the SEA guy west of PDX traffic but the B area is saying it is happening so I figured it was worth addressing just to be sure.

That’s it for now. Happy Holidays!

In Solidarity,

Drew

Weekly Update 12/8

All,

Not a lot to update you on right now, just the Sector 14 stuff. Hope you are all having a joyous holiday season.

Sector 14 MAP Number

I met with Randy Vincent and Lee last week to discuss lowering the MAP number on sector 14. I tried to explain that it is a safety issue and we need to lower the MAP number to have a shot at getting the support we need on sector 14. I made my case for quite a while but it didn’t seem to have much impact. I believe strongly in this as a safety issue and I will continue to fight for this. This is another classic situation where someone who doesn’t actually work the airplanes is making the decisions.

The 7210.3BB requires TMU to formulate a plan for red sectors and recommend that plan of action when they call to notify us of the red sector. To my knowledge, that has not been happening. I am working on getting them to follow the 7210.3BB as well. If you are curious, I have linked it HERE. Chapter 18 Section 8 is where you will find the relevant info. More on that as it happens.

In Solidarity,

Drew

Weekly Update 12/1

All,

Hopefully everyone scored big on Black Friday deals or is gearing up for cyber Monday. I just made my amazon wishlist public so y’all don’t have to fret about getting me the wrong gift, there should be plenty to choose from in there. (That’s a joke just in case that doesn’t come across via email).

Get Your Leave Requests While They’re Hot!

Webscheduler is officially open for requests now so don’t forget to go back and add all those days you forgot or couldn’t get during the bid. Anniversaries, Holidays in lieu of, Super Bowl Sunday, maybe your dog’s birthday?

Worked a Busy Session on 14 Recently?

I am planning to meet with Lee and Randy Vincent next week about lowering the MAP number on Sector 14. This will have many benefits for us, the least of which is notifying supes that we are actually busy. The current algorithm (determined by some government acronym I have never heard of and not by air traffic controllers) or whatever used to determine when that sector goes red says that we should be red at 21 airplanes. I think 21 airplanes in Sector 14 alone while metering and sequencing to PDX is damn near unworkable. We are able to lower that by 3 in house, which we have done. So it is currently at 18. I am trying to get it down to 14 or 15. I need help from you guys to do this. Any time you are working 14 by itself and it is busy, particularly with metering and PDX sequences, write down the date and time and forward it on to me. This will help me make our case.

Looking forward to seeing everyone at the Holiday Party on Saturday night!

In Solidarity,

Drew

Weekly Update 11/24

All,

Hopefully everyone is having a good week and booking travel for all the vacations they are gonna take thanks to the sweet leave they got during the bid. 🤠💸 💸 💸 

OT Preference

Many of you did not indicate what your preference is for OT. If you did not already indicate whether or not you want OT, please do so by clicking HERE. This includes trainees!

ZOA LOA

ZOA is wanting to make a change to the LOA that would require us to have all Reno Complex (RNO, RTS, CXP, MEV, TRK, TVL) arrivals enter ZOA at or below FL280. I know a lot of us already just give them FL300, and point out to ZOA43, handoff to ZOA45. Is this something you guys have an opinion on one way or the other?

Trevor and I have talked about it and we both agree that it would be nice to have ZOA help us out with some things too in the future so hopefully giving them this would help build some good will there. One thing we could look at doing is to add the KNGDM/BLYTZ routing to the LOA. This might help eliminate the few stragglers that just willy nilly clear guys to BTG without telling us. I’ve personally see this be an issue for SEA arrivals coming from ZOA36. Direct BTG from over there puts them perfectly in conflict with PDX arrivals. Just some stuff to think about. Let me or Trevor know your thoughts.

Have a safe and Happy Thanksgiving! Don’t forget to thaw the turkey before it goes in the deep fryer!

In Solidarity,

Drew

Bid is Done!

All,

The bid is finally complete. All of the slots were taken so there will be no pre-approved remaining leave slots throughout the year. Thank you to everyone who helped make it go smoothly. BidATC was a big learning experience for all of us. Please make sure you share any concerns with your reps. We have an all members meeting at Oddfellas on Dec 9th from 2-4pm. There will be time to discuss any suggestions or concerns about bidATC at that meeting as well.

Webscheduler Requests

You can officially begin inputting requests into Webscheduler for the 2020 leave year on 12/1/19 at 12am.  So the second it becomes December, you are free to request any leave for the 2020 leave year. The webscheduler will accept them prior to that, they just won’t be legal so be careful. Make sure you wait until midnight.

Any leave requests input prior to then for the 2020 leave year will be deleted.

In Solidarity,

Drew

Round 5 Update

All,

We have begun the grueling process that is round 5. I have a sheet that has what the Agency says is your PP24 Leave balance, your projected use by the end of the year (what you have requested or approved), and your projected balance at the end of the year. That projected year end balance is the number we are using to determine how many days you can bid in round 5. It DOES NOT INCLUDE HOLIDAYS (or in lieu of) OR DAYS UNBID IN ROUNDS 1-4. If you bid a holiday (or in lieu of) or did not bid a day in rounds 1-4 and want that number added to your total, you will have to let me know that when it is your turn. I am having to manually input everyone’s totals so I will have to adjust yours to make it work. You will still get a notification when it is your turn, but the website won’t let you bid until I input what your accumulated balance is.

As of the time I am typing this, there are 23 slots remaining to be taken.

Drew

Weekly Update 11/17

All,

Hope everyone is having a good week. Only 37 shopping days left until Christmas! Please at least read the following about the bid.

Bid Update

Ok so we are done with round 4. Round 5 is the one where everyone can bid accumulated leave. This means that we need to know everyone’s accumulated leave. Lora Singh is suppose to give us those totals but I won’t be able to get them from her until at least tomorrow, possible Tuesday. So we are paused until then. In the meantime, please look up the amount of carryover leave you will have going into 2020. That way we can double check the numbers we get from Lora.

An important thing to remember — you may technically have a carryover (accumulated) balance but if you have those days requested already in 2019 (approved or not) you CAN NOT BID THEM in round 5. For example, I have 3 days of leave requested around Christmas that are not currently approved and may not ever get approved. My accumulated balance will show those 3 days in it, however, I cannot bid those days though because I already have them requested. If you mess this up and go over it’ll be a huge mess and you will have to go in and delete some requests and no one wants that to happen. It is also unfair to those people who save their leave for this purpose.

As for how round 5 will go…the website is not set up to handle the way that we do round 5. So I am thinking the safest way for us to do it is for me to notify each person individually and say “Ok, there are 31 slots remaining and you can bid X number of them.” Then I will make you eligible to bid and hopefully it will let you input your bid, if not then I will have to do it manually. This is going to be a bit tedious so please bare with me through these trying times.

If you do NOT intend to bid any days in round 5, please let me know ASAP so we don’t have to go through the trouble of figuring out your accumulated balance and all that. This includes trainees. Please let me know if you are not going to bid in round 5.

BTG Delay Times

Garret is working with FAST on setting up a build of this in the lab. This would allow us to see what it looks like before we put it in place on the floor. One thing we are working on is whether or not we want to see both lists. I think for now we should leave both and then we can toggle it on and off as we sit fit on sector. More to come on this as we know it.

In Solidarity,

Drew

Round 4 has begun/Dream Sheet update

All,

Round 4 has officially begun. This round is ONLY FOR 208 HOUR EARNERS. Those eligible to bid in this round may bid up to 6 days wherever they want to. I am not sure the website will stop you from bidding if you are not a 208 earner so if it gets to you and you only earn 6 hours of leave per pay period, DO NOT BID. I will be doing my best to skip those people who are not eligible manually but I don’t know what level of success I will have.

These are the only people ALLOWED TO BID:

KB

CK

MZ

ES

MK

ZW

KR

NG - only 2 days

AM

JO

TX

I am the last one to bid in round 4 so I will just stop the bid after me. So really just Caleb, Hadzick, Dippe, and Morgan need to make sure if it gets to you, you skip your bid in round 4.

Dream Sheets

Angie and I have gone through all of the dream sheets and we were able to get a fair amount of them approved but not all of them. Angie will be reaching out to everyone who submitted one to let them know whether or not their requests were approved and why. I want to make one thing clear though, these dream lines are called that for a reason. They are approved based on a full compliment of controllers. That means no one on leave, no DQs, nothing. If any of that changes, your dream sheet will revert to your bid line immediately. There are also some things that we were only able to convince Lee to do on a trial basis. If your dream sheet schedule ends up not working out, expect it to get converted back to your bid line.

Article 32 Section 6 of the CBA will, of course, still apply:

The Parties recognize that changing an employee's posted watch schedule is undesirable. The Agency will normally give no less than seven (7) days notice of its intention to modify a posted watch schedule. In such case, it shall attempt to avoid the change by soliciting qualified volunteers for forty-eight (48) hours. If the Agency determines it is necessary to modify a posted watch schedule with less than seven (7) days notice, it will make reasonable efforts to secure qualified volunteers. Changes with less than seven (7) days notice shall not be made for the purpose of avoiding payment of overtime, holiday, or other premium pay. If an employee's shift is involuntarily changed with less than seven (7) days notice, the affected employee shall be paid any night time differentials to which he/she would otherwise have been entitled, had they worked that shift.

In Solidarity,

Drew

Weekly Update 11/10

All,

Happy 244th Birthday to the Marine Corps! The bid is still moving along nicely but as I said earlier, we are still on a timetable so don’t dawdle. I would really like to have a week between the end of the bid and when we open up webscheduler for requests. Here’s a couple of quick things as well.

Dream Sheets

These were due yesterday so hopefully you got yours turned in. Angie, Trevor, and I will be looking at them this upcoming Tuesday to see what works and we will try to let you all know as soon as possible what the outcome is.

Holiday Party

At the bottom of this email is the flyer for the upcoming holiday party. December 7th from 6-10 at the Courtyard by Marriot in downtown Tacoma.

BLYTZ/KNGDM

After almost 6 months of pressure, this is finally done. As you saw in CEDAR, ZOA31 and ZOA43 can now shortcut to BLYTZ/KNGDM, effective tomorrow.

Position Checklist Won’t Go Away

As many of you have probably noticed, the position checklist isn’t going away when you sign in anymore. I am not sure if this is impacting everyone or just a lucky few. It seems that it was an unexpected side effect of the latest drop. If you resave your settings with it closed, that should fix it.

That’s it!

In Solidarity,

Drew

Round 3 has begun!

All,

Remember, round 3 is the first round that the 5 days you select do not have to be consecutive. This is what we commonly refer to as “shotgun” bidding. You can take 5 Fridays, 5 Tuesdays, whatever you want.

Happy Bidding,

Drew

Weekly Update 11/3

All,

Bid is back up and running but we are still on a tight timetable so don’t dawdle too long on your turn. As many of you have probably heard, our CPC-IT from PHL, Katrina Linder has been moved to the A Area. They had a bigger need than us right not so it worked out good for everyone.

A lot has been put on hold while we did the MOUs and bid but I am still working on changing the MAP numbers, getting a/c direct BLYTZ/KNGDM, and at some point the ultra high Art 114. Just wanted you guys to know I didn’t forget.

The only other thing of note is from a briefing that hopefully you all already got but just in case I have attached the slides from the airspace presentation regarding the lowering of several MIAs.

Let me know if you have any issues with the bid (Or anything else).

In Solidarity,

Drew

Round 2 has begun!

All,

Angie, Trevor, and I just met with Lee and we have completed the redistribution of leave slots. I think you will all be quite pleased with the result, we did not lose any slots during summer. We removed 1 slot per day for refresher/recurrent/IST training making for a total of 2 per day during those periods. That made for 33 slots that needed to be redistributed. The breakdown is as follows:

2 Leave Slots Per Day:

April 26 — May 9

May 11 — May 15

December 6 — December 19

4 Leave Slots Per Day:

April 8, 9, 10, 15, 16, 17, 22, 23, 24

May 20, 21, 22, 27, 28, 29

June 17, 18, 19

Sept 2 — September 11

October 31

November 11, 27, 28

December 31

This means that the dates listed under the 4 slots per day may not have been available to you in round 1 but they might be in round 2.

Big shout out to Angie for her help during this process. I attached a calendar she made to show the dates.

Happy Bidding!

Drew

Bidding Update

All,

Congrats and thank you to everyone on a speedy Round 1 of bidding. Lots of shakeups, gonna be a new look D area next year. I am hoping to get the redistribution done tomorrow and begin round 2 on Saturday. I will keep you all posted though. Keep in mind round 2 will be 5 days consecutive.

Also, now is the time to submit your “dream sheets.” There are copies printed out and hanging up above the bay headers in the area. You can also find the PDF by clicking HERE.

Due no later than Saturday, Nov 9th at noon.

Drew

Weekly Update 10/27

All,

The bid begins tomorrow. 11 people have not yet signed up for bidATC. You will receive your notification from bidATC when it is your turn. I recommend setting text alerts for notification.

The following people have yet to sign up for bidATC:

KD

TK

ZD

DP

JO

NG

RM

HX

KR

YJ

If anyone of you that have signed up see these people on a regular basis, feel free to offer to help them set up their account. I know bidATC is new for us and there will be a bit of an adjustment period so let’s help each other out where we can. Shoot me or Trevor a text for your member number if you need it.

Go to bidatc.com/zse to set up your account.

Click HERE for the tutorial.

Seeing BTG Times

Garret and I have been working with FAST on seeing the BTG times and one of the questions we had was if you show the delay in the data block then which delay will you get? BTG or the arc? Here is the answer we got:

Meter Reference Point View Entry Selection Rules

EDSM will select which Meter Reference Point View Entry to use for the display of the TMA STA and DCT data in the RDB for the flight. Multiple Meter Reference Point View Entries can exist for a flight at the sector position. When multiple Meter Reference Point View Entries exist for the flight EDSM will use the Meter Reference Point View Entry for the flight with the Scheduled Time of Arrival furthest in the future. If the selected entry is suppressed at the sector position no RDB TMA STA or DCT is displayed for the flight.

When a flight has multiple entries in the MRP View (suppressed or unsuppressed), EDSM shall(EDSMa37196) select the MRP View entry for the flight with the Scheduled Time of Arrival furthest in the future. If the MRP View entry for the flight with the Scheduled Time of Arrival furthest in the future is suppressed, the other MRP View entries for the flight will not be used. When the selected MRP View entry is suppressed the RDB TMA STA and DCT are not displayed.

So in this case if we have TBFM send the BTG/J and the BTG/OP1 crossing and delay times to the D Area sectors in ERAM, the RDB countdown timer in the FDB would reflect the time associated with BTG/J since it would be furthest in the future.

If desired, we could always write an ERAM ER asking to have an adaptable parameter where each site could chose to use either the time furthest in the future or closest to the present; or something to that effect.

So the short answer is that we would see the BTG time/delay in the data block. So we would want to get the delay to 0 or if you are showing the actual time then you would want to get it down to within 5 minutes.

Is this something we want to try? I know it would require a little math but it seems like this would be an overall positive thing. Let me know your thoughts. On a related note — I am going to be pushing the supes in the next few months to start having crew breakouts with the B area. With our increased traffic and the fact that we are now eating the majority of the delay, I think it would be good for us to sit down with them and clear the air on some issues.

SENTRY EAGLE

Sentry Eagle is making its comeback in 2020. Get hyped. Shadow has said they can be available to work it. Do we want that or would we rather just do it ourselves?

Y’all can reply directly to this email with any answers to my questions as well as concerns/issues.

In Solidarity,

Drew

Weekly Update 10/20

All,

Not much going on right now. Quick couple of things.

Article 46

We are just waiting to see the results of the Article 46 so we can begin the bid. Supposedly there is currently a volunteer from the C area again so we will see what happens soon. It closes on 10/25.

bidATC

Here is al the information for bidATC again. Again, let me know if you need your member number.

Go to bidatc.com/zse to set up your account.

Click HERE for the tutorial.

In Solidarity,

Drew

Weekly Update 10/13

All,

Hopefully everyone is having a good week. Just a couple of quick things.

Article 46

So the original rumor was that there was a volunteer. Apparently that person has unvolunteered. So it is still possible that we lose MW to this Article 46. Any number of things could happen so we just gotta wait until the thing is finalized before we know anything.

Jury Duty

This has not been being handled consistently throughout the building and it is causing confusion. Here is what the contract says:

Article 27 Section 3

At the request of an employee who has been granted court leave, the employee's regular days off shall be changed to coincide with jury service days off. This change of an employee's regular days off shall not entitle the employee to receive pay in excess of that authorized for the rescheduled tour of duty.

So the key there is “at the request of the employee.” That means that we need to be requesting it. In the past, we have been able to just turn in our jury summons and the supes change our schedule. From now on, if you get a jury summons, turn it in and request what you want your schedule to be. I would recommend getting put on D08 shifts (Sat/Sun off) for the entire time you are on jury duty. That way, if you are not selected or it ends, you are expected to be at work on the D08. You can also request to return to your normally assigned shift and none of that should be denied. I know this is a departure from how it has been handled in the past so if you get a jury summons and are confused about what to do, feel free to come ask me.

bidATC

Time to start getting signed up so we can be ready for the bid.

Go to bidatc.com/zse to set up your account. You will need your member number.

I have all of your member numbers but it seems inappropriate to post them all here for some reason so just shoot me a text if you don’t have it and I’ll give it to you.

Click HERE for the tutorial.

In Solidarity,

Drew