Enter the doctors
Inept aptitude tests…
Air traffic controllers, just like aircrew, have to meet vigorous health standards to be allowed to practice their trade. At most places, even before entering the training course, prospective controllers are sent to specialized medical institutions where a careful evaluation is made, not only to check that the candidate has the required number of ears and eyes but also to make sure, via various aptitude tests, that his personality is the kind that can, in theory, be “corrupted” to become that of an air traffic controller.
When these aptitude tests were still fairly new, a lot of people, not only controllers, believed that they were a waste of time. This negative opinion had been partly due to a low level of experience in matters of air traffic control on the part of the shrinks concerned, a situation which tended to produce rather poor results at the end of the selection process. Though there were places where things had turned out better, our first encounter with scientific selection had been a definite disaster.
The psychologists assigned to the job had about as much awareness of flying as a cabbage growing under the final track… The poor dears wanted to set up a grading, a yardstick to which new applicants could eventually be measured, and to this end a bunch of experienced controllers were selected on whom they would run their tests, with the results to be considered as falling into the acceptable level of performance.
On arrival at the institute, first we had to answer a series of questions about the job itself. Now imagine a neurosurgeon explaining a complex brain operation to a gardener and you can picture the situation. We were simply not on the same frequency. I am sure their first impression had been that of dealing with very, very strange individuals…
Next came the gadgets. These mechanical and electrical contraptions, we were told, were in use to test truck drivers, railway engine drivers and
the like, with excellent results. All of them nice, aviation types, just like ourselves, we thought. The final test scores probably had to do something with the fact that we just could not take the whole thing seriously. Anyway, the shrinks made up their reports on each of us and these were compared with the empirical assessment produced earlier by management.
Thanks heaven, the whole exercise had been run anonymously, or else some of us would have lost our jobs on the spot. Controllers known to be capable of vectoring heaps of airplanes with ease were shown as being on the dumb side of not being very bright and even the highest scoring guy was below your average truck driver… It was quite clear the shrinks were looking for all the wrong qualities.
Following this first disaster, there was silence for several years, at the end of which a new set of shrinks entered the ball game, claiming to have new methods for foolproof selection. Without wanting to appear unduly skeptical of their claims I still feel that, no matter how a controller had been selected for the job, his or her professional aptitude can only be usefully judged after he or she had issued the first few clearances and radar vectors…
We pee and bleed…
While aptitude tests had turned out to be something of a disgrace for the profession, the physicals were a different story altogether. This we had to take seriously at all times unless we wanted to part with our license and with it the microphone, of course. Our particular system called for controllers working the shifts to be randomly selected while on duty for a quick check by the airport doctor and a compulsory, once yearly visit to an assigned hospital for a day long ordeal of peeking and poking by various doctors.
Our Authority had a contract with a particular hospital, where doctors, mostly ex-army types, received a small per-capita fee for pronouncing judgment on our health. We were required to visit each department of the hospital, accompanied by a nurse hauling the thick folders kept on every one of us, where the specialist concerned would check, look, taste or finger whichever functional area of a controller he was interested in. At the end of the round, it was the duty of the official authority doctor to make the final decision on the basis of the specialists’ reports. It was usually mid-afternoon before we got around to appearing in front of this bearded individual. He wore the same smile, whether he was about to return your license with an endorsement for one more year, or to suspend one from work due to “medical reasons”. Little wonder our feelings towards these doctors were sometimes nothing short of ambivalent, though they were real professionals, as much concerned for the safety of aviation as we were ourselves. If they happened on an ailing controller trying to cover up his problems, or if one or the other of us turned to them with a problem we discovered ourselves, they were always sympathetic and did their best to help.
This yearly visit to the hospital was something of a ritual. It was more pleasant to go in spring than in winter (less clothes to take off and put on again at least six times…), so those whose date fell to the winter months, if they had enough seniority, could sweet-talk the coordinator into shifting them into one of the warmer months. The dates tended to fall a few days earlier every year, as we had to pass the medical before the license had actually expired, so these maneuvers had to be repeated time and again. The hospital catered for the examination of all kinds of licensed personnel. This included aircrew (providing an excellent occasion to discuss the happenings of the previous few months), stews (some of whom did not insist on undressing in a separate room…), parachute enthusiasts and even skin divers. Parachutists were looked upon as a bunch of loonies, well, someone jumping from a perfectly good airplane must surely have his head examined with extra care…
The bad news was that we had to turn up at 7.30 a.m., with an empty stomach, the first item on the check-list being the lab. For those who could
pee on order, the little glass jars represented no real problem. For those who could not, it was an ordeal not unlike a thunderstorm on a busy Friday afternoon. They would disappear in the only toilet available for the purpose of obtaining medical samples (that is a nice way of saying “to pee into the numbered jar”), and while they tried, and tried, and tried, a long queue would form in front of the locked door. It can be quite embarrassing, standing in a queue in front of a locked toilet door with a glass jar in hand, especially if you have a pretty girl standing next to you, trying to make the jar look like an oversized lipstick. If my memory serves me right, the next most embarrassing thing is to walk out of the loo, with a full jar… There is only one thing beats this, an empty jar.
The urine sample safely deposited on the rack, the next hurdle came in the form of a blood sample. Here, the hospital was wont to play a two chance game on us. If his girls were late to come in, the lab chief usually took it upon himself to make sure that there should be no delay, drawing the blood himself. He was a respected theoretician, but the practical aspect of lab work were just not one of his specialties. He would probably have had grave difficulties in putting his needle into a fire hose, let alone into our precious veins. In the event, we usually ended up with an equal amount of blood in the test tube and on the floor around us, not to mention the nice, bluish marks, not unlike those you can expect to acquire in a bar fight, left on our arm. This was the loosing combination.
For the winners, a lovely, black haired beauty was in store with a figure that was sure to make the boys’ blood pump out like a fountain. This little doctor had an absolutely enchanting smile and nothing except for the tiniest of panties under her lab coat. She radiated sex with every movement she made and the total effect could not be ruined even by the nasty looking needles around her. Sitting on her high stool, making small talk while she prepared her tubes, she was an event that made the visit to the hospital a worthwhile exercise. By the nature of things we were required to sit facing her in comfortable closeness, with right arm resting on her left thigh, this latter barely covered by the lowermost reaches of her white coat (we could have sworn she had at least 40 centimeters cut off from the standard size). We soon became bold, and using the pain accompanying the insertion of the needle as an excuse, our arms would jerk and slip the final few millimeters to rest at the “significant point” where her shapely thighs met just under her belly. This made her flush, though her eyes sparkled with a strange light, not at all doctor-like. We were definitely sorry that all she needed was a few cubic centimeters of blood, we would have gladly given up a few liters, just to extend the time needed for the operation…
Good ears, good listeners
Controllers need good ears. Communication with pilots and other controllers is mainly done using the spoken word, and any problem in hearing can
quickly lead to disaster. The situation is complicated by the fact that airports are noisy places and the crackle coming through the controller’s headset is not exactly HI-FI, either. Consequently, our ears tend to suffer a lot, and next to the eyes, they give rise to most of the concerns. It is only natural that the yearly medicals concentrate a lot on making sure that our hearing is as good as it had been when we started working the airwaves.
The most basic check required that five of us stand in line about 5 meters from the doctor, sideways, so that only one ear is pointed toward him, with the other blocked out by our hand. The doctor would then whisper random numbers which we had to repeat correctly. While standing in line, awaiting our turn, we often wondered, does the old doctor’s hearing measure up to what was required of us? One day a young chap decided to satisfy his curiosity. When his number was whispered by the doctor, I think it had been “fifty-six”, he replied correctly, but in the same low whisper. At first there was no response from the doctor, but then he reacted in the most basic, though very human way. “Eh….??” – well, there was one question answered.
Another test involved a tuning fork. The vibrating instrument was placed on top of our head and the doctor would look at us with a questioning eye. Before the very first occasion, experienced colleagues had told us, newcomers, that the standard reply expected was “I hear the fork on top, in the middle.” We never bothered to check where else the damned thing could possibly be heard, though we made sure all new candidates were informed of what they should say. No wonder each and every one of them invariably passed this particular test, even after the good doctor’s suspicions had been mildly aroused when a guy recited the standard reply even before the fork was placed anywhere near his head.
Gas attack!
Finally a “dirty” episode. Regulations stated that on the occasion of the yearly physical, controllers should be tested by each and every one of the specialists, and this, by definition included the surgeon, also. The doctor assigned to the task was a diminutive man, on tiptoes he would probably have brushed just above the five foot mark. He was rumored to be a brilliant surgeon and the simple routine associated with checking controllers must have been an absolute bore for the poor chap. For us, it was nothing short of embarrassing. We were required to undress completely and parade up and down in front of him, naked, so that he could have a good look over the bones and muscles of our body. The final degradation came in the form of having to bend over, with our back to the doctor, while he peered into our ass. The catch had been the presence of the nurses. While the older ones had had enough training to concentrate on the paperwork, the younger ones occasionally detailed to help out sometimes dared a few furtive glances at us, variously thrilled or horrified at what they saw. Here we were, the proud, teasing knights of a few minutes earlier, exposed to the elements (and the eyes of the girls…), swearing for the hundredth time not to delay any longer the weight reduction program solemnly promised ourselves at the last physical. The younger blokes had had a definite advantage and no amount of experience bred excellence in the control room could make up for the jealousy.
O.T. had come in that morning with an empty stomach, as per requirements, but this apparently could not help his intestines, still struggling to
get rid of an overly plentiful dinner the night before. He was passing gas continuously, walking around the hospital grounds in a perpetual cloud of the most evil smelling kind . The surgeon’s examination had always been one of the longer ones, its duration far exceeding O.T.’s MTBF (Mean Time Between Farts).
As we lined up for the examination, naked as usual, only the suffering expression on his face bore evidence to the supreme effort O.T. was making to contain the rebellion in his belly. When his turn came, he walked around gallantly, though already with a sense of impending disaster.
“Come here, turn around, bend over, pull cheeks (of the ass…) open” – commanded the doctor as was his custom, bending down to get a better view of this, the least dignified part of the human body. O.T. did as he was told, but no sooner had he bent over than his bowels exploded with a funny, screeching sound, emitting a cloud which more than made up for being invisible by its smell.
Everyone in the room froze. The little doctor, an incredulous expression on his face and nose wrinkled to keep out the smell, straightened up and pointed to the door: “Out, you pig” – he snarled.
The rest of the day we debated whether O.T.’s license would be endorsed after his gas attack on the surgeon. It was…
To be continued…