The story started back in 2009, on 20 April to be exact. As you will see the dates are important, this is why I am trying to remember them exactly. It was on this date that I completed the usual yearly proficiency test and I was so pleased with my 92 % result it never entered my mind that it would some day prove inadequate. In any case, it is only normal that a tower supervisor should achieve at least 90 %, so I was satisfied with myself. You must know about this proficiency test that a simple ground-pounder has 50 questions to answer while a supervisor gets 60… One thing was sure, I could continue to work as SV. (Supervisor or SV in Budapest is the deputy boss of a given shift. DSV or Duty Supervisor is the boss of the shift – Ed.)
A while later on a quiet, December day shift an old student of mine (who is now the boss of the training section but to keep his ATC license he works a certain number of hours in the tower) turned to me and said:
– Lajos, the time has come, here is your chance to become DSV!
– What gives? – I asked emerging from the Supervisor station.
– TC is retiring next year and the bidding is open for his position. Are you interested? – my ex-student asked loud enough for the others to also start listening.
– Rex Lajos, what will become of us without you? Who will they send to torture us? – came the chorus of the colleagues.
– I have no clue. This is the first time I have heard of this. I will think about it. – I replied and returned to the SV station to finish whatever I had been doing in the first place.
But the bug had been planted in my ear. I was thinking, this would be the same group I originally became an SV in… the group where they had that great sphere of companionship, the group that was on good terms even with the colleagues from approach control. True, only two people remained from the original crew but I knew also the young people, if nothing else I met them during their training period.
I also thought about whether I needed this, the constant fight and battles with the bureaucrats on countless idiotic issues? In the end I concluded that in a position one notch higher up I might have a better chance of fighting against bureaucracy, it might even give me a new impetus.
But the biggest push came from my colleagues and this was a very nice experience. A phone call from here, a bit of encouragement from there: Rex Lajos, they really need you there.
Finally when even colleagues from the Airport Company said that with me they would have a third group they consider nice to work with, my hesitation all but evaporated. How can you resist so much enthusiasm, so much sympathy? The whole hoopla was worth it just to see this happen. After all, I was getting support from the people who essentially carry the airport on their backs.
So, when the big day broke, I submitted my bid for the position. The results would be made known 10 days later on 16 April.
True, the conditions specified that the proficiency test had to be completed to 95 %, but it was not said whether this applied to this year’s results or last year’s? You remember how happy I was of the 92 % outcome last year? It never occurred to me then that this result would ever fall short of the requirements. OK, I know I am repeating myself, but in which other walk of life would a 92 % examination result be considered insufficient?
Since it was necessary to apply for this year’s proficiency tests earlier, I could not know that the 15 April date would be too late. In my naiveté I imagined that delivering a 95 % result would be enough to get invited for an interview. As the days passed, the silence of my phone was becoming more and more ominous. They will not call… What was at first a hunch soon became certainty. I thought about my letter of motivation and the things I wrote in it… may be they did not like it. After all I did declare war on bureaucracy to get rid of all the paperwork that could, in the 21st Century, be taken over by computer technology. Restoring the good relationship between the tower and approach control as well as creating good cooperation with the folks at Budapest Airport were also in there… Could it be that they did not like any of that and that was why they did not call me? Of course there could be another reason, one that we have seen in other competitions also, namely that only one person in the world could fulfill the requirements, the one they had in mind right from the start…
In the end I could not keep my silence and sent a letter to one of the committee members saying that I found the selection process highly unworthy. The reply was strangely apologetic, stating mainly that this was the world these days, decisions were no longer being made by them but by persons specifically appointed for the purpose. In other words, people who know nothing about air traffic control yet have been given full powers in making personnel decisions. This reply blew all my fuses! In my reply I raved and ranted about how they should be ashamed of themselves, having left things to deteriorate to this level, that they had prostrated themselves to the bureaucrats subordinating the interests and opinions of the profession to their uninformed decisions.
There was no answer… of course. But the bureaucrat in question called me and expressed his regrets at this turn of events. In a lengthy phone conversation I tried to make him understand why 2 wrong answers in the test series should not negate 27 years’ worth of professional and 19 years of supervisor experience. I also told him that in my view the pass level should be 90 %, allowing 6 errors in the set of 60 questions.
I thought he understood but as it turned out at the next SV selection, they once again insisted on a 95 % success rate. Conclusion? The situation is hopeless, bureaucracy has taken over everything, even higher management is in their grasp.
However, something must have moved up there because the winner was not whom they wanted but someone who had been the least likely to succeed. As I heard, they got a lot of flack from all directions and in the end they chose the least painful solution.
The icing on the cake? On 15 April I passed the aptitude test with a result of 97 % …
In conclusion I can only say that the moral victory was mine and this is probably more important than getting the job via a less than honorable way. After this, as far as I am concerned the whole management of the tower has lost credibility, I cannot accept their post mortem explanations either. The best judge of their decision will be time…
As they say one such misstep is one too many.
