So Easy, Even A Child Can Do It!

The Federal Aviation Administration has suspended a pair of air traffic controllers for bringing their kids to work at JFK International. Okay, it's a little more complex than that. The kids in question read instructions given to them by their father over the radio to departing flights: "JetBlue 171, cleared for takeoff." The father then follows up by getting back on the radio to give more detailed instructions to flight 171. The kids were not talking to airplanes that were in the air, turning, landing, maneuvering. Just the ones on the ground, rolling toward the runway. One of them told the crew aboard a departing Aero Mexico flight, "Adios, amigos."
All in good fun. Except that the FAA has rules and regulations that don't allow such antics in their control towers. "This lapse in judgment not only violated FAA's own policies, but common-sense standards for professional conduct. These kinds of distractions are totally unacceptable," FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt said in a statement. "This kind of behavior does not reflect the true caliber of our work force." Maybe Randy didn't consider the relative impossibility of
getting daycare in the midst of the blizzards that closed New York's schools back in mid-February. Maybe he doesn't care. Probably doesn't care. For the record, the pilots didn't seem to mind. One of them can be heard on the tape of the exchange,"I wish I could bring my kid to work."
And so maybe there should be a list of jobs where kids are better off staying with their uncle at the pool hall instead of joining mom or dad on the job. Meat inspector comes to mind. Lumberjacks. Roofers. Chimney sweeps. Pilots. And yes, air traffic controllers. As endearing as it might seem after the fact, if anything had gone wrong, it wouldn't be in the "most amusing" section of the news. This comes from a guy whose father used to take him and his friends on tours of the printing company where he worked, and occasionally stopped to ask the kids if they wanted to "test the temperature of the ink." This resulted in the child in question walking around with an indelibly black finger for days after. Maybe we were better off staying at home, too.