In teams think of the way the situation might have developed and make up a story based on your expectations.

Thoughts to ponder:

• Firms where employee morale is high tend to outperform competitors.
• A company’s code of ethics should cover both office hours and employees’ time off.
• How far do you agree with some companies’ attitude towards their employees? “We pay you, now we are even…” That’s where most companies have gone today.

The Analysis: The Airline Overreacted

While she may have erred in judgment with her blog, a flight attendant didn't deserve the turbulence that ensued

It's been four years since Delta fired flight attendant Ellen Simonetti for posting pictures of herself in uniform on a company jet between flights. The carrier had somehow discovered the photos on her blog, Diary of a Dysfunctional Flight Attendant, and dismissed her a few weeks later.

For Simonetti, it was a personal disaster that left her saddened, confused, and jobless. In an e-mail response to BusinessWeek.com's request, Delta, citing its former employee's pending litigation against it, declined to comment on the case. Industry experts we spoke to seemed to share the same opinion about the whole chain of events: Simonetti should have known better than to depict herself goofing around in her uniform—a symbol of the airline's integrity—but firing her because of it represented a bigger error in judgment on Delta's part.

"Airlines do have standards. An airline pilot in uniform can't drink at a bar even off-duty," says Scott Hamilton, a consultant to the airline industry who's based in Issaquah, Wash. "Was it a dumb thing for her to appear in a flight attendant's uniform? Yes. Was it a firing situation? No."

Both Hamilton and Bob Mann, who is president of airline consulting business R.W. Mann & Co., thought the firing sounded more like the culmination of prior disciplinary warnings rather than a reaction to one incident. "It seems like an overly aggressive response to a single event," says Mann, who is based in Port Washington, N.Y. "It leads me to believe there may have been prior warnings to get [the photos] off the blog." Simonetti, however, maintains she had a solid record with no disciplinary actions during her eight years of employment with Delta, and that she removed the photos as soon as she learned the airline disapproved of them.

One reason the problem may have occurred was that blogs were still in their infancy back in 2004. "Companies had policies for e-mail and corporate uniforms and speaking to the press at the time this happened," says Robert Cox, president of the Media Bloggers Assn., based in New Rochelle, N.Y. "I'm not aware there were any or many corporate policies about blogging."

"Blogging is a new medium, and lot of people probably jumped into it without thinking it through," says Dave Heller, an attorney with the Media Law Resource Center in New York. "I think it would be best to enforce these things after a policy has been set up." (Heller suggests that people thinking of starting a Web journal check out guidelines for blogging that were formulated by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco group dedicated to protecting free speech in the media.)

For Simonetti and Delta, the blog-photos incident caused stress and litigation. Many observers feel the firing scandal embarrassed the airline more than the photos did. Most of the media attention surrounding the case was sympathetic toward Simonetti. But what about any fliers who may have seen the pictures in question?

"Airline passengers are not going to care one bit," says Kate Hanni, president of the Coalition for Airline Passengers' Bill of Rights. "They have seen such a decline in service. They are far more concerned with surviving a flight than a flight attendant's semi-sexy picture on a blog."

Likewise, Joe Brancatelli, the Cold Spring (N.Y.)-based editor of joesentme.com, a non-commercial Web site for business travelers, believes business fliers don't care what flight attendants do in their time off. "But Delta is a strange company; it always has been," he says. "It's old. It's the only non-union airline out there."

WORD LIST

§	word or phrase	Russian equivalent
	to ensue	возникать в результате чего-либо, следовать
	dysfunctional	не следующий обычным нормам социального поведения, недееспособный
	to post	выложить, разместить сообщение или документ в Интернете
	pending litigation	незаконченная тяжба
	to goof around (informal)	валять дурака
	overly	чрезмерно, слишком
	a blog	oбновляемая страничка в Интернете, посвященная определенной теме
	to err	ошибаться, заблуждаться
	turbulence	бурная реакция
	to be in one’s infancy	находиться на ранней стадии развития, в период становления
	to jump into smth	вскочить, впрыгнуть на ходу, быстро включиться в какую-либо деятельность

Discuss your word list, definitions and examples with your team members.

I. Answer the following questions:

1. Why was the behavior of flight attendant Ellen Simonetti considered to be unethical by the company?

2. What was the attitude of the society towards Delta’s reaction on its employee’s misbehavior?

3. How far do you agree with Delta’s decision? Comment.

4. In your opinion did the company benefit from its policy?

5. Find in the text as many excuses as you can to justify Ms Simonetti’s misbehavior.

6. Which party will win that “pending litigation”? Give reasons for your expectations.

II. Work on the structure of the article. Single out the main ideas.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-16