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Originally Posted by kellwolf  True, and I stand by what I said. Dead or not, the employees would string someone up if they tried to go against Herb's wishes. SWA isn't like any other company I've worked for, and you'll hear just about every SWA employee say that. Until you've worked there, you really don't know how things work out over there. It's interesting to have a company where management (from top of the food chain to entry level) actually gives a damn about the employees. |
We'll see - it won't be a revolution, it'll be an evolution. One day it'll seem like a good idea at the top for SouthWest to run EMB170s, or 190s or a couple of 777 for trans-con work and the employees will think "this ain't right" but they won't quit en-masses, they'll hang in there, because SouthWest is a good company to work for.
Then they go to assigned seating, because that's what customers want, even though the best turn is now 40 minutes and flights are a running late more often, and the employees think "that's not right" but they hang in there, SouthWest is a good company to work for.
Then the fuel hedges expire, and the money has to come from somewhere, so employees are asked to take wage cuts. The employees think "that ain't right" but they don't quit because SouthWest is a good company to work for.
Then money gets tight and people don't get bonuses, and so employees start leaving the USPS packages out in the rain because "hell, we're not getting a bonus anyway" - but people don't quit because, well SouthWest is a good company to work for.
And pretty soon it isn't a good company to work for, and most of the workers are bitter and poorer and the company is struggling to make money because it turns out that the introductory $39 fares on the 777 service to London wasn't such a great idea, and the China startup isn't going as well as they hoped, and the Airbus 380s they were hoping to use for BWI to Denver haven't arrived and anyway the runways aren't ready and even if they were there it turns out the business plan for them, predicated on a 30 minute turn, isn't going to work out so well.
I might be wrong - it'll be a while before we see it, but I've worked for what I considered to be the greatest company culture I've ever worked in. In 2 years new management at the company managed to destroy it and became just one more crappy job in the computer industry. And believe me, it wasn't because those of us who were there in the good old days didn't try and keep it going.