4 (Pro Standards, Jon Ross)

Today's SWAPA Number is 4. That's the number of different generations in Southwest cockpits on any given day around the system. Today we're sitting down with Jon Ross, Chair of the Professional Standards Committee, to talk about how we can keep conflict resolution at the lowest level and safety at the highest.

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Transcript

Matt McCants (00:03):

Today's SWAPA number is four. That's the number of different generations in Southwest cockpits on any given day around the system. Today, we're sitting down with Jon Ross, Chair of the Professional Standards Committee, to talk about how we can keep conflict resolution at the lowest level and safety at the highest.

Tony Mulhare (00:34):

I'm Tony Mulhare.

Matt McCants (00:35):

And I'm Matt McCants.

Tony Mulhare (00:36):

And here's our interview with Jon.

(00:45):

Jon, first off, why don't you remind our listeners as to what the purpose of Professional Standards Committee is? What's your reason for being?

Jon Ross (00:52):

The textbook is answer is uphold the highest standards of professionalism and safety. That's a fancy way of going, taking care of each other, doing everything we can as safely and as professional, both in the cockpit and outside the cockpit as possible.

Tony Mulhare (01:07):

So it's all about conflict resolution, right?

Jon Ross (01:09):

It is, and if I was going to say for the word of the day, the word of the day is respect. It all comes down to how we treat each other, and respect has to be given and earned both at the same time. I've never had anybody call me and say, "There he was treating everybody with respect, but it doesn't work that way." So with that being said, treating each other with respect, the golden rule, you have to respect the person that's sitting next to you and how they got there.

(01:40):

I will give you a good example. People say, and I brought this up in the training with my committee this last year, "Don't judge the book by their cover," because the cover is very, very different types of covers out there right now, but the book is fundamentally the same. The book may not be as thick as it was in the past, equate that to experience, knowledge, life, but the book is fundamentally the same. The path for folks to get here, it's still a hard path. So if they're here at an earlier age, they've worked hard to get there. So respect that, you'll go a long way.

Matt McCants (02:22):

I like that. Now, every pilot's book is a little different, right? What about the book of the landscape of the flying environment right now? Are you seeing anything different in this post-contract ratification environment than you did, say, six months ago before it was ratified and we were in these negotiations? Is the cockpit book a little bit different?

Jon Ross (02:40):

It's a great question. What's interesting is starting last summer, our workload started climbing, and the workload as it climbed is I would equate it to I'd get a call from somebody and they said X, Y, and Z, and as I let them vent for a little bit, after about 20 minutes of the conversation, it would be, "You know, and if we just had a contract, I'm tired of getting rerouted, I'm tired of X, Y, and Z," and you realize there's the underlying pressure cooker, right? It was like the mask during COVID. Folks would be very short with each other, and the mask was nothing more than, in my opinion, it was an amplifier. It did nothing but raise the level of the flame on the kettle, and we were very short with each other and the level of patience was just not there.

(03:35):

So since we've gotten through the contract phase, that level of the pressure cooker has come off. I think it was last summer that the discussion was we were going ... It was a Friday release after negotiations from our folks, Jody and his team. It was like, "We're going backwards here." Within 48 hours, my phone would just continuously ring, and it was folks were frustrated that stuff that normally wouldn't bother them is bothering them.

(04:06):

So the pressure cooker has come off for the most part since January. I think we've worked our way in a very good direction. The call function now is it's more of a generational thing, which will take us to another whole another discussion level here with the new call is, okay, I mean, I'll put the who in it, that 60 something Captain flying with the 20 something First Officer, and both of those folks not showing up to the cockpit with respect for each other.

(04:42):

You have two varying perspectives of generational and their time on the planet and how they view the planet, politics and religion, two things you just try and keep out of that cockpit because people are very passionate about both of them. You're probably not going to change their opinion on their spiritual views or their political views, so don't try. Just drop the mic and walk away.

Matt McCants (05:09):

Sage advice. Can you go into more detail about how many different generations of pilots we have flying together right now?

Jon Ross (05:16):

For the most part, you have four. You have baby boomers, you have Gen X, millennials, and Gen Z were the breakdown. There's some folks will talk about there's two phases of baby boomers. So I think some folks would argue that depending on what text you read, it talks about five and there are five very different generations. My daughter can text faster than I can talk. It's absolutely incredible. So how they communicate and view the world is very, very different. You have generations who have never had life without a cellphone, instant access to data, instant access to the answers. So when you mix all of that together, it's very easy to create turmoil.

Tony Mulhare (06:05):

So how do we bridge those gaps between generations in the cockpit? What are some of the best practices that you've seen for building that teamwork?

Jon Ross (06:12):

It all comes down to that first two minutes that you meet in the cockpit, "My name's Jon Ross and unfortunately you're stuck with me for the next 72 hours. If you want to call scheduling right now, I'll respect you for it." You treat folks the way you want to be treated. I will tell you the one thing I would put out to the older folks is you need to break the wall down right off the bat to put some of the who in it. I am a 60-plus-year-old guy with a big white mustache. My daughter's always said I look like a cop. I'm very intimidating according to my kids. How do I let the 24-year-old sitting next to me make them feel like they can tell me, "Hey, Jon, you're doing that wrong"? because it's human nature. You're going to evaluate somebody when you meet them and, "Okay. How do I treat them to make sure that our relationship is good, we work together?" and it's in the first two minutes.

(07:13):

I tell folks right off the bat, "I'm going to make mistakes. Please bring them up. Tell me I'm making mistakes. If I'm doing something stupid, I'm doing something stupid because I'm not smart. So have enough respect for me to tell me I'm doing it wrong." I will ask folks after every leg, "Please tell me what I did well and what I did not do well." All the world is a classroom, and the day you stop learning and the day you think you have a suitcase, in my opinion, that's the day that you might think about doing something else. That's a dangerous mentality. If you stop learning, that's not a good call.

(07:51):

So we're going to make mistakes. How we handle the mistakes between the two of us is very important. Now, you tell somebody, "Hey, I probably would've done this differently. Might've done that differently," goes a long way instead of going, "Yeah, you're screwing that up." It's on the delivery, right?

Matt McCants (08:07):

Yeah, and that's a good point here is this is a two-way street, right? You have to be willing to accept criticism and you need to be assertive enough to step up and point out things when they are non-standard, right?

Jon Ross (08:17):

Absolutely. I will give you it's CRM in a different direction. Instead of crew resource management, it's conflict resolution management. I do everything in threes. So you first put it on yourself and we'll use the MCP as the example. Let's say that we're flying together, and when you're flying and I'm monitoring, I'm always messing with the MCP. How does the 24-year-old tell the cresty old Captain, "Stop doing that" without breaking things down? I do it in threes. The first one, it's me, we, you. The first one is me and you put it on yourself to let the other person know that I don't appreciate what you're doing, and you go, "You're probably used to flying with a varsity player, but unfortunately, you're stuck with me as a JV guy. It would really help me out if you would let me run the MCP like they taught us in the training center. It's going to keep me in the green and it's going to keep us going in the right direction." The next leg you're flying, same thing.

(09:25):

Now, you make it a we thing and you go, "You know what? I don't think we're functioning real well here as a team because I asked you before if you let me run the MCP, so for my comfort level, if you'd let me run the MCP, I think we'd be a more effective team." Now you turn the heat up a little bit, right?

(09:42):

The third time they do it, now it's time for hardball. "Hey, pardon, you're not picking up what I'm laying down. They taught us that if I'm flying and you're monitoring, I run the MCP. I brought it up a couple times. I don't think we're being a very effective team or very safe team because you are discounting my input and it's taken me completely out of my comfort level. So either come on board or I will gladly remove myself from the trip."

Tony Mulhare (10:08):

So let's say that conversation doesn't go very well, and so we've tried the me, we, you, it's just not working out and it's starting to become a safety issue. The communication walls are being built instead of being broken down. Why should I call you and not the chief pilot?

Jon Ross (10:25):

Great question. You first call me to go, "Okay. Let me give you those tools, first of all," because we don't teach those. We talk about CRM, we talk about RRM, we talk about all these really neat acronyms, but as someone goes through training at Southwest Airlines, I don't ever remember sitting in a classroom and folks talking about, "Hey, if this is how we treat each other, this is how you're going to sit three and a half feet away from each other for 96 hours and how you end up getting along."

(10:55):

So someone calls me, they're going to be frustrated. I let them vent. After 15 to 20 minutes of just talking about what a complete pain in that butt Jon Ross is, then, "Okay. Let me give you some tools." First of all, there's two paths ahead. There's a path, and you're going to pick them. This is all in their lane. The two paths ahead or, "I'm going to give you some tools, and before you start flying tomorrow, have a conversation with Jon before the day goes going, "Hey, man, this has been keeping me up, kept me up last night, and I need to get this off my chest. I don't think we functioned real well yesterday as a team. There's some walls being built here."

(11:38):

You bring that up to an individual before you start the stress of that day, okay, a couple cups of coffee, clean air, "You know what? I really appreciate you bringing that up. I will take that on board and I'm sorry I made you feel that way." So the other choice is, "Okay. You want me to call Jon after you and I talk? I'll call Jon and see what's going on from his perspective."

(12:01):

About two-thirds of the time, they will go, "You know what? I appreciate you giving me those tools. Let me vent. I'll talk to Jon tomorrow before we start the day." About a third of the time, I will call Jon and I tell him. He's going to know we talked and they're like, "Yeah, I don't care." I'll talk to John, it's almost always, "Hey, man, I did not mean to come across like that. I'm being misinterpreted," and they will take that on board. Nobody comes to work genuinely to be a complete jerk, and folks have other stuff going on, they bring it to work. You talk about it and, okay, they start functioning as a team.

(12:41):

If the person calls me and goes, "I can't do this. I'm done. We're pushing in 45 minutes," it's a simple fact and I tell folks, it's a safety aspect. Nobody will ever fault you for doing what you think is safe. Only you can make that decision. I will back you 100%. The way this works is you call scheduling. You tell scheduling, "I need to talk to the NOC chief." You go, "I'm flying with Jon Ross. This is not working. I've called professional standards. I am happy to fly. I'm just not happy to fly with Jon Ross. It is from my perspective, a safety issue that we continue."

(13:23):

At that point, the NOC chief will take that on board. The Company is very proactive about that in that you tell them that this is not a safe environment, the Company's going to do what's safe. The NOC chief will figure out how to separate you folks, and away you go.

Matt McCants (13:38):

And that seems like a pretty amicable process right there and it works pretty well. There are happy parties for the most part at the end of that, but what's behind door number two? When you don't go through professional standards first and you turn towards other sources to either venture frustrations or try to escalate and turn it into some kind of retribution, what does that look like?

Jon Ross (13:58):

If it is a, "Okay. I'm taking myself off the flight and I'm going straight to the chiefs. Let's call it like it. I'm flying with Jon Ross and he's a complete tool," you go straight to the chief, "Take me off the trip, I'm not doing it anymore." Again, nobody's going to fault you what you think is safe. That's the avenue you want to take, little different direction at that point because now the chiefs can never unhear what they've heard. So if you vent to the chief, all right, everything you say can and will be used in some form or another. So usually, there's going to be conversations with both of those individuals by their respective chief's office and then it depends on where it goes.

(14:45):

The one advantage I have in my committee is we have no skin in the game. So let's say you guys are flying together and you're not [inaudible 00:14:56] and you get removed from the flight. Sometimes the chief will send those cases to me because if you're both in the same crew base, you're going to want a winner and a loser. So ultimately, the chief is going to have someone that continues to think they're a good individual and someone that thinks, "That guy tossed me under the bus because they didn't listen to what I had to say."

(15:25):

So if you're in the same crew base, there's a winner and a loser. If it comes to me, I have no skin in the game. There's no winner and a loser here. There is your side of the story, there's your side of the story. At the end of the day we go, "Okay. What can Matt and Tony learn from what occurred here?" And if we're presented with the same arena again, we finish the trip in a different manner than we did this time. Can we be more professional?

(15:53):

Now, I will also tell you sometimes there are personalities that do not mix, and those are the ones where I'm like, "Probably don't send each other Christmas cards this year," and I told the FO, "Put them on your voice list. Make life easy." That brings one other thing. I get called that, "Hey, Jon Ross is on my avoidance list and he just got float to fly with me. Man, what do I do?" Call crew scheduling and you tell them, "Hey, I am happy to fly, but I just got rerouted into someone that is on my no-fly list," and the word is, "I think it is not a safe arena for me to operate that flight with that individual. I'm happy to fly just not with that individual for safety reasons."

Tony Mulhare (16:40):

You keep saying, "I'm happy to fly." Why is it so important to stress that with scheduling?

Jon Ross (16:44):

You want to tell scheduling, "Hey, look, I'm not flying."

Tony Mulhare (16:47):

Because that sounded refusal before.

Jon Ross (16:49):

Yeah. You tell the scheduler, "I'm not flying with Jon Ross." Depending on those folks are doing the best they can, depending on how their day's going, "Okay. So you're telling me you're not going to fly?" "Yeah, I'm not going to fly. I'm just pissed off. I'm not doing this." "Okay. You're really not want to fly or you don't want to fly with Jon Ross?" You need to make sure you make that distinction. Does that make sense?

Tony Mulhare (17:14):

Absolutely. We've talked already about some conflict resolution, things that we can do between Matt and I if we're flying together and just having a rough day, maybe some tools you can give us. We've talked about what we do. If we decide that we've reached a limit on we think it's not a safe environment. Outside of the cockpit, how do you help us resolve conflicts with other work groups, whether that's a flight attendant or an ops agent that we're just having trouble with?

Jon Ross (17:39):

Sure. I work with, to give you an idea, ATC, other airlines, provisioners, mechanics. The flight attendants, I work with them all the time. I have a fantastic relationship. Their professional standards committee is absolutely one of the finest organizations I work with. I work with them. I mean, during COVID, four phone calls in one day with the flight attendants over the mask. So I have a fantastic relationship with them.

(18:12):

When you have an outside conflict, I can probably track someone down and have a conversation with them. I have professional standards groups with the simulator instructors, with the dispatchers. I have points of contact with just about every work group inside this organization and outside the organization to make sure, "Hey, how can we fix this problem here on the playground?" And if you keep things fundamentally in the trenches, we do a lot better job at taking care of each other. If it escalates, I mean, okay, if the two kids fix it in the playground, the outcome is generally better than, "Okay. If we take this all the way up into the office, it's not going to go well."

(18:57):

We'll use this as a segue. We are human beings. By design, we make mistakes. It came with the manual. Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on how you view it and how you look at it, it's how we learn. So if we make an honest mistake, it's not vindictive, it's not forethought, it's not malicious. It is just being a human being. If that happens, we learn from it and we press. Do you really need to be punished, beat up for something that was an honest mistake? Man, I keyed the mic at the wrong time. Sister, I get it. I'll talk to Tower and we'll go from there.

(19:41):

A big part of the job I do is allowing people to be human beings. I get cases from ER, and the cases that I resolve, which there are other organizations, other airlines, if you were to say that their professional standards committee resolves ER cases, they don't believe it. They're in shock. Our ER folks have done fantastic things, in my opinion, where they will send me cases and go, "Hey, Jon." They use their phrase with me. "These are just humans being humans. How about it doesn't meet any of our criteria? Can you resolve this?"

Matt McCants (20:15):

So employee relations has reached out to you.

Jon Ross (20:18):

Yeah, I have handled cases, which if you were to tell me years ago when I first started as a committee chair that that would be a possibility. I would say I don't think that that's a possibility now. It's reality.

Tony Mulhare (20:31):

And you also have the opportunity to attend some of the chief pilot training sessions and try to work some of those relationships. So what's that about and what's your experience there?

Jon Ross (20:39):

This afternoon, I'm going over to do some training with the chiefs at one of their conferences, and I will tell you that our relationship with the chiefs is a healthy relationship. There are times that they will call me and send me cases. They'll send our committee cases like the he said, she said thing. I will go over there. That's one of the things I will bring up to them today is, "Okay. If both of these individuals are in your crew base, one of them is going to lose, right? So send that to me."

(21:08):

He said, she said stuff is very easy for me to wrestle because I have no skin in the game. So I have a very healthy relationship with the Company, with the chief pilots. I'm going over this afternoon to do some more bridging to try and build that relationship because it's an always evolving evolution, right? Personalities come and go, people come and go. How do you maintain a consistent open door relationship with the chiefs and what I do?

(21:35):

There's a very fine line there because I cannot have any negative reinforcement associated with my committee. I would lose all credibility. So if I take something from the chiefs, the understanding is it's all mine.

Tony Mulhare (21:50):

Yeah, you don't report back.

Jon Ross (21:51):

You will hear nothing from me. You send it to me and it is taken care of. That has been paramount since I took this job over my relationship with the Company that, "Okay. We are completely, if I get it, I get it." And there's been some learning phases in that relationship, but I think we've worked our way through it and I think we have a very healthy relationship.

Matt McCants (22:12):

Yeah, there's a lot of good recurrent themes here. Keep it at the lowest level, which is what we prefer to do from the get go.

Jon Ross (22:18):

Absolutely.

Matt McCants (22:18):

And it sounds like the chiefs are getting on board with that as well and why not? Why do we need to create more work for ourselves? Let's look to the future though and talk about what's going on, coming up in this year. And that's already starting to gain a little bit of traction, which is it's an election year and we've already talked about different generations in the cockpit. We've got some contract stuff behind us, but we have politics in our future, and it seems to be this omnipresent topic that everyone wants to talk about. How do we navigate this, Jon?

Jon Ross (22:46):

It's funny you bring that up. We didn't put the contract to bed before that day after we signed the contract. I'm like, "Okay. Big light at the end of the tunnel here. It's okay." I get a phone call and it was instantly politics. We live in a divided society right now. I don't think that the country has ever been more polarized in one direction or another. We're all type As. We're pilots, and unfortunately, I'll put the who in it. The simple answer for a pilot is if you don't think like me, you're an idiot. I mean, it's just the way we are, right?

(23:21):

The tough word is, okay, put that in the cockpit along, okay, it's politics and religion. You're going to be very passionate about what you believe in. If the other person doesn't think like you, well, I'm going to change their opinion. If it's a group think, okay, you put your toe in the water and, "Okay. Hey, man, the water's good. We both think the same way. All right. This is a road that we can probably go down and it'll help strengthen our bond here." If you put your toe in the water and it's like, "Wow, that water's pretty hot," or, "Too cold," it goes south real quick.

(23:58):

If you get to that point, what I would ask you to do is go, "Hey, I respect your opinion and I need for you to respect my opinion." We live in a free country. We can have our own opinion, that's what makes it all beautiful. But we need to have enough respect for each other and understand we're probably not going to change each other's opinion.

(24:20):

So I will leave you with this thought. If you respect each other, okay, that person has an opinion. We live in a country that you can have a different opinion. Respect them enough for it. Go, "You know what? I think a little differently, but let's be professional. Let's move on past that." Find something that you guys can talk about and not get fired up in one direction or another. We're type As. You put two type As in the cockpit, stressful arena, bad weather, picket, load the stress level up. It all comes down to fundamentally having respect for each other.

Tony Mulhare (24:56):

So you just mentioned some bad weather and some other stressors in the cockpit. I hope to go to upgrade soon into the left seat. Previously, you and I have talked about some situations where depending on the experience level of the FO and you as the Captain can maybe foresee some challenges coming up with a leg. What are some of the things in your toolbox for intervening early in a situation like that, and what advice would you have for me as a newly minted Captain in a green on green scenario when I'm maybe flying with inexperienced FO to just cut some things off before we even get to that past?

Jon Ross (25:35):

When I first sit down in a cockpit, in that first couple minutes of flying with somebody, I will tell them, "Hey, the legs are whatever we pick for the legs. We don't have to go you, me, you, me back and forth. We can pick and choose however we want. There may be legs that I'm going to tell you I'm going to fly because it's going to make me more comfortable as a Captain. I have a tool," and I use the HUD as the example all the time, "I have a tool on my side that you do not have on your side. That tool makes my life in certain scenarios much easier than what you're dealing with in the tools you have to fly the airplane on your side."

(26:14):

So I'll use the HUD as my reason for, "Hey, it's going to be a rainy day and gusty winds going into Burbank. It's your leg. Yeah, the weather says you can do this leg, but I don't think we want to go there today. So I'm going to fly this leg. It has nothing to do with your experience level. It's going to make me feel more comfortable as a Captain. We have enough flight time to do what we want to do the rest of our lives, right? We're here. So it doesn't matter. Our log books aren't that big a factor anymore. So you have plenty of time to sit in the right seat to learn. If it's going to be bad weather as a Captain, I'm going to take this leg. It's going to make me feel more comfortable flying this leg. Hey, this is no reflection on you," and you take it off of them and you put it on yourself as a Captain. They go, "This is no reflection on you, but it's going to make me feel more comfortable just because I have a little more experience flying the airplane and I'm going to take this leg going into St. Louis. What do you think? You on board with that?"

(27:16):

Any person that's any level of professional is going to go, "Thank you very much. It's all you. I'll be sitting right here to your right. Let me know I can help." This is something we're addressing right now. [inaudible 00:27:28] and the training folks, and Matt and his folks in safety are working with the company to go, "Okay. How can we do some training here and wrestle those problems before they occur?"

(27:39):

I'll give you an example. Captain calls me goes, "Man, I had to take the airplane today from Jon Ross." "Really? What happened?" "Well, Jon's just, he's been here four months, got a great attitude, but it was a varsity problem and he was applying a JV correction, so I took the airplane." "Okay. Well, first of all, you did what you thought was safe and that's good, but let's address that before we get into what occurred when you took the airplane. Did you know it was coming?" "Yeah, we've flown two legs before. We're having some challenges."

(28:13):

"Okay. So if you're presenting with that tomorrow, why don't you fly that leg? If you knew it was coming, don't put that individual in that spot." If you put somebody in the red, the mind erases that by and large. The mind erases traumatic events. It's a survival mechanism. So when they get on the ground and it's like, "So that did not go very well," they're like, "Yeah." All they know is it didn't go well. If you would ask them to put it back together high fast, "It was not looking good. I dumped the nose and you took the airplane."

(28:51):

So if you know it's coming, correct it before you get there. We have to evolve as an airline in that we've been spoiled over the years with very experienced First Officers coming to work here. That is no longer the case. And this is not just with Southwest Airlines. I was at a conference last week. It is across the board airline industry issue. We're all wrestling the same generational challenges, the same experience level challenges. So it's not just us. It's a universal challenge. And how we wrestle that challenge is how we succeed.

(29:32):

So for Captains that are out there that you're looking at the manual and says, "Okay. You shall fly the airplane under the following conditions until the First Officer has 100 hours," that's a reference, man, so treat it like a reference. You have the extra stripe for a reason, and there's times that you got to step up and go, "I'm going to fly this leg. It's going to make me feel ..." and you put it on yourself, "It's going to make me feel more comfortable."

Tony Mulhare (29:58):

And the respect has to flow both ways as well. When I was new here, I transitioned from a completely different style of flying very, very different airplanes than what we do here, and I had a lot to learn. Yes, I had the experience to sit in the right seat, but I had to approach my new life as a First Officer here with a humble attitude and be willing to learn and go, "Hey, man, I'm happy to listen to your techniques on how to approach these different problem sets," and not feel like, "Oh, I'm at Southwest Airlines. I've arrived. I don't need to learn anymore."

Jon Ross (30:30):

Fantastic point. Take the ego out of it. It was like the Men in Black. They're in the elevator, "Hey, you hired me because you recognized the skills. You know what I bring here. You're the ace of the base," and all of a sudden it's like, "Yeah, as of right now, you know exactly nothing." The elevator door is open and it is a different world than you are used to. That's the way I felt when I first came here because it is a totally different arena.

(30:58):

So the onus is on you. You become a sponge. You just sit there and take it all in and learn. I'm the lowest common denominator. If I can get it, anyone can. Trust me. You just got to be patient with yourself, and consider this when you talk about being a new Captain. When the Captains called me and they're wrestling, "I had to take the airplane today and X, Y, and Z, and my First Officer was really struggling." The other thing I'll ask them is, "I ask you this. Have the patience of the Captains when you were hired here because I flew with Captains that were absolute saints. Not once, not twice, three times I would make the mistake." There were Captains sitting there laughing one time and going, "We're going to put a bend in that learning curve. I'm going to make it not flat anymore." Have that patience. So as a new Captain, pack a bunch of patience, you're going to need it, but you're a Captain for a reason.

Matt McCants (31:58):

And back to the ego thing, Jon, I think you'll back me up here. As a fairly new Captain myself, there are times where these young First Officers, they set me straight. They show me something I didn't know.

Jon Ross (32:07):

I learned more from my First Officers going paperless. I mean, I've printed up the script of what we're going to discuss today. Everything I do is printed in ... I have to see my chicken scratch writing to understand what are my thoughts are. And it's funny, my last trip, I showed up with an Apple pen because there's no release for me to scribble all over anymore. My new Apple pen I scribble on my iPad. Having to do everything paperless now, and it was a First Officer for the trip before who told me, "Hey, Jon. Brother, you might want to get an Apple pen. It'll help you out because that stuff on the yoke is going to go away and you need to come on board."

(32:52):

I had a ton of respect for that young man for telling me, "Dude, you need to shut up and color, right? It's a different kind of crayon. Figure it out." All the world is a classroom, so treat it like that. I'm going to learn something from you and you're going to learn something from me. Then at the end of this 72 hours or 96 hours, then it's going to be a better place. So come to work and make the place better. Make it a better organization.

Matt McCants (33:23):

We'd like to thank Jon for taking the time to be with us today as we dove into the Professional Standards Committee in their important role in ensuring a positive and collaborative working environment between SWAPA pilots in the cockpit. Please call Professional Standards before you call a Chief Pilot about another SWAPA member. It's simply the right thing to do.

Tony Mulhare (33:40):

Please let us know what you'd like to hear about in this series of podcasts and any feedback you have on this and other podcasts by dropping us a line at comm@swapa.org. We really do want to hear from you. And finally, today's bonus number is three. That's Jon's favorite number for a conflict resolution as it stands for me, we, and you. The next time you're out on the line and have a conflict with another pilot, and if the rules of three can't fix the problem, give Jon and his team at Pro Standards a call.