A walk down memory lane

People tend to live in the moment. We all generally have short memories as well. But that's where people like us step in. With the re-emergence of Barbara Alvarenga, we figured it would be a good time to refresh or just inform people of some rather recent history.

About a year and a half ago, Covenant Aviation Security posted a job posting for "Certified Assistant Manager." The MIT's at the time, and a handful of supervisors were ultimately cast in that role.

So what was a "Certified Assistant Manager"? Much like the Floor Supervisor, MIT, Jr. Supervisor, Assistant Training Manager, Director of This, Deputy Director of That, it was a Covenant Aviation Security creation. That is, there is officially no such position within TSA.

A "Certified Assistant Manager" was essentially an ATSA (Aviation Transportation Security Act) certified supervisor given a managerial title and all the duties that went along with being a manager. However, in TSA's bureaucratic ways, they busted Covenant Aviation Security for this position while doing one of their audits. Why, you might ask? Well, the problem was that the "Certified Assistant Manager" was listed on the TSA books as an STSO. They were not listed on the books as a manager. What that meant was that TSA was paying for this position out of the same budget that is set aside for all ATSA certified personnel. Where if it was an official Covenant Aviation Security manager, that would have come out of CAS's own budget.

What to do, might you ask? CAS's solution to the problem was simple. They told the "Certified Assistant Managers" at the time that they could either be demoted in title and pay by becoming the CAS created position of Floor Supervisor, or they could find work elsewhere. Naturally, they all gracefully accepted this praise worthy move and gladly accepted the demotion.

Oh, but it gets better. Covenant Aviation Security dangled a promotion in front of these newly designated Floor Supervisors. They dangled the Assistant Terminal Manager promotion to get many of them to take this position. Just in case you did not know, the Floor Supervisors are all salaried STSOs. Not that regular STSOs have a lot of opportunity for overtime, there is at least a chance. These Floor Supervisors have no chance of that. In other words, they have to work actual overtime if their Over Lords deem it necessary without having to pay them overtime rates.

These demotions all took place in November of last year. Lo and behold, in January of this year there was a job posting for Assistant Terminal Manager. The fascinating thing about that job posting was that it was only opened to Floor Supervisors. In this regard, Covenant Aviation Security kept to their word. "Go Floor Supervisor and we'll keep you up there for promotion."

February, March, April, May passed. Nothing. Not a word. Not a peep. Whatever happened to that Assistant Terminal Manager promotion? No one knew. Tick, tock, tick, tock. By now, most everyone had completely forgotten about the promotion. Hell, the Floor Supervisors themselves probably forgot as well.

And then, a little over two weeks ago word leaked out that Barbara Alvarenga was back as the new Assistant Terminal Manager. Well., golly gee willikers! So THAT'S what happened to that promotion! Donnie Filbert brought back his old United Airlines buddy!

The question that remains and should be continued to be asked is why has Filbert been allowed to bring back an absolute incompetent person? Why is Mindy Pengel allowing this?!

We know it might be easy for some of you to dismiss this story because it has to do with STSOs. But we shouldn't be. This is not some atypical thing that Covenant Aviation Security does. This is THEIR Standard Operating Procedure. The lesson to be learned is that if they're willing to do something like this to their STSOs, they're willing to do that and more to the rest of us. And they're wondering why morale is so low?