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Southwest Headquarters Tour

katherinemichel.github.io

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Re: Southwest Headquarters Tour

#71

Post by kijiki »

schoen wrote: post #17
legitster wrote: post #8

I adore behind-the-scenes tours. I get there's a lot of work that goes into making it happen, but when you drop into a place where people work, you'll learn so much about real life problems that never make it to the Internet. The greatest tour I ever had was at the Smokejumper base in remote WA. At any time when they're open, you're allowed to drop in for a tour and whoever is there that day is obliged to give you on…

I highly recommend the tour of the Itaipu Binacional hydroelectric dam in Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil (well, it's also in Ciudad del Este, Paraguay, but the tour starts from the Brazilian side). https://turismoitaipu.com.br/en/ Get the "special tour" which takes you inside the dam. An absolutely incredible spot and incredible achievement. They will take you into a room with a turbine shaft that's mechanically transmitting…

Seconded enthusiastically. That dam tour is amazing. Did it in 2007 or so.

Expect potential weirdness though. My wife was wearing a (not particularly short) skirt, and the lady at the office selling tour tickets made her step back and spin around, then said she couldn't go in like that. There is a gift shop that sells dam branded pants, so she bought a pair and we were cleared to go in. After all that, one dude in the control room was watching soft-core porn on one of the control room computers.

The turbine shaft room is especially crazy, since they let you (at least back then) walk right up to a few inches away from the shaft mechanically transmitting 700 MW of power! You could reach out and touch it, but we didn't and I wouldn't recommend it.

Re: Southwest Headquarters Tour

#73

Post by LastTrain »

xyzelement wrote: post #44
HappyJoy wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair - how does that account for the predominantly female FA population?

I don't think FA is a great job for a mom but it's not as horrible as pilot. FAs can switch shifts between themselves and dial up or down their hours with relative ease. Pilots have a lot less of this flexibility.

The schedules have negligible difference with respect to your original argument. So if busy schedules are why there are hardly any women pilots, why is the gender balance the exact opposite for flight attendants? There are reasons, and they aren't all because "men bad", but your initial argument is 100% not true based on the simple counterexample of flight attendants. What is being "papered over" is this: why, given the same schedules, are women under-represented in the higher paying, higher prestige job?

Re: Southwest Headquarters Tour

#74

Post by LastTrain »

neonstatic wrote: post #50
ani_k47 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

forgive me if I am wrong, but this comment sounds like we are trying to build a narrative. I might be wrong. No offense.

The "sadly" comment in the article is also a narrative. No offense.

It isn't a narrative, it is simply a point of view. Are we happy there aren't more women pilots? That would be your POV.

Re: Southwest Headquarters Tour

#75

Post by arrrg »

xyzelement wrote: post #37

// We later learned that sadly only 6% of Southwest pilots are women, I am not sure that's a "sadly". I used to fly a lot and talk to flight crews. Aviation is a ton of crazy schedules and nights away from home (I assume this is well known) From a family perspective it's bad enough if dads missing from the house for days at a time, much more catastrophic if mom's not around like that. (A child's relationship with mom…

What evidence is this claim based on?

Re: Southwest Headquarters Tour

#76

Post by thaumasiotes »

ivraatiems wrote: post #29

A few years ago, I got a tour of Starbucks headquarters from a friend. One thing I didn't expect: it's literally filled with rooms where people just taste coffee, all day, every day, to make sure it's what it's supposed to be. It's crazy how even something which feels mediocre so much of the time - fast-food coffee, a budget airline - requires an enormous amount of human effort to pull off reliably. (And yes, you can…

The USDA employs professional tasters so that it can continue to grade the "quality" of butter, where quality is defined as tasting the way that, in the official opinion of the US government, butter should taste. There are no non-flavor considerations that go into grading butter, and yet somehow this is an important legal duty of the government.

Re: Southwest Headquarters Tour

#77

Post by thaumasiotes »

LastTrain wrote: post #73
xyzelement wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think FA is a great job for a mom but it's not as horrible as pilot. FAs can switch shifts between themselves and dial up or down their hours with relative ease. Pilots have a lot less of this flexibility.

The schedules have negligible difference with respect to your original argument. So if busy schedules are why there are hardly any women pilots, why is the gender balance the exact opposite for flight attendants? There are reasons, and they aren't all because "men bad", but your initial argument is 100% not true based on the simple counterexample of flight attendants. What is being "papered over" is this: why, given…

> why, given the same schedules, are women under-represented in the higher paying, higher prestige job?

Why do you believe they have the same schedules? There's no rule that says when a pilot follows one flight with another flight, all the flight attendants have to join him.

I don't think there's all that much inherent value in having several flights flown by the same pilot -- if anything, it's the reverse -- so I'd tend to suspect that the rarity of female pilots owes more to the fact that pilots come from the Air Force.

Re: Southwest Headquarters Tour

#78

Post by sephamorr »

schoen wrote: post #17
legitster wrote: post #8

I adore behind-the-scenes tours. I get there's a lot of work that goes into making it happen, but when you drop into a place where people work, you'll learn so much about real life problems that never make it to the Internet. The greatest tour I ever had was at the Smokejumper base in remote WA. At any time when they're open, you're allowed to drop in for a tour and whoever is there that day is obliged to give you on…

I highly recommend the tour of the Itaipu Binacional hydroelectric dam in Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil (well, it's also in Ciudad del Este, Paraguay, but the tour starts from the Brazilian side). https://turismoitaipu.com.br/en/ Get the "special tour" which takes you inside the dam. An absolutely incredible spot and incredible achievement. They will take you into a room with a turbine shaft that's mechanically transmitting…

Seconding this! Make sure you get the "special tour". It was an absolute highlight of my trip. If you are interested in power infrasture it's a must see. If you're afraid of heights, perhaps not so much.

Re: Southwest Headquarters Tour

#79

Post by altacc »

The surprise for me here is the social media command center. I know businesses have staff dedicated to social media but hadn't expected a company to have them at a scale & operational level that necessitates a command center setup, with desks facing screens on the walls.

Re: Southwest Headquarters Tour

#80

Post by kortilla »

tandydandy wrote: post #18

Routing packets? Easy! Routing $100 million equipment with 200 souls on board? A bit more nerve racking. Airline operations is one of the most fun and complex problems on the planet. Thanks for sharing!

They interestingly invested very little into it and it imploded on them spectacularly.
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