Farewell to Gordon
When I started at Continental I had no idea what I was getting into. I was 20 years old and newly arrived in the US, without a clue as to the bad climate that this airline operated in. It was pretty grim for a while, with bancruptcy, pay cuts and general dissent among the ranks. Even our passengers hated us. How things have changed since Gordon Bethune came on board. To say that he turned things around would be an understatement--he literally changed every aspect of Continental except for the employees. 10 years after he joined us, we are now winning awards left and right, the employees are all happy and our passengers love us. I have no intention of quitting this job, thanks to the way that Gordon has made the company.
A few months ago he announced that he was resigning at the end of 2004 and we were all shocked. Will it all change now? What will become of it all? No-one can really say but no matter what, everyone is sad to see him go. Last night Boeing threw him a going away bash at Hangar E over at IAH. It had rained all day and I didn't feel like going but I'm so glad I did. Nancy came over after work and picked me up to drive there. There were hundreds of people all gathered alongside ship 001, our first 777. With a new paint job, it looked brand new, although I noticed that they omitted the SkyTeam logo. We didn't eat any of the burgers or hot dogs, but we did have a beer--rather synthetic tasting and I suspect that it was O'Douls, and not Budweiser as the pump depicted.
Gordon took the podium to the tune of Born To Be Wild and was presented a plaque by Larry Kellner and Jeff Smisek (who is rather dashing, in an Anderson Cooper sort of way). They also gave him a gift from the entire company in the form of a painting of him on his Harley, done by none other than Peter Max. Clearly Gordon was moved by all of this. I knew very few of the attendees last night as they were predominantly HQ'ers, but Nancy was able to point most of them out to me. Those I did know included Paul Dunham, Rodney Rogers, Yosoke (Japanese speaker and self-professed no. 1 fan of Gordon), Debbie McCoy and several supervisors.
A few months ago he announced that he was resigning at the end of 2004 and we were all shocked. Will it all change now? What will become of it all? No-one can really say but no matter what, everyone is sad to see him go. Last night Boeing threw him a going away bash at Hangar E over at IAH. It had rained all day and I didn't feel like going but I'm so glad I did. Nancy came over after work and picked me up to drive there. There were hundreds of people all gathered alongside ship 001, our first 777. With a new paint job, it looked brand new, although I noticed that they omitted the SkyTeam logo. We didn't eat any of the burgers or hot dogs, but we did have a beer--rather synthetic tasting and I suspect that it was O'Douls, and not Budweiser as the pump depicted.
Gordon took the podium to the tune of Born To Be Wild and was presented a plaque by Larry Kellner and Jeff Smisek (who is rather dashing, in an Anderson Cooper sort of way). They also gave him a gift from the entire company in the form of a painting of him on his Harley, done by none other than Peter Max. Clearly Gordon was moved by all of this. I knew very few of the attendees last night as they were predominantly HQ'ers, but Nancy was able to point most of them out to me. Those I did know included Paul Dunham, Rodney Rogers, Yosoke (Japanese speaker and self-professed no. 1 fan of Gordon), Debbie McCoy and several supervisors.
posted by Debs at 9:09 AM
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