By now we’ve all heard about the air-traffic controller who allowed his kids direct airplanes at John F. Kennedy Airport last month. Yes, that’s “kids” — plural. It is now being reported that after the controller, identified as 49-year-old Glenn Duffy, let his 8 or 9-year old son take the reins, he followed suit with his daughter the next day.

Duffy and his supervisor have been suspended pending a review of the incidents, but some would go even further. For example, ABC reports that aviation attorney Mary Schiavo said, “Given the child was involved with actual air traffic was a fireable offense … not only a cavalier attitude but a shirking of his responsibilities.” Retired air traffic controller Bob Richards echoed the latter part of that comment, calling Duffy’s decision “bad judgment.” Yet, what concerns me more than the incidents themselves is the judgment of most citizen respondents.

Many believe that commentators such as me are over-reacting. In fact, I was listening to a radio talk-show host yesterday, and at one point he mentioned that every caller on his board thought the matter was much ado about nothing. The general position of such people is this: “Come on, he let each of the children direct one plane, and he was standing over their shoulders at all times. No harm, no foul.”

With all due respect to those of you who disagree with me, I must say that there are some factors you’re failing to consider. So hear me out.

First there is a relatively minor point. A father who has a young child with him is by definition babysitting, and this is necessarily a distraction. If you think I’m nitpicking and that this isn’t exactly the most taxing example of multi-tasking, consider this research into the true consequences of multi-tasking. In a nutshell, the researchers have affirmed what is simply common sense: No matter how good a multi-tasker you fancy yourself, your performance always declines when you divide up your attention.

Is this a surprise? Even computers slow down when they must run numerous programs simultaneously.

In fact, the researchers learned something surprising: People who pride themselves on their ability to multitask are actually worse at the skill than those who don’t. What explains this self-delusion? Well, aside from the infamous human ego, researchers say that because the brain is so bombarded with stimuli when multitasking, it lends the illusion that we’re absorbing a lot of information. In reality, however, less is retained than during single-minded application.

Yet, however distracted Mr. Duffy was from his duty, there is a bigger factor. It’s not so much what he did on February 17 and 18, but that his actions were examples of laxity. They cast doubt on his sense of discipline and duty. Is it realistic to think that those incidents were the only times he was lax? Moreover, the fact that he was allowed to give a child the reins two days in a row makes me wonder if the control room had a general climate of laxity.

Regardless, that’s precisely what will result if these things aren’t nipped in the bud. Remember that people are creatures of habit; they respond not so much in accordance with knowledge as with training. If laxity is tolerated, it tends to become habitual. And once it characterizes a workplace, the result is a very undisciplined environment — one in which mistakes are far more likely.

As for Mr. Duffy, he seems like he’s chick-pecked (when the offspring rule the roost). Let the boy play air traffic controller; then, when his sister wants to play, too, he brings her the next day. Of course, it’s cute to let children play daddy-duty — that is, until something goes wrong. I knew a couple who allowed their 12-year-old son to park their car at their home. He hit the gas instead of the break, panicked, and demolished their garage. 

But whatever the state of Mr. Duffy’s parenting, his professionalism was certainly lacking. The question is, however, will we care? If we want to have standards, we have to have standards about enforcing standards. Unless we’re vigilant, things will, as they naturally do, tend toward disorder.

Then again, we could just issue a collective ho-hum. But then we shouldn’t wonder why banks are failing, politicians are bankrupting us and the economy is on the wane. A civilization can have a climate of laxity, too.

TrackBack URI for this entry

Comments (15)

Subscribe to this comment's feed

Bonnie said:

What's the big deal? Jimmy Carter had 9 year old Amy set nuclear policy for the nation.

March 04, 2010

Bob Collins said:

... First, a father who has one of his children with him is NOT babysitting; he is parenting. But that's another thread. My complaint about commentators overreacting is that they're uninformed. The headlines have said the kid "directed' air traffic, clearly intending to convey that some decision making was in the hands of the kid. That's not true at all. Nor was it true that it was a particularly busy time at the airport. It wasn't. Nor did the kids direct the movement if airplanes. The planes involved were directed to "position and hold" by the controller, which means the jet took the active runway and pointed the nose down the runway and stayed there until directed to take off. At that point, there was only ONE command that a pilot would expect to hear; the one they got. And the controller had made clear why they were hearing a kid say the words "cleared for takeoff." The only other command given was a frequency change clearance which, again, is the only command a pilot would expect to get. Was it massively stupid that a controller brought his kids to work. Sure. Is this a public safety issue. No.

March 04, 2010

Always American said:

... The air traffic controller and his kid got lucky. No matter how good a multi-tasker you fancy yourself, your performance always declines when you divide up your attention. Always. We the people (citizens) of The United States of America have turned the cheek and comprimized our principles for far too long...Wake Up! ...professionalism and discipline was certainly lacking. (This is not a clerical position. Would you like your Doctor's child perhaps to operate on you? Wake up...get your head out of the sand! Well said Selwyn Duke.

March 04, 2010

Brother John said:

... If it had been his daughter he had brought along, no one would have said a word. There would have been a bit of chatter about girls getting into careers in which they are "underrepresented", and that would have been that.

March 05, 2010

Tom Donnelly said:

... This is really NOT the huge deal the press is making it out to be. No one was in any danger at ANY time. The one thing that I have not heard mentioned in all of this is has ANYONE else ever had their children do the same thing at JFK or any other airport control tower.I'm sure Mr. Duffy is NOT the first prson to have their child talk to a pilot from the tower. Good Luck to Glenn & his family

March 05, 2010

Randy said:

... I have to confess I'm more with the "what's the big deal" crowd. Other than the question of what were the kids doing at work, I would not be concerned, and possibly there is a plausible reason the kids would be at work. Who hasn't carried on a conversation with a passenger when driving a car? Somehow most of us know to say "hold on a sec" when about to merge into a busy freeway. But even though some don't always use good judgment, who would suggest the dad drive his family on a 6 hour car drive without saying a word to anyone else in the car based on the premise that "no one is really good at multitasking". Do you suggest an air-traffic controller go through a 30 year career and not once take a short call from his wife while "on-duty", even on a slow day? Shall we say that not only can he never take a short call, but he can't even be tapped on the shoulder and told he has a phone message? I can see it now: "I know your son is going to the emergency room, but I refuse to tap your husband on the shoulder and mention it until the end of his 4 hour shift because I don't want him multitasking. Besides he's almost asleep because air traffic is so slow today." If I were an air traffic controller and were going to allow my son to give a "takeoff" command, I would not want him growing up with the deaths of 200+ people on his conscious. I would make sure the call is on the low end of the risk scale, of the already low risk range I would normally operate. Perhaps a reprimand is in order for bringing kids to work (maybe - maybe not), but this is hardly worthy of national news and it doesn't make me personally too suspicious of big danger.

March 05, 2010

m said:

... I think everyone is forgetting a fact that there is a day, now may have not been those set dates, but a day where the parent brings their child to work. It is an educational tool to allow the child to know and understand what their parent does for a living. The following day at school the kids share with their class their experiences. I have done this while growing up, its called "Fathers bring your daughters to work day"

March 05, 2010

Dale said:

... Randy, many of us have had jobs, before the age of cell phones, where we did not get phone calls while at work, nor could we take our kids to work with us, period; you just didn’t. And, I might add that most of these jobs didn’t pay anywhere near what a Air Traffic Controller makes, nor were these job anywhere near the responsibility level of a Air Traffic Controller. Also, your example of dad talking in the car while driving is idiotic. I’ve never had a problem talking and driving at the same time, however, I have had problems dealing with my children, when they were misbehaving in the back seat, while I was driving. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard my wife say “I can deal with this, you drive”. One more point; if I were a Air Traffic Controller and I wanted my kids to see where I worked I would have taken them there when I was off work, and could devote my full attention to them. That’s called parenting. What he was doing was indeed babysitting while he was at work. And one last, last point; I know people who have been fired because they were taking too many phone calls at work and doing too much text messaging, when they were supposed to be working. Sorry Randy, when you’re at work you’re supposed to be working… M, it’s nice when you have a job where you can do that, and your employer will let you but, Air Traffic Controller is not one of those jobs. In fact there are a lot of jobs where your employer would say no.

March 05, 2010

Randy said:

... Dale, Note the phrase in my post: "Other than the question of what were the kids doing at work,.." Perhaps you have more personal knowledge and know the father was babysitting. I don't have that knowledge and from the facts I do have I don't think it can be automatically presumed. Nevertheless, my final point is not supporting the idea of having kids at work, but merely pointing out that this is not news and this does not imply danger. If it turns out he brought his kids in for an 8 hour workday, obviously that's a problem. But all the fuss is about the fact the kids uttered a few words on the radio. What I would presume is that a normal air-traffic controller would know the difference between a time of peak air traffic and a time of very slow air traffic. Perhaps they'll investigate and find that this guy did not, but if that's the case then whether or not he has kids at work is hardly his biggest problem. On the contrary, I think my example of driving with family is a good example that fulfills the goal of taking the anti-multitasking view to an extreme to make a point. If talking while driving is never a problem for you then good. All you're doing is calling for me to revise my analogy, not challenging the point the analogy is trying to serve. What about dealing with unruly children? You're telling me if you're driving with just you and kids that you would not offer a single word of correction, mediation, etc toward your kids until after you've pulled your car completely off the road? Or perhaps you would just never travel with only yourself and kids due to your strong conviction on not being able to multitask? Somehow we all recognize the wisdom of pulling over before getting too much into it with kids but find a way to deal with small stuff while still moving down an empty highway. My point still stands.

March 05, 2010

Grant said:

Children see, children do ... By his actions, Mr. Duffy was saying to his children: "Yeah, I know this is totally against the regulations, but what the hell, let's have some fun anyway." And just how irresponsible is that?

March 05, 2010

jusbecuz said:

... This was a good article about multi-tasking. Controllers do on-the-job training all the time, and it does indeed take double the amount of concentration to do so. So, by allowing a child to make transmissions, no matter how light the traffic may be, is taking a risk. There are also studies that show that more incidents occur in a control tower during light periods than heavy because of the tendency for the controller to be less alert. Bottom line, this action was a deliberate choice to skirt the rules with the hope that there would be no consequences.

March 05, 2010

jusbecuz said:

... I have one last comment. Those of you who have expressed the opinion that this incident was "no big deal" and that the FAA and news media should lighten up, have, in effect, cast a yes-vote for the FAA to allow unauthorized personnel to make transmissions to aircraft. It would then be human nature for controllers to cross the line on when and how often that should be done. Opens up a whole can of worms. Is this what you want?

March 05, 2010

Randy said:

... I suppose I'm a minority on this. One last point... If my neighbor's 9 year old kid drops a hand delivered birthday invite inside my US Postal Service mailbox (which is technically not legal), I don't report her, I don't rebuke her, and I don't start a national crusade to legalize friendly hand deliveries. I take the invite, RSVP, and forget how the invite got there because it's no big deal. If marketing firms and political organizations start filling our mailboxes with hand-delivered solicitations, I probably would complain. How do I draw the line? I don't. My zeal is not going to be spent drawing such lines nor reporting 9 year old's for putting a card in a USPS mailbox of a next-door neighbor. I'm not going to stick my nose in the air and sniff, "I'd never allow my child to do such a thing", because I might. Let's face it, the national uproar has nothing to do with the fact that some worker had a kid at work when that kid might not should have been there. If the kid had not uttered words on the radio, none of us would be talking about this. I'm not an air traffic controller, but if I were and I allowed my child to utter a command on a radio, I assure you that would be the most attentive moment of my week regardless of how slow or mundane the actual work is at the moment.

March 05, 2010

Longwalker said:

In a kinder, gentler age, I grew up I am over seventy. In my youth, it was quite normal to see fathers let their children try their hand, under supervision, at their job. I remember riding the Third Avenue Elevated when a father let his son handle the controls. No one in the car complained or was worried in the slightest. What could go wrong. The train ran on tracks so there was no steering problem. All the kid could do was make the train go faster or slower or stop. In my day, we were used to seeing children "working" with their fathers. A childhood friend's father was a tugboat captain. He would go with his father and drive the tug. He was very proud of helping dock the QE2. No fuss or bother, people knew what was important and what was not. There was no possible danger to the passengers or aircraft involved in the air controler letting his children give the pilots directions. Lighten up, people - we don't need the "nanny" state.

March 05, 2010

ciccio said:

... Randy is not in a total minority here, I agree with him. I too have taken my children to work with me, let them do things a child "should not" do while watching like a hawk. The one and only reason this hit the news, it was a slow news day.

March 05, 2010