Unfriendly Skies
In a recent Light Friday, IMT offered a sort of business-travel guide inspired by some sky-screweduppery experienced while traveling for an industry summit.

A new report seems to confirm that a whole lot more people than those passengers who sat on a runway with me for five-and-a-half hours would empathize. . .

Customer satisfaction with the airline industry just hit its lowest level in three years, according to the latest survey by J.D. Power & Associates, announced last week. J.D. Power questioned 19,701 people who flew between March 2007 and April 2008. The survey uses seven categories: cost, flight crew, in-flight services, aircraft, boarding and baggage procedures, check-in and reservations.

The biggest complaints: the "people" factors, including discourteous flight attendants, unhelpful gate agents and increasing hassles with check-in and baggage handling. Since last year, travelers' dissatisfaction with those "people factors" grew at twice the rate of their dissatisfaction with prices, according to the survey.

Record-high fuel prices and a slowing economy are already having an impact on airline business and employment (e.g. layoffs, shutdowns and industry consolidation). Apparently, airline workers worried about their jobs don't exude a calming presence to the customers. . . Who'd have thought?

Odd Workplace Bully Behavior
After a few months working at a UK marketing firm, a telesales account manager sued her former employer for sexual discrimination. Now, after a costly legal battle, the mother of three has been awarded more than £5,000 (approx. US$10,000), reports KentNews.co.uk (via CFOSnafu).

One major claim was against her line manager who apparently made the woman the target of his repeated flatulence. The manager seemed to enjoy breaking wind in her direction; he would laugh while doing it and mention it to his male coworkers. In an e-mail to a director in October 2007, the woman wrote: "The number of times the person at my side would lift up his bottom off the chair and fart and think it's funny is unreal."

Unreal — and pretty disturbing, too.

Annoying Coworkers
Here are three of the six most annoying coworkers as Robert Half International's Doug White sees it (via Yahoo! Hotjobs):

1) The Spotlight Stealer — an overly ambitious corporate climber who's never heard a good idea he wouldn't pass off as his own

2) The Buzzwordsmith — an ineffective communicator who sacrifices clarity in favor of cliché business terms

3) The Stick in the Mud — is all business all the time, disapproving of any attempt at levity

Earlier: How to Make the Workplace Insufferable and Top 10 Colleague Irritations (last item)

The NYC Waterfalls
New York City has installed four giant waterfalls in the East River and under the Brooklyn Bridge. "The New York City Waterfalls," created by artist Olafur Eliasson, is a privately funded public art project of four man-made waterfalls rising from New York Harbor.

Organized by the nonprofit Public Art Fund and the city of New York, the $15 million art installation, which will be up for the next few months, was turned on yesterday.

Brooklyn Bridge Waterfall from jakedobkin on Vimeo.

Metal scaffolds provide the framework for each waterfall. A system of pumps carries water up to a trough, where it will be released in a frothy cascade — about 35,000 gallons every minute for all four falls. The biggest waterfall, located between Piers 4 and 5 in Brooklyn, cascades from a height of 120 ft. (37 m.), just 31 ft. shy of the Statue of Liberty (sans pedestal), according to Time Out New York's guide to the art installation. The waterfalls will be illuminated at night.

Image via The New York Times

Cheers.