Going To Work With My Dad

When I was in middle school my family was preparing to move to Virginia from New Jersey,, my father had already moved down to an apartment in Dale City while we prepared to move the house down in September for the beginning of the school year. My father was was the Senior Inspector for the I-95 HOV extension from Fairfax down to the Dumfries area. At the time he was working for a company called Frederic R Harris Inc and that company was responsible for ensuring the roadwork met Highway Codes. I remember one week I went down with my mom, brother and sister because we were looking at houses. The rest of my family went home on Friday morning while I got to go to work with my dad. I remember showing up to my dad's Field office, one of the windows had a bullet hole through it and you could see where it went through the wall across the hall too. I've learned that's just Dale City. When we first arrived at the office my dad logged in when he arrived and said to me, "you will hear words today that I do not expect you to repeat in front of you mother." To a 12 year old that was exciting enough because foul language was new and fun and this is was a place where it was accept and somewhat normal vocabulary.

After my dad went through his morning routine we jumped in his work truck for a tour of the job site. I thought it was really cool that the company gave my dad a truck to dive in at work. The truck had a yellow flashing light which somehow gained us access to the unfinished HOV lanes. I remember my dad showing me all of the bridges and flyovers on the site and introducing me to his coworkers. Every time I drive on these lanes I think about this day and the fact that my dad was part of building them. Every time we stopped somewhere on the job site and got out of the truck I had to have my blaze orange vest and hard hat on, it's the little things that make you feel like an adult. At one point I asked my dad if I could use the radio to talk to his coworker at the field office, my dad let me and told me what the say, but let me know that it wasn't a toy. His coworker came back on the radio and told us where we needed to go next followed by, "you should let your son talk more often, we can understand him." After that we were heading from the north end of the project to the south end, this is where it gets exciting. My dad put the peddle down in his truck and we took off. It was my first time being in a vehicle going that fast, I don't remember the speed exactly, but it was well over the speed limit. Before you think how irresponsible, the road was not open to the public so there was no posted speed limit. This could explain my lead foot though. The end of the day was spent back in the office, it was 1994 so not everyone had computers and they certainly didn't have Internet so it was pretty boring, until I could hear my dad arguing with the VDOT Manager on the job site. It was the first time I heard my dad swear, all I know is he dropped the F-bomb and the VDOT manager said, "watch the language there is a kid in the office." My dad responded, "don't change the subject it's nothing he hasn't used or heard before. As we left my dad wrote the time in the time book and we got in the car to go home to Jersey. I slept the whole way home and thought how cool it would be to do that myself one day. After high school I did work at my father's office, but by then he was with Parsons Brinkerhoff. I was given my access to a company truck and met a lot of guys on job sites that worked with my dad in the past. I just wish I would've opened the truck up on a job site just once, but I did get my own hard hat this time.

I was thinking about this story today when I heard about the father who took his son to work at the JFK Air Traffic Control Tower. The father let his son get on the radio and direct a couple flights to take off. Audio can be found here. After listening to the audio the child was clear in what he was saying and it is obvious he was being told what to say. It appeared that people knew the child would be talking to them. Now this should not have happened, but it did. The father should be punished, but people are saying he should lose his job. There was no harm in what happened and the intent of the Air Traffic Controller was not to cause harm. As of now the Air Traffic Controller and his supervisor have been suspended pending an investigation.

I found this quote from an article on Fox News; it's an interesting point of view about the situation.

LiveATC founder Dave Pascoe, a pilot and radio enthusiast, said he was sickened at the thought that the controller could be disciplined.

"I absolutely believe that this being blown out of proportion," he said. "This is just a completely controlled situation. A child was being told exactly what to say."

He added, "I think it's just fantastic that this guy cared enough to take his kid to work. How many parents take their kids to work these days?" (Fox News Story, AP)

Hopefully the Air Traffic Controller can return to work soon. It sounds like this is a man who cares for and loves his kids so hopefully he can continue to support them.