Narrative:

I walked into work in the morning and I knew it was busy from the moment I got into the car to drive to work. There was weather everywhere. I arrived and saw the weather on the scope. Sorry I am not very clear on all the details; I have had to wait for more than two days to fill out this report even though I have requested time to fill it out multiple times. I am staying here at work even after I can leave to fill it out. I realized that it was very busy and I was assigned an arrival position. I was working the feeder positions. It was busy and weather everywhere. I didn't know why it was so different than usual. It was not smooth at all. Coordination with center was very confusing and they kept calling. I stayed there for approximately 90 minutes. It wasn't until I got back from break that I was told there was no tmu (traffic management unit) person in the building and no one else could talk on the conference call with command center. We had a controller who has never talked on the phone to the command center before on the call in june in chicago during a weather day. This is unacceptable. It was a mess. There was not even a heads up that there was no tmu; it was not told to me when I took the position. They had to call in a tmu who was at a different location for a detail to cancel the detail and return to duty here.there needs to be someone all the time that has tmu experience on the shift and if there is only one someone else needs to be added. Especially; in june during thunderstorm season. This current lack of staffing and not just staffing but qualified staff is horrendous. I was told recently that there has been 2 supervisors taken off of every shift recently. Those supervisors have tmu experience and can handle these phone calls. Because they have taken them away controllers and cics (controller in charge) who do not have this experience are expected to make those decisions. It is unbelievable.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: C90 TRACON Controller reported there was no Traffic Management Coordinator on their shift during a period of weather causing delays and deviations.

Narrative: I walked into work in the morning and I knew it was busy from the moment I got into the car to drive to work. There was weather everywhere. I arrived and saw the weather on the scope. Sorry I am not very clear on all the details; I have had to wait for more than two days to fill out this report even though I have requested time to fill it out multiple times. I am staying here at work even after I can leave to fill it out. I realized that it was very busy and I was assigned an arrival position. I was working the feeder positions. It was busy and weather everywhere. I didn't know why it was so different than usual. It was not smooth at all. Coordination with Center was very confusing and they kept calling. I stayed there for approximately 90 minutes. It wasn't until I got back from break that I was told there was no TMU (Traffic Management Unit) person in the building and no one else could talk on the conference call with Command Center. We had a controller who has never talked on the phone to the Command Center before on the call in June in Chicago during a weather day. This is unacceptable. It was a mess. There was not even a heads up that there was no TMU; it was not told to me when I took the position. They had to call in a TMU who was at a different location for a detail to cancel the detail and return to duty here.There needs to be someone all the time that has TMU experience on the shift and if there is only one someone else needs to be added. Especially; in June during thunderstorm season. This current lack of staffing and not just staffing but qualified staff is horrendous. I was told recently that there has been 2 Supervisors taken off of every shift recently. Those Supervisors have TMU experience and can handle these phone calls. Because they have taken them away Controllers and CICs (Controller in Charge) who do not have this experience are expected to make those decisions. It is Unbelievable.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.