Narrative:

I was put into a sector that became red; saturated; in 20 minutes. I had no D side and the flm (front line manager) was not paying attention; because they were shuffling D sides around to other sectors with only 3 planes. As I was red; saturated with traffic; the flm finally sent a D side over because the front desk called. The sector had terrible rides from the base altitude of FL240 up to FL410 and the frequency was continuously clogged. Also; due to new controllers training and bad training habits being passed along; I was constantly getting land line override calls from other controllers; even though my D side was getting none of them. After I had worked through all of the traffic; the flm then plugged in a tracker; as I was approaching the 1+50 time on position mark. Then I got out 5 minutes later; from a different controller; after the flm sent the tracker and D side somewhere else to get other people out; that were approaching 2 hours on position. Instead of letting the people who had been working the sector with me; relieve me; the flm puts in someone that was completely fresh and sent the experience elsewhere. There was not a single logical safety decision being made about the operation of the facility. The flm's are so busy trying to figure out how to maximize peoples time on position; they are not focusing on the actual operation of the area. Instead of calling the traffic management unit to help with the sector saturation; they just throw bodies at a situation; after it has already gone too far. I then come back from break and am then sent to sit at a slow sector for 1+35 minutes. After an hour; my adrenaline rush wears off; and I only have one or two aircraft and quickly loose focus. This continued practice is dangerous; compounded by new scheduling standards and changing peoples shifts and rotations only to balance out the staffing numbers; not what is needed for traffic.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: ZJX controller described a heavy/complex workload event; alleging facility operational procedures; i.e. staffing; position operations; etc. are unsafe.

Narrative: I was put into a sector that became red; saturated; in 20 minutes. I had no D side and the FLM (front line manager) was not paying attention; because they were shuffling D sides around to other sectors with only 3 planes. As I was red; saturated with traffic; the FLM finally sent a D side over because the front desk called. The sector had terrible rides from the base altitude of FL240 up to FL410 and the frequency was continuously clogged. Also; due to new controllers training and bad training habits being passed along; I was constantly getting land line override calls from other controllers; even though my D side was getting none of them. After I had worked through all of the traffic; the FLM then plugged in a tracker; as I was approaching the 1+50 time on position mark. Then I got out 5 minutes later; from a different controller; after the FLM sent the tracker and D side somewhere else to get other people out; that were approaching 2 hours on position. Instead of letting the people who had been working the sector with me; relieve me; the FLM puts in someone that was completely fresh and sent the experience elsewhere. There was not a single logical safety decision being made about the operation of the facility. The FLM's are so busy trying to figure out how to maximize peoples time on position; they are not focusing on the actual operation of the area. Instead of calling the traffic management unit to help with the sector saturation; they just throw bodies at a situation; after it has already gone too far. I then come back from break and am then sent to sit at a slow sector for 1+35 minutes. After an hour; my adrenaline rush wears off; and I only have one or two aircraft and quickly loose focus. This continued practice is dangerous; compounded by new scheduling standards and changing peoples shifts and rotations only to balance out the staffing numbers; not what is needed for traffic.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 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.