While Holding for a Briefing Today...

I was on the phone for the now-traditional 15 minute pre-brief hold today
and they had a new voice on the "hold line". Instead of an announcement
every 45 seconds about how busy they are and calls are taken on a first come
first served basis, and we'll take your call ASAP, there was a message from
the LockMart guy in charge of the FSS project.

Essentially "Sorry about the bad service. Increased seasonal volume has
swamped us. We're half way through the transition. It'll be better once we
complete the transition. We have about 3 more months of work to go to
reduce from 58 to 19 FSS's.

Of course, my cynical side thinks.. If we're halfway through the process
now, I guess we'll be really screwed when these guys complete the process.
Also, didn't LockMart anticipate that flight briefing requests go up in the
summer? Hello, McFly....