Flu Could Get You an FHughes Aircraft...

Flu Could Get You an F

Hughes Aircraft is apparently expecting some of its employees to stay healthier this year, whether they like it or not.

Albert Jicha, president of Hughes Aircraft’s Support Systems Group has told employees recently that if they take more than an average of eight sick days per year, they will be graded down in their annual performance reviews. Company policy allows each employee 12 sick days per year.

A spokesman for Jicha said the new policy is an attempt to tie merit raises to employee performance. One administrator, after being briefed by management on the new policy, commented, “This is really gross.”

Flying Fair With Fares

Call it Maxsaver to the max.

A couple of weeks ago, the airlines began one of their slow-season fare wars. But what about those passengers who had already purchased their tickets weeks ahead? It turns out that the airlines will refund the difference between two fares.

A passenger flying between Ontario and San Francisco could save $30, paying $89 for the lower-priced one-way ticket.

“If a passenger has tickets and there is a reduction in fares in that category,” says Alton Becker, an American Airlines spokesman, “he is entitled to the lower fare applicable at the time he is actually flying.”

One catch, however. You’ve got to ask for the refund. The airlines don’t volunteer these things.

Pure Suds Suffer No Drop

Phony tales about products can persist for years, causing marketers no end of headaches. But sometimes they vanish as mysteriously as they appear. That seems to be what happened during 1987 when a false rumor about Corona Extra beer spread throughout California and other states before being publicly denied.

Corona’s U.S. importer, Barton Beers Ltd., has announced that sales of the Mexican brew soared 80% last year to 25 million cases, despite rumors that Corona was contaminated. Beer drinkers apparently were satisfied with Corona’s insistence that its product is pure.

Hold the Salsa

OK, lug-heads, here’s a break for you. Airlines have their frequent flyers; in the avocado business, they’re after the “frequent buyer.” But to qualify, you have to purchase avocados by the lug.

It’s all part of getting retailers to buy more avocados from Mendelson-Zeller Co. of Fresno. A Campbell Soup subsidiary since 1984, the company is marketing fresh fruits and vegetables with those little Campbell labels on them. Frequent buyers get raffle tickets in a drawing with prizes like a pool table or a car telephone.

But it’ll take more than a big bowl of guacamole to be eligible. A lug, says Mike Browne, general manager of the avocado division in Temecula, Calif., is basically a 25-pound box of avocados. And you have to buy 60 lugs to be eligible for one ticket.

And Mike Likes It

If the scandals on Wall Street have tarnished the luster of “junk bond” impresario Michael Milken and his investment firm Drexel Burnham Lambert, it wasn’t evident at a two-day conference on investments in Latin America that Drexel held in Beverly Hills recently.

“My good friend Mike Milken,” said Rep. Tony Coelho (D-Calif.), the House majority whip, in introducing the financier.

Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.), swelled the chorus, lauding Drexel’s plans for a development fund as “a private sector solution” to Latin America’s problems and praising “Mike Milken in particular, because he’s been the driving force behind it.

“Mike,” gushed Dodd, who is chairman of the Senate subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs, “the next time you’re doing something like this, maybe I could piggyback on it, get you together with some of my colleagues in Washington.”