I think for most if us, this career is a love-hate relationship. It is very unique, in that we are not very portable. I think our hands are tied. Where does a pilot go from outside the cockpit without spending money to go back to school. For most of us on the board, we are going on 15-20 years in this industry. It isn't easy to say, "ok, I am done, I am headed to an an office job.
For me, I get pissed because I seem to always make the wrong decision in this frigging career. I have had about enough.
So what am I doing. Well, I know at my age I am not headed back to school to start in some office for $40k. I have started a
home improvement business that I can manage while still flying and keep working hard everyday that hopefully it grows into something bigger. If not, well, I do have a pretty decent gig right now.....but this is definitely time limited. I know I probably won't be able to retire from it.
But I can understand your frustrations. I worked at a very large department that abruptly shut down in 2002. It took me about 6 months to get back on my feet.