AK737FO said:LilCap,
I would even add this thought. Kastration is here to stay. -29% club for me, and next year I've got to bump my 401K contributions up to 19% to hit the IRS limit of 15K. I lived on mac and cheese for a lot of years before I got this job, I enjoyed steak for a couple of years, now its back to mac and cheese - or I could sell my house. Point is - I NEED to upgrade. We will not be getting a bunch of $$$ back in 18 months through negotiations. The only way for me to have a comfortable life again is to upgrade. That will only happen (sooner rather than later) if we are growing and profitable. Yes I took one for the team along with 1500 other Alaska pilots, but burning down the house will not get me anything - it will only prolong the mac and cheese. This is not to say that I always agree with our management, or that I like some of the things they did and continue to do - but this is the aviation world that we live in. With the whole industry in the tank we are in far better shape than most, so I'm not going to bite the hand that feeds me, even if it is mac and cheese. I'm going to do everything in my power to enable my airline to grow and be profitable, so I can upgrade and get as much of the pie as I can. If someone is ticked off and wants to burn the house down, what is going to get you in the end? Nothing - no upgrade, no $$$, and maybe no job should our airline fail. Whats the point of that? I still wear my hat, I still polish the cowboy boots, I still do the job the same way I always did. I am blessed to work out of the ANC 200 base where every Captain I fly with feels the same.
To answer psysicx - yes and years.
AK737FO
You have to take what ANC -200 guys say with a grain of salt....They fly out of the best little base in the system and for the most part they have been completely isolated from the management induced meltdown that the rest of us have been living with since long before Kasher.......Am I a little envious(especially since I spent a good while as one of them) you bet. I, like AK, don't want to burn down the house but I am sick and tired of watching these guys piss away my 45,000.00 "investment" every day, all day......On the -200 it is easy to go to work and "make a difference" in SEA we used to try but you can only take rejection for so long before you just plain give up......And I for one am not looking forward to an upgrade so that I can make a pittance more than I would have made as a senior FO with a good schedule....AK, think about this---when you make captain you will not have what the guys you fly with have..the 185's on lake hood, the cabins out at red shirt and east papoose, the mansion on the hill, the boats in homer, the condo's in Mexico, the second house in the San Juan's, the new snow machines every year, the new pickups to go with them and most importantly, the time to enjoy all of that....no my friend, you and I will upgrade just to maintain what little standard of living we finally acheived after all the hard work....and in 25 years when it is all over, our houses won't be paid for and our retirment will not be funded and we won't be taking our lump sum and riding off into the glorious sunset after giving these people 300hrs a month of our lives....So the next time one of those guys that you and I have both flown with sits over there and tells you how it is ok and this company really has good talented people working for it and how we just need to get behind them and everything will turn out just fine...remember that they allready have their's and you don't nor will you....you simply have a decent job that will allow you to make a decent living and if you are very careful and live frugally in retirement you will be OK except of course you will have given up every holiday and every family function etc... for the rest of your career
nuf said !! back to work..