In the course of developing a career, I never worked less than two jobs at a time. I moved frequently (more times than you would find believable). I did a lot of different kinds of work. I lived on the road for extended periods. I performed jobs which burned me, cut me, knocked me unconscious, left me stranded in unusual and often inhospitable locations, required me to fix what broke under often trying field conditions, and often payed little. I've lived everywhere from tents to a hangar to a tiny trailer on a muddy runway in the middle of nowhere. I've seen unbelievably poor and falsified maintenance, flying conditions that are probably worse than any nightmare you've ever had, and employers that ranged from fair or generous to a few that were so far off their rocker as to be criminally dangerous.
I completed a specialty school that gauranteed job placement. Upon graduation, (after six months of hell that pushed one classmate far enough to purchase a firearm with the intent of killing the school owner, and who sat in the owners chair when he was out and shot out runway lights to practice), I was told to buy a car and begin traveling and ask every operator I encountered for a job. I was told that eventually someone would hire me. I used the few funds I had left to buy a car, for four hundred bucks, and began driving. I finally ran low on fuel and got two flat tires in a small town. The engine wouldn't start. I had enough money to eat, or buy gas to get to the next town. The local operator hired me and put me up in his house. That was my first commercial job, right out of high school.
I've been shot while flying. I've been hospitalized in intensive care after equipment malfunctions. I've been run over by an aircraft. I've lost hearing to aircraft. And so on.
When trying to get a foothold in the industry, I worked side jobs, often second full time jobs, that ranged from working in a candy factory to a rubber stamp factory. I scrubbed supermarket floors, was an armed gaurd, packed parachutes, repaired aircraft, cut logs, dug ditches, wrote technical manuals, and spent time at an answering service. I worked in a green house. I mixed chemicals, drove a tractor, cared for horses, scrubbed aircraft, and cleaned up vomit. I flew air ambulance by day (and night), and maintained a full time job cleaning theatres by night that paid more than the ambulance duties.
Twice while gone for extended periods on flying duties, the house I was renting was sold and my pregnant wife with small kids in tow had to move on her own. Once in the field my wife accompanied me and developed a life threatening condition; we had no insurance, I was on a tight relief schedule that had me moving town to town every two days. I've quit jobs because of the maintenance, because paychecks were bouncing, because of excess politics of poor company management. I flew for one national operator that in a single year, experienced every emerergency in the aircraft handbook plus a number that weren't listed...in my hire class alone.
All just the tip of the iceberg. I'm sorry for your plight, but there's a lot more to paying your dues, or potentially paying your dues if there is indeed such a thing, than you've yet experienced.
The day will very likely come, far off for you yet, when you will look back on your time now and realize that this has been a time of some of your best learning, some of your best experiences, and quite possibly, some of your fondest memories. When those days come, though I'll probably be long gone, remember that I was the first to tell you "I told you so." This too shall pass, but the day will come when you will come to appreciate that wouldn't go back and change the past, or trade these days for anything. Enjoy it while it lasts.
