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Compensation and professinalism

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When I started at the regionals, they said sleep or iron your shirt. I ironed the shirt. A couple of years in and I said: "Sleep? I never get to sleep!" And the shirt took care of itself. At the frac, the shirt gets pressed and I sleep. You can spin that any way you want, but if one has to go, it ain't never gonna be sleep again!
 
Top level managers at CJC are showing up to reccurrent classes and preaching that "Compensation has NO bearing on professionalism. Walking through the terminal you should see no difference between a Continental pilot and a CJC pilot."

What are my fellow professional pilots opinion on this?

Easy! If you value your job your probably well compensated. Hence, you can afford dry cleaning and a nice vehicle with air conditioning to get to work in. This managment crap about professionalism and compensation is just an excuse not to pay up. The RAS is NOT your friend but only a washington lobby group to keep up with public airline image and pilot rates low.
 
Your not a professional unless you're paid like a professional. Otherwise, you're just a hack undercutter.


Being professional has NOTHING to do with the size of your salary. It's an attitude reflected in your day to day performance from the moment you wake up until you retire for the day. A true professional would execute their duites to the fullest and most ethical extent. It involves judgment, knowledge, discipline, grooming, ettiquette, tradition, etc. among many other things outside the scope of ones salary.

Perhaps this is why there's such a gross lack of it. No one knows what professionalism really entails.
 
Being professional has NOTHING to do with the size of your salary. It's an attitude reflected in your day to day performance from the moment you wake up until you retire for the day. A true professional would execute their duites to the fullest and most ethical extent. It involves judgment, knowledge, discipline, grooming, ettiquette, tradition, etc. among many other things outside the scope of ones salary.

Perhaps this is why there's such a gross lack of it. No one knows what professionalism really entails.

True!

Being a professional is independent of salary. Judgment, knowledge, discipline, ettiquette, and proffeciency are all a mark of a professional.

The argument comes in when you say that a professional appearance is independent of salary, it is not. Unfortunately, to look good... dry cleaned shirt, shined shoes, new pants. etc... a tad bit of income is required. So are work rules that allow for you to keep yourself "in a proper way".

If I'm making $16000 a year and only have 9 hours at the hotel while I'm at work, and two days a week when I'm not at work you can bet that my shirt will be wrinkled (I can't iron while I'm sleeping), my hair will be long (the paycheck has to stretch 4 weeks for a cut instead of every 2), and I'm going to buy food instead of shoe shine. It doesn't mean I'm not a professional pilot, and has no indication of my skill in the cockpit, it just shows that don't get paid a fair wage.
 
-Next time I am at work I will have to get a sweet baseball cap, don that sucker and turn it backwards.

-Seen two MESA guys doing that last week. This is one trend that needs to catch on everywhere!
It seems to be a new tread of SWA pilots as well, but they wear the baseball cap forward. I seem to see this in LAS the most.
 
Being professional has NOTHING to do with the size of your salary. It's an attitude reflected in your day to day performance from the moment you wake up until you retire for the day. A true professional would execute their duites to the fullest and most ethical extent. It involves judgment, knowledge, discipline, grooming, ettiquette, tradition, etc. among many other things outside the scope of ones salary.

Perhaps this is why there's such a gross lack of it. No one knows what professionalism really entails.

As an extreme example of the above, one the flight attendants I've worked with donates all of his paycheck to charity. He's independently wealthy and bored, so he does the job essentially for fun. His FA paycheck is a meager sum to begin with, and being that he donates all of it, he makes essentially nothing. Yet, this man is probably one of the most professional and competent FA's at our company. He doesn't need the job in the least, yet his actions would never portray this truth.
 
Been there, done that and it's easy to look professional

True!

Being a professional is independent of salary. Judgment, knowledge, discipline, ettiquette, and proffeciency are all a mark of a professional.

The argument comes in when you say that a professional appearance is independent of salary, it is not. Unfortunately, to look good... dry cleaned shirt, shined shoes, new pants. etc... a tad bit of income is required. So are work rules that allow for you to keep yourself "in a proper way".

If I'm making $16000 a year and only have 9 hours at the hotel while I'm at work, and two days a week when I'm not at work you can bet that my shirt will be wrinkled (I can't iron while I'm sleeping), my hair will be long (the paycheck has to stretch 4 weeks for a cut instead of every 2), and I'm going to buy food instead of shoe shine. It doesn't mean I'm not a professional pilot, and has no indication of my skill in the cockpit, it just shows that don't get paid a fair wage.


You need to find a another job if those conditions exist for ya.

I say bullsh*t since I have been there in those conditions you wrote and one finds a way to look professional. I didn't dry clean my shirts. I washed them and ironed them ALL. Wash and iron the shirts BEFORE the trip while watching TV and they're good. It only takes fives minutes to iron the shirt on the road. A good shine takes only five minutes which can be done before one leaves for work. Haircut for under ten bucks (even in today's world) once a month. Polish costs under $2, so less then a bag of chips. Not taking these steps and having self-pride doesn't mean you or anyone else is less professional in the cockpit, but the perception it presents is that you are. It's about self-pride bro. If someome is making $16K and is still buying food with their own dime then shame on them. They should be hitting their local food bank, WIC and food stamps because they are intitled to that support.

 
You need to find a another job if those conditions exist for ya.

I say bullsh*t since I have been there in those conditions you wrote and one finds a way to look professional. I didn't dry clean my shirts. I washed them and ironed them ALL. Wash and iron the shirts BEFORE the trip while watching TV and they're good. It only takes fives minutes to iron the shirt on the road. A good shine takes only five minutes which can be done before one leaves for work. Haircut for under ten bucks (even in today's world) once a month. Polish costs under $2, so less then a bag of chips. Not taking these steps and having self-pride doesn't mean you or anyone else is less professional in the cockpit, but the perception it presents is that you are. It's about self-pride bro. If someome is making $16K and is still buying food with their own dime then shame on them. They should be hitting their local food bank, WIC and food stamps because they are intitled to that support.

YEA Dude! As you are washing you dirty shirts on that bathroom sink at your hotel, just look at the mirror, and with the biggest pride tell yourself that I don't need money because I'm a f'cking professional baby!
 
So executive bonuses must be kept in order to continue and attract high caliber managers. I mean how else might one pay for a 2000.00 dollar suit? So when I am told that compensation has nothing to do with being a professional in one's field I wholeheartedly agree. Because as we have seen during this last economic malaise executives have proven themselves ethical and honest.
 
With that kind of pay, what kind of "professionals" were CJC Managers hoping to attract ? This is like buying a Yugo and bitching that it's nothing like a BMW.
 

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