Giving up money and lifestyle ?

[michael707767]

I want to comment on the airline life and marriage. Sure it's tough. Time away from home, uncertainty with job security, financial stress, etc.

But, I do not believe any of this will cause your marriage to fail. If your marriage fails, it was because it was a flawed marriage to begin with, not because of your career choice. The stress of an aviation career may accelerate the end of a bad marriage, but it will not ruin a good one.

Having said that, if I was 22 and starting over again, I would not choose to go into aviation.

 

[JetSpeed219]

Michael, why would you not do it all over again if you were 22 and starting from scratch?

 

[sonicyouth]

Re: Read

What I would say to you is there are a bunch of happy pilots out there who do not come on these boards. Most of the ones I meet these days, well frankly I do not hear much complaining at all.

You need to follow the path you think will make you happy. If you love IT, then keep doing it. If you are not thrilled about doing that, then change.

Man, you hit the nail on the head, Publishers. There are A LOT of people who get into aviation disillusioned, and with unrealistic expectations, or maybe they just lose sight of the big picture. But there are a lot of people who can't imagine doing anything else, because they love what they do!

 

[captainv]

I can't speak for anyone else, but I had to choose aviation, even though it was my second career. It was a situation where if I hadn't gone for it, I would've spent the rest of my life wondering what it would've been like. I just widh I'd chosen it earlier...

>why would you not do it all over again if you were 22 and starting from scratch?

 

[EngineOut]

Personally, I have been enjoying the journey. I've been in the biz for four years, and have tasted the bad and the good. I wouldn't change anything. I can tell you this, though...

If there were no such things as airplanes, I'd be a train engineer.

If there were no trains, I'd be a long-haul truck driver.

If there were no trucks, I'd sail ships.

 

[spitfire1940]

and if there were no trucks, i'd want to be in a caravan on the silk road.



.... I think the problem with many of postings on this board (and I'm guilty of some of them, although I should know better) is that many pilots have never been anything but pilots.

They think the grass is greener in other professions, but really, just about any career can suck massively--and we've heard it from guys with experience in IT, medicine, law and journalism to name a few things.

yeah, the pay can suck and the treatment by management can be bad, especially at the regionals, but it's no different than anywhere else.

do what you love to do and everything else will fall into place ... or not ... but there's no guarantee you'd make more money or have a better lifestyle doing something else.

 

[AA717driver]

It beats a cubicle or sitting in coach filling out your weekly sales report and wishing you were sitting up there with a window seat talking about chicks and beer! TC

 

[JetSpeed219]

I graduated with a degree in Network Administration, got an IT job strait out of college with Hewlett Packard only to be laid off 2 months later.........there is no such thing as job security in any field....