CFI ride
I'll never forget the day I took my CFI checkride with the FAA. I walked across the ramp to the local GADO and presented myself for the ride. After completing it successfully, I returned to the FBO to which I had given countless dollars to complete my training (not to mention the countless airplanes I had washed in trade for flight time) to find a brand new student anxiously awaiting to give me his money for the opportunity to learn how to fly. I remember thinking I had somehow skipped a step. I mean, I went from paying to fly to immediately getting paid for it. I thought there should have been a phase wherein I could just fly for free. Man, it was the greatest feeling in the world. That feeling lasted for exactly 499.0 hours (I just couldn't do it for 500 hours) but now that I fly jets and instruct in them and the simulator, it's the best job I've ever had. When I take a new student who never flew jets or 2-man crew aircraft and I watch him/her succeed to the left seat and beyond (major carrier, etc.) I feel like a proud parent watching his children take their first steps. I, too, thought instructing was a necessary evil I was unwilling to pursue, but I ended up loving it as a professional. Good luck, buddy