DBCOOPER said:
Catyaak,
I respect your views, I'm not saying that I completely disagree with everything you're saying. But, I will take a wild guess that you're not happy with the way your flying career has gone, for you to be so pissed off about something like a 60 year old retiree wanting to continue to fly airplanes is amazing. Don't forget that there are many 60 year olds out there that were Captains making 180K/yr, then to be bumped back to F/O, then to take a 35% paycut in THAT seat, then to lose their pension, then to be stuck for 2 years without any social security, still paying alamony payments.........Alot of guys out there need jobs to live, even if they are older. Many people feel that flying is the only thing they are good at. You seem to take this stand that if anyone comes looking for a job and they are a retired airline guy, he's a "scab" or as you like to say "whore". You are certainly entitled to your opinion, but you are a little out of bounds here.
And, by your theory, in his eyes....every single RJ pilot out their must be a "scab whore" as well. Lets say he's sitting in the left seat of his 737 and his F/O is on his last flight due to an upcoming furlough. Why? Because the RJ guys taxing out in front of them are now flying their routes for less than half of what they are flying it for. Dare you put all the RJ pilots out there in your same little category?? You most likely will. Hell, you might as well through the guys at Frontier, Spirit, JetBlue, Indy Air, into the same category. They are flying Airbuses for alot less than the guys at NWA, UAL, and USAirways are/were.
I'll venture a guess that you aren't much fun to fly with. You seem awfully uptight and of the opinion that if some pilot didn't take the same route as you did, they suck and you will have a word to label them with.
Lighten up Francis. Find a job environment that you enjoy, and go do it. Start by giving people the benefit of the doubt. I hope that you let out your steam on this web board and not at work, I can guarantee you that people at work don't want to hear someone complaining all day long about "how it should be according to me."
Having a hard time with comprehension DB, or what?. Where did you get this fantasy that I'm pissed off at 60 year old retired guys who want to keep flying...more power to him. He/she ALWAYS has the benefit of the doubt with me. Please show me where I wrote that I was prejudiced against them and back up your allegation of me "seeming" that way. I specifically qualified the airline pilots I wrote about by saying they were "lowballing" ones..that's the subject at hand..pay...what they, or anyone, will work for vs. what's considered industry standard. Perhaps you're so hyper-sensitized and defensive about airline pilots that my repeated use of this clear and unmistakable adjective didn't register through your emotional response.
You write that "I seem to take this stand that if anyone comes looking for a job and he's a retired airline guy, he's a scab, or as you like to put it, a whore". Did it "seem" that way to you?....if it did, you need remedial reading classes, my friend, and I'm saying that because I'll consider your attempt to assign me this prejudicial age-and-background bias against a prospective pilot I may hire to your own lack of comprehension skills, rather than a purposeful attempt to drape me with a mantle of Royal Assholery. The fact is DB, I wrote nothing that even comes close to what you are accusing me of here.
But it's clear why you do put words in my mouth...(beginning with lame-o lead-in "it seems"..continuing to "I'd venture"...etc..) so you can extrapolate some fantasy of your own making regarding a set of personality traits you accuse me of possessing in order to enter a straw-man debate with yourself on things like "people have to work after 60". This is a sign of arrested emotional developement I'm sorry to say. Judging isn't the same as pre-judging DB. If a lowballing corporate puke tried for job versus a retired airline guy asking industry standard my hiring decision judgement would not change, I'd hire the airline guy. In my experience however, that scenario never happened, although the reverse did. This is not to say I never hired retired or between-job airline guys WHO WERE ASKING WHAT THEY WERE WORTH (perhaps if I spell it out bigger and plainly, you'll get it) because I did, and flew with some good ones.
And much as you'd obviously like to think I do in your little fantasy exercise of assigning me negative traits, I don't have a vague, nebulous theory that every RJ pilot is a "scab whore". Just what is a "scab whore" anyway? I know what a "scab" is, which presumes a union shop company and workers crossing a striking membership's picket line, and that's the only definition that I know of. At least when I was a dues-paying ALPA member it was....has that changed or something? This examples you list regarding this "theory" you say I must have (once again for the purposes of debating yourself) ...is nothing more than the mish-mash of competitive pricing, downsizing, or farming out routes that's part of the landscape of revenue-flying in a deregulated industry.
Your wild guess as to "how I am" (bitter, or something) is so off the mark it's pretty funny. But since you made this accusation I'll say that I love my career path, love where I'm at now, where I've been, who I've flown with, and even get paid a lot for doing it. Certainly, I don't judge someone about the route they've taken, if I did I'd have to get rid of most of my old college and high school flying buddies I've had for well over 20 years now that are mostly at the majors. To each his own, everyone has a different idea of what makes them happy. Flying for the airlines gave me a great set of experiences to draw upon and good friends, just like all the years of corporate flying have done. Airline flying has its good and bad points, just like corporate flying...it's not a competition. You should learn this.
And believe me, the last thing anyone would ever tell you about me in the cockpit or on the ground is that I'm "uptight". If anything they nudge me to see if I'm awake. I'm into comfort, and that includes being paid enough to be comfortable, and having a comfortable atmosphere amongst the crew. And since you mentioned complaining at work, that was the biggest reason I left the airlines.....nothing in my years flying corporate will ever equal the amount of complaining, bellyaching, and whining as I heard in airline cockpits. with so many self-appointed experts opining how the company or unions should be run, endlessly preaching "how it should be". That you would use my views on the single issue of undercutting industry standard wages into being an overbearing a$$hole in a mere 4 paragraphs is quite a feat in misrepresenting pretty much everything I wrote. Congrats.
The irony here, of course, is that here you are, no doubt an airline or former airline guy, bi1ching in your fantasy diatribe about me, who's only point is, and has ALWAYS been, that when I'm in the position of hiring corporate pilots, I'd rather pay them industry standard or MORE, and if they aren't asking it by a longshot and blatantly lowballing, then I don't want them wherever they are from. I'm not alone in this view in the corporate world, and you gnashing your teeth over it and deliberatly misrepresenting what I've written tells me that you're either very young or pretty green when it comes to this segment of aviation where you act as your own one-man union. Who are you to tell me I must hire the cheapest labor, when even my boss makes it clear he doesn't want that used as a criteria?
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