FREIGHTDOGGIE
Some career advice: Here comes the can of worms.
When a Flightie, on their frequent cockpit visits to bitch about the temp or about the jerk in 17E etc., makes a comment that we are over-paid, under-worked, and over-sexed, what runs through your mind, or comes out of your mouth? Missy, my college degree, 10 years of crap pay, no weekends off, missed holidays/family events, check rides, medicals that can end my expensive career, blah, blah, blah, are what gives me the right to have a job that might look easy to you. Many of us pilots knew that it would be a long, expensive, and sometimes emotionally draining career that we hoped would pay off someday. However, we don't use this same logic when it comes to what we consider ludicrous management decisions, and handsome bonuses. If you wanted millions you should've chosen a different career. We are slaves to management for a number of reasons. Two of the biggest are; that we love to fly and don't feel right if we are not in the air on a regular basis, the other is our own archaic work rule and seniority based profession. I have worked for slave-driving charter operators, an airline that shut down with no prior notice and owed me over $10,000 in pay and vacation, and been furloughed from yet another airline. The sooner you realize that your flying skills are disposable, the better. Whatever abilities you have don't mean squat if you go to work for someone else, whether voluntarily or not. The happiest pilots I have ever worked with are those with control of their own destiny and financial future. They took advantage of their 10-20 days off a month and started their own business, instead of drinking beer, chasing girls and bragging to their friends about how great their airline job is. We, as pilots WILL NOT any time in the future change the way management thinks. Anybody who has owned their own business knows that a business does not exist so that people have a RIGHT to work, it exists to make money for the owners. Bad decisions will continue to be made, and most times those responsible will not be the ones that pay. You and I have chosen a career that is ultra-competitive and cannabalistic. We can't even find the decency to stick up for our fellow pilots unless it means a few more seniority numbers for ourselves. Just look at AA/TWA, AA/Reno, NWA/Republic, Scabs/NoScabs, or any other time a pilot felt even remotely denied one single seniority number. I recieved my MD80 type and captain training from TWA (just the training, I was not an employee) two years ago. The instructor had close to 25,000 hours, 18,000 on the DC9/MD80 series alone. Best training I ever recieved. During our sim breaks, most of our conversation was about his grief over the fact that he probably would not even hold the left seat at AA. I know the arguments that will come; they would not have had jobs if we would not have bought them, it's their own fault for choosing a career at a failing airline, etc. If you are one of those people, please take a step back for once and respect your elders, they have forgotten more that you know. I question the logic that ever let a seniority system like this ever take place. If our job is so difficult, then how come they have 300 hour wonderkids in other countries flying in the right seat of a 747-400. As pilots we don't want the secret to get out that our job is not as hard as it once was. Technology has almost engineered the bad pilot obsolete. Majors can get away with hiring interns with 250 hours that never flew anything bigger than a 310, or be forced to hire because of a quota, because they can. Todays airline training has become train-to-proficiency. Crash on 10 of 11 V1 cuts and you still pass. Be a professional yourself, be better than you have to, follow the rules because it is not your airplane and remember it is not union X on your paycheck, but the airline you went to work for. I have personally seen my so-called peers purposely waste thousands of pounds of fuel, overuse brakes and many other things because they are mad at management. How childish, you wonder why they screw us when they can, because we have a proven track record. Unfortunately, like the auto industry workers that have priced themselves out of a job with their mob union mentality, most pilots share the same behavior. If the work environment does not drastically change, I doubt it will, the same labor/management war will continue past when I am pushing daisies. We consider ourselves of higher than average intelligence, but read the posts on this board on a regular basis and you see that is really not very evident. Go to work because you love to fly and not many of us can have our own jet, but get rid of the illusion that this is the career you dreamed about as a kid. Protect yourself at all times by trying to not be completely financially tied to your ability to fly an airplane. It will make your fun meter move substantially to the right. Bring on the flames.
