Old Geezer

[landlover]

the old timers problem can be solved easily. go buy a g550 type and fly corporate/charter. the pilots and pax will be better dressed for the occasion. would you put on a suit and tie to ride a greyhound? no. this is how the general public looks at riding on airliners these days. as far as employees and uniforms, this is going on acroos the board in all aspects of the country. my post man wears a du-rag and big baggy jeans and uses an ipod while working.

 

[XJohXJ]

Yes, it's valid to suggest pilots should not look like slobs. But all of you spit 'n' polish types need to lay off the sanctimony. You're acting like the cliched uptight high school principle types in bad summertime teen comidies. Pilots don't know anything about business (as proven by the crappy position we have all negotiated our collective way into), and they don't know jack about fashion (cheesy polyester uniforms). It is absurd when they play the know-it-all-obnoxious-blowhard and try to form a correlation between pilot appearance and pilot pay. You guys spend way too much time worrying about how other people look. Clean up your own ship, and be proud of yourselves. If you think you can hand over a turd of a job to those less senior than you, and then blow your hole over the wrinkles in someone else's shirt, you will spend your days in misery. How about considering that maybe someone didn't iron because they had 8 hours of hotel time, and only wanted to sleep? Maybe their clothes are wrinkled 'cause they had to pack 6 days of clothes into their overnight bag? Be bitter if you want too, but you have no authority to rule the lives of others. If you want folks to respect you, close your mouth more often than you open it, and take care of yourselves. You are not in charge of anyone else, beyond the narrow confines of fligh-related job performance. What you think of others' apperances simply does not matter to anyone else, and whining about it is just lame and annoying. Sanctimonious lectures don't work, especially when they are so petty as to be about someone else's uniform. If you want to talk about professionalism, your energy (and the efforts of ALL PILOTS) should be entirely focused on regaining professional compensation. Everyone knows that looking good costs money, and management will never pay us more simply because a few guys take up the iron more often. People have priorities, and when you are close to poverty, uniforms tend to not even make the list.

 

[Bringupthebird]

In America they CHOSE to take a job that required packing for 6 days. And they CHOOSE how they present themselves.

What is your pride worth?

 

[Bringupthebird]

You're a little confused on the whole good geezer/bad geezer thing. The good geezers are the ones who persevered, made a plan for the worst but hoped for the best, and got themselves ready for retirement. The bad geezers (the ones who screwed up the whole industry) are the greed wracked, self absorbed ones that sold out the bottom for themselves in the last few years.

Get yourself some better geezers.

I think, in your opinion, anyone who stands between you and what you think you deserve is "bad".

Selling out the bottom, eh? Tell me who has been sheltered from the turmoil of the past 5 years at the expense of someone junior? There's more than enough pain to spread around.

 

[CaptBud330]

I got mine?

Scorboard, you say I am Captain " I got mine". You couldn't be further off base. My career was as turbulent as most. I suffered significant loss of seniority with the Allegheny/Mohawk merger in 1971. As a result of that, furlough number 1 occurred shortly after the merger. Furlough number 2, 1975 with the fuel crisis. That one lasted only 2 years whith a new baby to feed. Recalled to fly a small turbo-prop that paid a whopping 9K a year. We qualified for food stamps and we got milk for the baby under the federal WIK program. Sixteen years right seat and loss of pension. Yeah, I guess I'm Captain I got mine. Only thing that saved my butt was a wife that was a saver.
My career pales in comparison to the pilots furloughed at US Airways that have been on the beach for 6 years or the 1989 pilots that have been on and off more then Tracy Lords.
Personally, I have never intentionally flown over 85. Flying International, some conditionds forced going over. But with so many pilots out on furlough, this Captain I got mine, would do anything to help get guys back. I'm no whore.
As far as looking sharp, whatever your company manual says is policy, that's fine. If it says no tie, hat, leather jacket, that's what you'll do. Regardless what is says, you wear what they say. I'm sure the manual doesn't say wear what you want, anyway you like, and by the way, it's okay to look like an un-made bed.

 

[SDF2BUF2MCO]

BG,

The problem with Bud's argument is that he addressed it as problem in aviation. I disagree and say that its reflection of the society we live in.

So true.

 

[XJohXJ]

People "choose" to work because they need to work. Plenty of people work in jobs they don't particularly love, because they're good at the job, and they need money to live. What makes you think being a pilot should be any different than millions of other jobs in America? Do you think people should only ever work in good jobs? There'd be a lot of unemployment if that were the case. Airline pilots' used to have a great profession. That is not the case these days. Now, it's more of a crappy, low paid job. It just happens to be less crappy than a lot of other jobs out there. If people used pride as their only criteria in selecting employement, there'd be a business crisis, as no one would show for a lot of jobs out there. Many many many people use "holey crap, I've got to find some work, or I'm going to end up homeless" as a criteria for finding a job. Based on pride, there's not a regional airline out there that I would work for because they treat their workers like crap. However, I need a job. You free market types tend to think that the free market applies to labor, too. Do you think the meat packing plants would have trouble finding non-illegal labor if they paid a good wage? They get around the labor side of the free market equation by hiring illegals. A true free market would force labor rates up, but no good millionaire would let a few laws stand in their way. So, please, spare me the utter bullsh!t of "if you don't like it, just quit". People don't quit because they can't quit, because the economy is not free and fluid for labor. It there were so many professional pilot jobs out there, the regionals would go out of business, as all of their pilots would quit and go to the good jobs. Regional pilot jobs are not good jobs. They are just plain old bad-treatment jobs. We work them because we have to. Now the Major airline jobs, while still better, are sliding towards the regional QOL and pay, instead of the other way around, as should have been the case. Try fixing that, instead of harping about people taking pride in a job for which they are ashamed to admit how little they earn in.

 

[BenderGonzales]

I dont care if you sling fries at McDonalds.

Give your job - whatever it is - 110%. THAT is the message you should be sending your children... and the example you should be setting for them.

 

[Flopgut]

I think, in your opinion, anyone who stands between you and what you think you deserve is "bad".

Selling out the bottom, eh? Tell me who has been sheltered from the turmoil of the past 5 years at the expense of someone junior? There's more than enough pain to spread around.

You want to know who? Change the age, and anyone that works past 60 gets sheltered! Post age change: 90% of the pain gets trained on the bottom half of this profession.

Here's an example: Our friend Undaunted is part of a group of UAL pilots that took the bottom 50% of UAL pilots and put them through a grinder, all to "save the A fund". Well, that desparate move didn't really pan out, did it? I don't care what your job is or where you work (CEO, pilot or janitor), in this economy, if you screw up that bad--you gotta go!

 

[Nado]

Does this professionalism also include when professional pilots butcher the English language on public forums and at work? How are you supposed to be taken seriously when you can't even spell or know what a word is like 'epaulets'. The spelling police have been attacked before, but come on, this is in the same vane, ooops I mean vein. dictionary.com will help you out almost all the time. Take the 30 seconds...