I set out to be an airline guy and, after 16 years in that now extremely miserable business, I find myself having run a corporate flight department and now a line captain for another. While we aren't required to "wash" the airplanes here, we have been encouraged to take ownership of the flight department. We operate a GV, a Challenger 604 and a Citation Ultra and have a full-time maint. staff. Pilots out here on the west coast (604, GV) number six with a part-timer -- and this number includes a Chief Pilot and flying Director of Operations.
Our experience is varied: an ex-Continental pilot of six years and most recently of the Pentastar Aviation, an ex-Hawaiian captain of 8 years, a 15-year Nordstrom guy, 1 pure corporate gypsy who swears he has found a "home", an ex-Learjet charter guy, myself ex-US Airways of many years, and a current Alaska Airlines senior captain (our part-timer). Flight time for most exceeds 10,000 hours and a variety of types, as you might well imagine. Captain salaries easily exceed six figures.
I make these comments to illustrate our diverse backgrounds and therefore, mores and attitudes. Another observation worth noting is the relative harmony within this small group; our mutual respect and indeed friendship for one another, and the muted emphasis put upon family and lifestyle by both the corporation at large and the Director of Flight Ops., specifically -- a man who I have come to admire greatly in the relatively short time I have known him.
What does all of this have to do with washing airplanes? Everything, as far as I am concerned. Have I stood on a wing with a brush in hand or a pair off goggles and a breather and a can of polish? Yes indeed. And, no, I wasn't instructed to do so as part of my "job description". Yet, when one of my brothers takes it upon himself to do so during a slack period in the flight schedule, the rest of us respond with if not zeal, a sense of duty to the company that routinely makes note of such efforts and honors us in kind -- not to mention our desire to help. I cannot emphasize that point enough -- coming most recently from a company that begrudged me every nickel and was forever devoting most of its' attentions to exploiting my natural goodwill, and caring not a whit whether I ever saw my family, much less spent a holiday with them...I could go on and on.
Regardless of the period in which we now live, where professional pilots are finding, to their dismay, that there is not a great deal beneath them, there remains the principle that dictates nothing is really work unless you would rather be doing something else -- so that the question becomes not, 'Do you wash airplanes?' but rather, is it work to do so? A subjective opinion is required -- doubtless there is a wrong answer here, but if there is, I cannot see it. In all of the turbulent years I have spent feeding myself with a stick and rudder (which ranges from ag-pilot to major airline captain), I was at my most unhappy when I felt there existed a host I things that I should never be asked to do -- and to do so was an utter outrage both personally and professionally. In my own case, this no doubt stemmed from the fact that I was often asked to do a great deal, sacrifice much -- and in return, being offered little in the way of gratitude beyond a paycheck and a healthy dose of contempt.
I submit that if you suddenly have the unbidden urge to pick up a rag and apply it to the aluminum -- or don the gloves and swab the commode -- or give the leading edges a lick and a promise: you're either a saint -- or you work for a company that honors such noble principles.
I'm no saint. Not even close.
Lymond
