Earl Williams
Well-known member
- Joined
- Mar 17, 2002
- Posts
- 75
I was hoping to get your advice and collective wisdom on my situation. I'm currently working in the advertising agency biz (gosh, I hate admitting that!) and am routinely pulling unpredictable, late hours, and oftentimes weekends. I'm certainly not complaining...that's just the way this business is. I know I want to eventually...one day...achieve my dream of flying for a living, yet being 32 realize that the clock is ticking.
Fortunately, for the last several years I've been penny-pinching, and saving up every dime I could in hopes of accumulating the sufficient funds to complete my training (also helps that I'm single with no family to support). I'm not "there" yet, but will hopefully be soon. I didn't want to start training and have to stop, or routinely post-pone, due to a lack of funds. So, I pretty much reverted back to my college days of eating ramen and not buying a lot of stuff in hopes of saving every cent I could for future training purposes.
Anyhow, back to my question. With my work hours the way they are, I'm having severe difficulty scheduling flights, and am lucky to get 2-3 flights in per month. As I'm currently beginning work on my Instrument rating, I'm finding that I'm having to continually re-learn the previous lesson based on this lack of continuity. And given this schedule of flights per month, am thinking it's probably going to take another 3 years to get the remainder of my ratings (realizing that, after that, I'll still need to instruct for XX years in order to eventually get 135 min's)
If you were in my shoes, would you (a) keep the current job and continue to fly sparingly in working toward the ratings, or (B) once you have the funds, quit the job and work towards the ratings full-time? (while maybe picking up a part-time job so the well doesn't run completely dry in the process).
Thanks in advance for everyone's replies...I really appreciate it!
-Earl
Fortunately, for the last several years I've been penny-pinching, and saving up every dime I could in hopes of accumulating the sufficient funds to complete my training (also helps that I'm single with no family to support). I'm not "there" yet, but will hopefully be soon. I didn't want to start training and have to stop, or routinely post-pone, due to a lack of funds. So, I pretty much reverted back to my college days of eating ramen and not buying a lot of stuff in hopes of saving every cent I could for future training purposes.
Anyhow, back to my question. With my work hours the way they are, I'm having severe difficulty scheduling flights, and am lucky to get 2-3 flights in per month. As I'm currently beginning work on my Instrument rating, I'm finding that I'm having to continually re-learn the previous lesson based on this lack of continuity. And given this schedule of flights per month, am thinking it's probably going to take another 3 years to get the remainder of my ratings (realizing that, after that, I'll still need to instruct for XX years in order to eventually get 135 min's)
If you were in my shoes, would you (a) keep the current job and continue to fly sparingly in working toward the ratings, or (B) once you have the funds, quit the job and work towards the ratings full-time? (while maybe picking up a part-time job so the well doesn't run completely dry in the process).
Thanks in advance for everyone's replies...I really appreciate it!
-Earl