Another consequence of our profession is the highly concentrated and specialized nature of our skills and education. Outside of seniority number and employer it boils down to type, seat and level of currency. Get laid off for six month to a year and you can see your entire professional value sink to zero or below (unemployable period). Switch employers and start over at new hire pay and schedules.

As a result we are prisoners to our employer, type and format (Airline, corporate, bush ect...). Our employment directs where and how we live. Plumbers do not have this problem. The higher up the ladder you go the more perilous your existence becomes. Get laid off past 50 and you will most likely not recover.

I don't like that at all. I got laid off at 37 and it was a nightmare. Imagine being older with not enough years left to recover from the loss. We had a crazy old timer who would pump fuel at one of the flight schools I trained at. He would ramble on about how he was an Eastern Airlines big time captain yet here he was pumping gas in ragged clothes and in dire need of a haircut. I always though he was kidding but it turns out it was true.

He got laid off when Eastern went down and was not able to get another decent job. When I knew him he was in his 60s and pumping gas at minimum wage for a living. That always haunted me.

Skyhigh