Someone here asked if I have ever worked a manual labor job before and yes I have. Outside of aviation construction is the only other profession I have. It was a hot day on the job site that inspired me to go to college and better myself. The problem was that after the effort I wasn't better. In fact I was making less than if I had stayed as a construction laborer.

Most of you seem to gloss past details like that however they always bothered me. Why is it that the Seattle Times runs a huge front page article about how the Seattle Police are hiring high school kids and paying them 3300 a month as a trainee while regional airline pilots spend over 100K in training and education and perhaps 8 years in school and initial experience building to reach the same point?

The reason is that people will fall on their sword in order to be able to say at parties and high school reunions that they have an interesting sounding job while in fact they live in poverty. In the past jobs that required education, were complicated or needed a high level of expensive vocational training earned the higher wages. Today it is the jobs that are difficult or not so glamorous that are becoming the big bread winners. I believe it is because our country has an overly efficient university system and now we can get student loans for just about anything.

Currently I build houses and rent them out. Most days I sit at home and make phone calls or do some paperwork; not much really. On occasion I have to crawl in the mud and dig under a foundation or get covered in paint from head to toe. I don't do manual labor that often but it does commonly occur. My job is not glamorous or overly difficult but it has taken my family and I from being reduced to a two bedroom apartment, after I was laid off at my last flying job, to living like a old style major airline captain. I have been able to earn more in one year than during my entire 16 years as a professional pilot combined.

We all sacrifice a lot for the interesting "sounding" job and to fly. As you all know I miss flying every day. It hurts to have to watch as my career passes me by, but all I have to do is to remember how badly it hurt to be among the working poor. I recall the 3:30 AM get ups and the all night red-eyes. I remember how miserable it was to be a junior pilot at an LCC or regional and it all comes back to me.

Today I get up when I feel like it and spend my days doing whatever I want, with a few exceptions. Not a bad trade. All I had to do was to give up a dream that I wasn't meant for anyway. Life is good as an airline pilot if you get hired at one of the better majors while still young enough to get someplace. Outside of that it is daily torture.


SkyHigh