To reiterate, I'm not challenging you, I just wanted to make a few points.
Challenging is fine; it's how we make conversation.
Without adjustment for inflation, one of my early charter jobs paid five dollars an hour. That's right. Five dollars an hour. Even with adjustment for inflation, those were Mexican day labor rates, and entry level flying in aviation has always been poverty work. That's the price of admission to the show.
There are a few exceptions but most of us had to scrape by for the first few thousand hours before getting anywhere; it was that way then, and it's becoming that way again, now. Back to normal, back to reality.
There were jobs then. There really aren't check hauling jobs or night cargo like there was to build your hours.
My first job after high school was flying ag (crop dusting). I wasn't into building hours, but I was making a living and doing some good flying.
There's much talk of paying dues from generations who grew up in a land of opportunity where careers abounded. You can't simply work hard and pay dues anymore. You have to really compete on every level. I'm not saying you guys didn't work hard and compete, I'm saying there were orders of magnitude more opportunities then. There are 300 million people and far less jobs now.
Johnny, I didn't learn to fly with the Wright brothers. I grew up without two quarters to rub together, literally. I didn't have a car, and spent my high school years peddling 15 miles each way every night to go wash and wax airplanes to pay for my flying. I lived in an abandoned house in the field, and slept in my car. I stayed 115 lbs for a lot of years...not because of a high metabolism but because there wasn't a lot of food to put in that belly. I usually worked two (sometimes three) jobs. When I instructed, I worked as a guard all night, then instructed all day, and when not doing that, I fueled, did books, and turned wrenches. I didn't sleep. While I flew air ambulance, I also cleaned theaters and turned wrenches. While flying heavy air tankers, I spent any time not flying, turning wrenches. Some of it in -20 degree temps. I wouldn't give up a minute of it, but it would be very incorrect to suggest that somehow it was easier then, with far greater opportunities.
I've seen the big wheel come around more than a few times now. Cyclical hiring, with no jobs to be found. I've been there. I was there when it took 2,500 to get hired by a regional, with multi and turbine time. I've moved more times than you'd believe, and have worked more jobs than you've got fingers and toes, twice over and nearly three. I do well now, and I'd never suggest someone find another field of work, who might be considering this, but never let it be said that it wasn't a lot of work getting here, and that sacrifices weren't part of the trail. Today opportunities abound, if people will reach out for them.
The problem is that we have a lot of people out there who expect it all now, who have unrealistic expectations, and who can't seem to fathom having to reach for it like we did not that long ago. Things come full cycle, and they may be doing so again.