Originally Posted by gloopy

Its a good job (over all at many places) for sure, and I'm all about counting one's blessings and being greatful in general. I was just shuddering at the "OMG I get paid to fly!" nonsense because of how that often translates into acceptance and apathy towards working to get back to where we need to be. Lots of people love what they do, but they would be pretty ticked off if they suddenly faced 50% pay cuts, loss of pension, longer days, more days, etc and I bet a lot more would quit than do in this sector. The profession is still underpaid IMO, and while only a small part of that could ever be attributed to bright eyed jobaphiles, you still see a lot of that at the entry level. Its part of what fuels scum like NAI because no matter how devious the operation is, there's always someone giddy at just getting paid to fly or the lure of shiny new jet Captain their first year, etc.

Its also part of what fueled the cut throat regional industry for a long time. "Paris-First-Class-International" has up until very recently (due in part to the outrageous government fueled cost inflation of all things "education") provided limitless supply at the entry level.

Maybe Shy didn't even mean it like that, I don't know. But it came across like blanket justification from a perpetual state of awe that ends up being little more than a fulcrum management industry wide uses against us. I have a friend who has been working on his ratings for a million years but never "gets it done" yet he constantly spews that "if I could only bask in the honour of getting paid to fly it would be so awesome!" and that just makes my skin crawl.