Originally Posted by 2loud

Happiness is not a state of mind but what's at the core of one's soul. One's true "happiness" can never change once it's set by: 1) self choice/acceptance. 2) Man up stairs . Ah crud... wrong forum!
I haven't ran into a single totally "outwardly" happy airline pilot. It's always something. It's like that youtube video of Lego pilot characters.... you know, "werk werk werk". I'll be the first to admit that I am one of them. However, I do catch myself from time to time. Lately, caffeine, exercise, and sleep seem to help with my outwardly happiness.
The fact of the matter is that the middle managers at the Alaskan familia, especially crew scheduling up through BM doesn't want the pilots to be happy. Besides pay and bennies, what get's pilots po'd the most? Scheduling and the inability to trade out of crappy trips, which are abundant. For many folks with lots of $$$ and/or power, its never enough so they have to control people to the point of misery. Oh but guess what, the optimizer is at fault and PBS will fix everything!