This is a very confusing time for me. I feel like I've been kicked in the nuts. I've never been so upset at getting a moderate pay raise in my life. I'm angry at my employer for what they think of me and how they disrespect me. I'm unhappy when told I'm #5 and that I will always be #5 because that is simply what the business model demands.

I believed that I was worthy of pay and benefits equal to my pears at other airlines. Those other airlines make less money pound for pound when all the accounting is done, but that does not matter. What matters is size (head count) and wide bodies.

So, it is what is it is. I'm to old to move on and start over. I know that for the remainder of my career I will act differently due to the actions of my management and their business model. They desire that I accept being #5 for my career - they have demanded that of me. So, I will be the best #5 Captain I can be. No extensions, no radio calls to fix this or that, no pushing to "gitter done" in any way. Just go to work, provide safe transportations to the pax, assuming the company has put everything else in place to support said operation without me doing others work outside of my cockpit. Then go home. Simple, safe, no problems. Do my job and allow others to do theirs.

I also need to start working on my sick leave bank. As a man gets older I have noticed the aches and pains that creep up some days. No point in exacerbating them by sitting in the cockpit all day. I can get paid 25% on the dollar for those unused sick days once I retire or I can get paid 100% on the dollar if I use the sick days before I retire. What to do, what to do.

The really confusing aspect of this to me is that we (Alaska ALPA) apparently are 100% happy with this decision. I may be the only Alaska pilot who has literally had sleepless nights since the award came out. I may very well be the only guy who was kicked in the nuts and is still looking for the frozen peas. Why do I say this? Because we have run a near perfect operations for the last two days since the award. So, a moderate pay raise, still leaving us behind other 737 pilots (and FiFi pilots) and slipping further and further behind with each passing year is A-OK with this pilot group. Hell, management has yet to even acknowledge that there was an award! Not one word, not one breath from our management that anything even happened! And why should they? The operation is running 100%, so all those pilots must be happy! I would have expect at least one other man or woman here to have tossed and turned in bed as much as I have been the last two nights and found themselves unfit for duty the next morning - but I guess not.
Well back to work you highly efficient #5 pilots. Gitter Done!