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Old 03-12-2019, 01:17 PM
  #132  
TheGreatSantini
On Reserve
 
Joined APC: Mar 2019
Position: 4000+ hours TT, 700 NVG
Posts: 13
Default The bad

So I mentioned the good. Now the bad.

Schedule Changes: I have no idea what my schedule will be in 2 weeks. And whatever is posted has a 50% chance it will be changed. My wife doesn't make dinner anymore unless I tell her Im on the way home,

Seniority: We have absolutely no seniority. Except the rate we earn leave. Besides that.

There is no seniority for
your schedule
your days off
your vacation days
what aircraft you fly
who go TDY
when and if you PCS
what you will do tomorrow at work
any position in the office (training, instructor, firearms)

So a pilot with 30 years and age 56 just jammed worse then a new pilot with no quals.


Vacation Time and Days at Work:
This is interesting. After a few years many of us prior military will earn 8 hours Vacation Time.

Here are all the benefits you may be eligible for. Per year.
26 vacation days (work days NOT calendar days)
10 paid federal holidays ( you will likely worth half of them)
15 paid days for guard or reservists
13 days paid sick leave (plan on using 5 per year)


That's 10 weeks of excused and paid work or 42 weeks.

42 weeks x 5 days = 210 work days per year or 17 days per month.


so you say.. hey, that's about what a SWA flies. Well not really.

That's 17-20 days per month your entire career. Remember. No seniority. No moving up. No long haul. No bidding reserve.

Your last year WILL be as painful as your first year here.

Ohh.. but we sleep in our own bed every night?

Well not so fast. We do often go TDY to garden spots like Tucson or McAllen, and at home we often work nights. So that means working until midnight. Driving home. Sneaking into the house at 1am. Sleeping in your own bed, then having everyone in the house wake you up at 7am when they go to school.


Its not terrible. But it must be considered.


How do others do it??

MEDFLIGHT:
12 hours on, 12 hours off. 7 days on 7 days off
Wow.. 7 days off in a row sounds nice.
Sleeping during shift sounds nice too.


Almost forgot. The flying. We have become very focused on flight hours. Don't know why. Maybe its the pilot shortage. Competing with USCG or plain stupidity. But flying circles over the same stretch of desert or water gets old. We aren't doing overnight trips to Cancun with 20 hour layovers. It can be 6 hours in the same 20x20 mile box. With little to zero hope of actually accomplishing anything because the weather is marginal, nobody on the ground, or just no real intel. Just "patrolling".

About as exciting as driving a fire truck around the Sahara desert looking for a house fire.

Good friend is a fireman. They stay in shape. They are meticulous about keeping their equipment in top working order and they sleep and rest when there is no fire. That truck goes to fires, schools and the local Applebees. When there is a fire, they are ready and so is the equipment. We fly to fly, land tired, then go back up flying because somebody may have seen a fire.

Computer Systems: I swear there is some sick IT jokester at our HQ. We constantly change travel systems, nobody seems to know how to work out the bugs, HR is absolutely no help. Our systems are probably our number one enemy. A day doesn't go by that somebody in the office has some sort of IT based issue. An error message, locked up, cant figure it out. Whatever. It is incredible the amount of lost time we spend battling our own computer systems. Our IT systems:
Payroll
training
flight logs
travel
DHS training
Im sure I forgot one. Mind boggling how poorly they function.


Like someone said. You can be the highest paid single engine piston pilot in the entire country... before your divorce.
TheGreatSantini is offline