Originally Posted by
mathteacher
Just given my track record at UAL I'm assuming I'm furloughed for the third time for a few years...I know doom and gloom but that has been my experience as an early 2000 hire...I just asked my Dad, an old time Pan Am guy and my uncles, old time PSA guys...have they ever heard of one moron getting furloughed by the same airline three times? They had never heard of
a. someone like me dumb enough to keep coming back to get kicked in teeth every 5 or 6 years (that's from my Dad), or
b. any airline being that inept without going out of business.
Anybody ever hear of one airline furloughing three times for the same relative seniority group?
The seasonal laborer metaphor is one I like. Every few years I come back to this place, work for a while, and then am off for a while. Look at it that way and you will begin to think of this not as a career, but just a job. You really don’t have much invested in them, and they certainly don’t have much invested in you. You put in minimum effort most of the time and possibly a bit more....but only if and when you feel like it. What you do here doesn’t define you; other things you do in your life define you and you pursue other employment and activities during your long stretches of off time.
So that logically segues into the concessions discussion. Since you’ve accepted the fact that you are just a seasonal laborer, would you want your part-time job to offer max pay and benefits and good working conditions for the periods of time you were active? Or would you want conditions, pay, and benefits to be variable, unpredictable, and uncertain every time you reported for a stretch of work? The choice is clear. Full pay and good conditions until the last day (for now) of my seasonal job, please.