I remember my RJ days, flying with the real senior dipsh*ts who went out of their way to do whatever they can to delay or cancel flights because “this will fix things”. Last flight of the day and there we are going back to the hotel past all the stranded passengers because a bonding strap on a gear door was “frayed” or something. A real champion of aviation these knuckleheads were. That same guy had no issues telling FA’s how the world worked or would cuss out rampers because they tapped on the side of the plane to get our attention for something. They’d spend the whole four day trip talking about how it’s not fair they never got that call from Delta.

When I got to Spirit it was like night and day the attitudes of the captains I flew with. 9 out of 10 people I flew with took reasonable and systematic approaches to handling difficult situations on the ground and in the air. The few outliers I ran into, it was gonna be a long trip. Sitting in that left seat now, I see the dumb stuff that goes on that I ignored on the right side. It absolutely is eye opening but never once did I think throwing a temper tantrum was going to solve a problem. Maybe cancelling a flight over water is an option when you just don’t try hard enough.