Originally Posted by
Myfingershurt
I’m not saying the jobs not awesome. However, if you’re not lucky enough to discover it when your young, and pay your dues at a time in life when others aren’t dependent on you, then you’re going to go through a whole lot of misery unless you’re just extremely lucky. There’s no way in the world if i was making good money doing something else, that i would put my family through regional hell. It would be irresponsible. I was lucky enough to get all the crap out of the way before i got married and had kids. I guarantee his wife has no idea what’s coming down the pipe over the next five years. A midlife crisis is no reason to upend your life.
Plenty of people do the career change, for very good reasons. You do have to carefully consider your family, and likely approach the process differently than if you were single/childless. I lingered in the regionals until I got a job offer that was guaranteed drive to work with almost no paycut.
Also many pilots don't comprehend what it takes to "make good money doing something else". Most real white-collar jobs are not like being an airline CP... hang around the office, drink lattes, play solitaire, shoot the breeze, maybe go fly a jet once every week or two. Worst case, CP gets fired for some reason, he goes back to the line for multi-six figures. Real jobs have serious stresses and QOL ramifications (and no union protections).