You must have me mistaken with someone else because I'm not miserable at NJA. If it were so bad, I would not have been there so long. I'm not saying its a perfect job and does not have its problems, but if you are a biz jet kind of guy you can't beat it. You just have to understand that you have many hats to wear.
IMO its simply the best place to be IF you like the bizjet stuff. If you don't like bizjet stuff, or doing some extra duties, NO fractional will make you happy. Not a shot at you or anyone else, but you need a healthy sense of humility and genuinely good work ethic to be there. Anyone who can handle that will be quite happy there.
But I'm an airline type of guy. I like the stability of knowing what time I will start on any given day in the bid period, and I like the routine (some hate the same 50 airports thing, but I actually like that). I have been wanting to be an airline guy since I was a little kid, its all I wanted to do. I had a couple commuter flying jobs at now defunct airlines and even the commuter flying was what I liked best. Not that NJA is bad....I just like predictability in the day to day routine. But not enough to apply at DL,UA or AA. I just have no desire to do the NY base thing. And I like the personality of SWA. I'm not starry eyed thinking its Herb's little airline anymore, but they definitely have the best style of any of the others to a guy like me. Everybody has a place that fits them, and that's just my preference. SWA is the only airline I have applied to since getting on board at NJA. Ever.
Why did I wait so long? Well, at first, no 737 type not the $$$ to get it. Then the 737 type requirement went away, good news. But with the nearly 14 year upgrade, the 1000 TPIC wasn't quite there. Then when I got that magic 1000, it was just so many applicants to get through until the bar came down far enough for them to get to me .
So the point of this homily is....you are thinking of someone else, or you are thinking of the right guy but don't know a thing about him.