GSP848

Hello all, I am a private pilot, about done with my instrument and really looking forward to my commercial. I hope this is an appropriate category for this post. I know I still have quite a ways to go but I am always thinking about my career options, if you could humor me, I would appreciate it!

I have looked into the corporate route and I really think I would like the work. The client interaction, day to day variety, planning most of the aspects about the trip, etc. all seem like a rewarding experience to me. I just had some questions about your quality of life for anyone with that type of experience. I have heard of aircraft staffed with three pilots in a rotating 2 week on call, one week off type of schedule. I think that sounds great, personally, but I wonder how common that actually is.....Maybe more on the rare side?

For a two pilot operation you would always be on call but I would guess that you usually know about your trips a ways in advance but maybe not always. If you work this type of schedule, how do you work around Dr.s appointments, family get togethers, any kind of "weekend outing" with the family, etc.? I know this is the weak point of corporate and I'm sure it depends on if you have a decent boss or not. But let's suppose you have an average-to-decent boss (because no one WANTS to work for the terrible boss) how much/how do they accommodate? Contract pilots? Is there a certain number of times your boss allows the use of a contract pilot for those sorts of things? Would you just let them know the things you want to do and they provide you with a copy of their schedule to work around and then you have a handshake to say it'll all work out? I can't imagine that guaranteed days off is a thing in the corporate world but there are certain things that you have to plan ahead for to live in society so I'm curious how the "average-to-decent" corporate job handles these.

Anyway, like I said, I have plenty of time to worry about these things later, and who knows what route my career will go but if you have a moment to share your experience, that would be great! Thanks!

Edit: I should ad that I understand that often there is simply no way to make it work and you have to miss or cancel something. I'm just curious about HOW you typically go about approaching the schedule problem.