Originally Posted by
FlyJSH
After watching Saab's thread "Who else is tired?", I thought a less glum thread might be in order. So let's hear from you folks who are generally happy with where you are (especially those of you who have changed carreers to start flying).
I live at my base and love stand ups: two legs per "day" and roughly 22 hours per month. So I get only get gaurntee, but why work 3-4 times as hard to get 10% more take home? And since nobody else seems to bid stand-ups, I can pretty much get the pick of the litter.
By no means, is everything perfect, but, not a horrible gig either. Yeah, I would like better pay, but there is no company that could afford to pay me what I am worth
Having not read all of Saab's thread (read the first page or two and then needed to go find a drink!
) I can honestly say that I am happy doing this job. I worked in the IT world for 2 years before getting into professional aviation and even though I made good money and was home every night I HATED it. The work was tedious, the scenery never changed, had to spend lots of my free time studying to stay on top of upcoming technology... In short, I was miserable. The line in Office Space where he says "every single day of my life has been worse than the day before it. So that means that every single day that you see me, that's on the worst day of my life," LITERALLY changed my life. I think if you have had the oppurtunity to have a real job outside of aviation you start to appreciate how good we really have it. Early mornings, late nights, unexpected delays, being jerked around and loads of BS from morons who don't know what they were talking about...saw just as much of it in the IT world as I do in the aviation world.
I work at the same company as Saab, I live in base and I can honestly say that I look forward to this job more than any other job I have ever had. I made $50/k last year as a second year FO, bought a house, am actually building wealth instead of eeking by, traveled the world for next to nothing (in BusinessFirst most of the time), had some good times on overnights and both the girlfriend and I enjoy the hell out of "day-4 sex"
So yes, I am happy. Are there some things that I get annoyed with? Yes. Do I wish I got paid more? Who doesn't. Would I trade it for something else? Not a chance. So yes, I am happy.
I guess I should add that I am not one of these guys that gets bent out of shape if I don't upgrade in 2 years or have to spend more than 3-4 years at a regional. The main reason for that is I don't know what's next. With all these places going bust and merger mania starting to take off I don't know what and when my next move will be. So maybe I am happy because I came to a company that I knew I'd be fine being "stuck" at for a while. If you went to some poophole of a regional then I can see why you might be hating life. Better get used to it though...seems like we might be here a while.