Originally Posted by flensr

"Wearing the hat" goes way beyond a piece of the uniform. For someone like me, it also means buying into a hiring process and corporate culture that prioritizes things like high school GPA and personal volunteer hours over flying related skills and accomplishments. 40 minutes getting grilled over my high school GPA, disregarding entirely my 3.95 GPA in my masters degree program because it was correspondence, and fixating on a variety of other things like how many books I read a year (a lot) and how many hours I volunteer outside of work (not much due to 2 special needs kids at home), convinced me that "wearing the hat" was never ever going to be a good fit for me. They hated me, and I came away convinced that I didn't want to work for them if they cared more about time at the soup kitchen than taking care of my family and not sucking at stuff like, you know, flying.

That's what "wearing the hat" means, more than just a stupid thing you put on your head. It's the entire corporate attitude behind what they want to see in the hiring process. That's not me, never was, never could be, never will be. I'm honest enough with myself to know that they're simply not looking for someone "like me". I like to think I'm pretty good at what I claim to be good at, which is doing that pilot stuff and taking care of my family. All those other things that they wanted to talk about during the interview, that's someone else who isn't me, and I'm ok with never ever trying to be the person they're looking to hire. I don't think it's dishonest or short-sighted to plainly say I'd never again apply to work there. It's not a good fit. They know it, I know it. No point trying to force the issue so it's just a no. I'm not gonna wear the hat.