TiredSoul

Spartan, how would you respond if your new employer terminates you during training because they ‘found a better pilot’?
It’s too late now but don’t do this sort of stuff.
You accepted the job, that comes with responsibilities.
Pay the training cost.

LRSRanger

Employment should be a mutually beneficial, two way street. Especially when all they gave him was a week of indoc and a couple hours of flight time. Now he either has to pay up or serve a year of indentured servitude? And he didn't even sign anything?

Why should we always side with the (potentially scumbag) operator that isn't willing to offer a good enough opportunity to new hires to compel them to stay?

And since you bring up integrity and honor, that also is a two way street. No verbal or written contract means he's not on the hook in any way whatsoever, but the company still wants to send him a bill. Sounds to me like they said their contract kicked in AFTER the checkride, and now they want to go back on their word and bill him anyway. So who's integrity is really in question here?

If we want to start billing for things that there is no legal basis to bill for, he should send them a bill for his time and energy wasted at a sub-par operation that equals the amount of their invoice.

galaxy flyer

Tired Soul,

Put that way, it’s clear why employers do NOT do such things even in the days past—if they acted that way, they’d have no employees. Somehow, whenthongs reverse, it’s ok.


GF

JohnBurke

Sounds like he quit during training, not after a checkride. After all, he made a point of telling us that he received nothing but basic indoc. This is a lie however, as he said he also received flight training. Basic indoc has nothing to do with flight training.

Regardless of how far he got through training before he quit and left the employer high and dry, he did accept the job, did accept the training, and then ran away.

Your comments remind me very much of an individual who came to us years ago for a job. I was flying a single engine air tanker at the time, and we told the gentleman that he needed more tailwheel experience. He had six hundred hours or so, but all in an RV-6, which really didn't count. Something bigger. He went to an operator near Reno who towed gliders. He managed to tow one glider before balling up the tow aircraft on landing, destroying both the aircraft and the employer's business. He then returned to us, and said he'd flown a bigger airplane, and wanted a job. He still had no experience.

When we asked what happened, the pilot told us that the crash didn't count, because he wasn't being paid yet. As he wasn't really a full employee, it didn't matter. He simply destroyed the airplane and walked away.

You're attempting to suggest that the employer is somehow obligated to the original poster because the original poster took the training and ran? It's hard to fathom that you really attempted to suggest such an idiotic concept. No, the original poster has no grounds to bill the employer for "wasting his time." Did the original poster not know the terms before he started? He did. Did he not know the wage? He did. Did he not know the nature of the flying? He did. He accepted these things, and made the decision to go to work.

Indentured servitude? It's a ******* job. It's not slavery. He accepted a job. A paying job.

A job requires training, and that's an expense on the part of the employer, who invests his time and money. The employer also has an opportunity cost. The employer has stopped looking for another employee, one with better skills and more integrity, because a mutual agreement has been reached; the employer will train the original poster, and the original poster has agreed to be trained. Instead, the original poster took the job, meanwhile entertaining offers from other employers (got engaged, but kept dating around in the days leading up to the wedding), and then jilted the employer and ran off with a new employer during the wedding ceremony.

As others pointed out above, it's not okay for an employer to tell an employee that the employer has found a better employee, after the employee has been hired and is in training. The time for that is between interview and job offer. After that, it's not acceptable. An employer who does that is going to get a bad reputation among employees, and will be considered unreliable, disreputable, and dishonorable.

An applicant may, and often does, entertain multiple job offers or interviews while looking for a job. It's acceptable to receive an offer and not accept the offer. It's acceptable to interview and not go to work for that employer. It's not acceptable to accept a job offer, begin training, and then leave, which is what the original poster did.

The original poster may or may not have a legal obligation based on an oral contract or duty based on an agreement. Most likely it's not worth the cost of legal effort to recover on the part of the employer. The original poster, however, should at least offer to repay the employer. In this case, the employer has presented a bill. Rather than try to find a way to get out of it, the original poster should settle with the employer and make a clean break.

LRSRanger

Alright, it's a party.

What he did say, is that the employer stated that there would be a training contract if he quit AFTER the checkride. He quit before the checkride. Thus he owes nothing. If they wanted to pro rate the payback based on training received, this should have been the agreement. My major source of heartburn with the operator is that they said X, and now they want Y.

I guess that's one way to put it. My first aviation job was a small VFR 135 operation. During training and my first few weeks on the job, it became obvious that there were some serious issues. The owner was new to aviation and thought he could take his lawyer to the FSDO and win. The DO, CP, and DOM were all openly hostile to the POI. There were safety concerns. The FAA came and audited us, and every pilot at the operation received LOI's. If I could give some advice to my 500-hour self, it would have been to QUIT. Quit in training, quit after the checkride, quit in the first month. Luckily I didn't get a violation there, but some others did.

I'm not saying the OP was at this kind of operation, but I just can't buy off on the idea that once I hear the magical words "your hired" I can't get to know the operation a little better and then say it's not the place for me. Sounds like he bounced pretty quickly, even if he did receive a flight or two.

That escalated quickly.

Deciding to gracefully bow out of training a week into it doesn't equal balling up an airplane and walking away. Not even in the same ballpark. The OP sounds like a new pilot wading through typical bottom of the barrel, time building companies and trying to make the best living he can. Your example sounds like a complete narcissistic idiot.

I'll try to spell this out one last time. The operator stated that if the OP quit after the checkride, they would attempt to recoup training costs. The OP resigned before the checkride. They are trying to recoup costs that are outside the oral agreement. The point I was (and am still) trying to make is that their attempt to recoup costs from him outside the oral agreement is baseless, just as if he was to bill them for something outside their agreement would be baseless.

Here's Wikipedia's definition of the term: "An indentured servant or indentured laborer is an employee (indenturee) within a system of unfree labor who is bound by a signed or forced contract (indenture) to work for a particular employer for a fixed time."

If you don't see the connection to the concept of a high dollar training contract for a set period of service I'm not going to bother trying to connect the dots for you, but in this case the training contract was stated to go into effect after the checkride, which they now are trying to change after the fact.



You must have an incredible amount of heartburn with the industry right now. Mil guys go to regionals to get current, and get picked up by majors, sometimes right out of IOE. I had a class date with my first choice regional till an ACMI called and I dropped them like a hot potato. There's a guy in my class who was almost done with training at some other operator when he got the call. There's so much movement going on right now, if an outfit wants to staff their operation they had better get with the program or their pilots are going to get poached, sometimes right out of training. This is the best market for pilots in years and I for one think it's great. It's management and lower-tiered operator's greatest nightmare. You sound like you might be on the management's side of the house.

JB, I generally appreciate your posts on APC. If the OP met the conditions of the oral agreement, then you and I would most likely agree. However, he is outside the contract so in this case I don't believe the outfit he went to training for has any basis to charge him for anything.

pugpilot

Wrong.

Pilots out there - do what is best for you and your family.

JohnBurke

You don't know that at all. What entails a legal duty in one jurisdiction does not in another, and far too little information has been given. What the original poster owes is unknown, as he (or she) hasn't provided enough information, as stated multiple times.

What he or she is legally obligated to pay is likely irrelevant in that the employer will almost certainly incur expenses in excess of that amount if an attempt to collect is made.

It is also irrelevant because the original poster should pay the bill and walk away cleanly as a matter of professionalism and honor. It appears, based on the asking of the question, that this is also irrelevant, as the original poster is in possession of neither.

All of which is entirely irrelevant to this discussion. The original poster has clearly stated that he exited training due to a better offer, not due to unsafe conditions, aircraft, operations, or an untenable working environment or legal concerns.

You're attempting to assert indentured servitude on behalf of a training contract?

Training contracts exist precisely because of dishonorable pilots who can't live according to a handshake.

Not long ago I ran into a young man with 2,000 hours and nine type ratings. No experience, and he hadn't worked with the type ratings...just had them on his certificate. He had a habit of taking the training and running. He was attempting his tenth when I met him. He failed the training and left, fortuantely, but it's individuals such as him (and the original poster) who make an agreement and then break it, who damage the industry at large. Your apology on his behalf does not change the fact.

I've no heartburn with the industry whatsoever. I've likely worked in it far longer than you and have seen far more, and your comments are no surprise. Nothing new under the sun.

That you're an apologist for the original poster is because you're of the same stock; equally as dishonorable, you're party to the same sin, and defend him thanks to your own guilt.

I'm quite aware that military pilots have a long history of such dishonor. I've seen it extensively. I saw eight of them take type ratings at one company, and then run, apparently under the belief that the free world owed them a living and they had no obligation on their part. After all, their training and career had been given them.

After number eight, the employer slapped a training contract on all new hires.

Such who take the training and run are those who defecate in their own bed, and upon the industry that supports them. You may attempt to justify your acts, justification being the narcotic of the soul, but at some point your behavior will be the same bed in which you must lay and it will bite you, and continues to bite others.

No need to respond further; your admonition to the original poster to move on and don't look back is borne of your own indiscretion and dishonor. Your agenda is clear. You did it, so he should too. That would make you the cheating husband, wouldn't it? Again, no need to respond, your effort further will only be biased rhetoric.

So far as the original poster goes, pay the damn money and move on, clean.

If you feel that includes dishonor and lies, then it speaks poorly for you. However, if you feel you must, then make good by paying back the money and move on.

I've lost track of the number of times I've had offers that were better than my current job at the time, and I told the employer the same thing each time: I wouldn't do it to you, I won't do it to them. I've given up some very good offers based on that fact that my employer and I had an understanding, over a handshake.

I've also had employers that initiated a training contract based on the bad behavior of new hires. I quit. I won't work for such companies.

If you do choose to work for a company that has a training contract, then honor the damn thing.

If you agree to accept a job, then either do it, or if you bail at the first whiff of a few dollars more, then pay back the employer and move on.

Show a little integrity.

LRSRanger

More hyperbole, just like your narriative of the guy who crashed the plane. This is obviously not descriptive of the OP's situation or question.


Holy ****, I'm getting the popcorn for that one!


Thanks for a good chuckle, do you talk like that at social events?


I wonder if you can buy a new bass boat or fill your 401k with smug satisfaction?

This.

JohnBurke

Vastly improved.

SpartanFlyer

Yep. That's what I did.