Im new to 121 pax flying and I see plenty of cpts releasing the brake early.

I feel for you. Honestly dont see 2 checkride busts years ago being a big deal, thats how you learn. Sucks hiring is still hyper competitive and thats the discriminator.

Hopefully you get a call, good luck

On a side note, I have a friend with a felony (stole a car) from 25 yrs ago get hired by 3 legacies recently. Thought he would never get a call but he finally did and all within 2 months of each other

But don't do it on your checkride.

There are too many guys out there with experience, hard to discriminate. At least checkride busts might have relevance to aviation, unlike volunteer work or affirmative action criteria.

That's about how long I'd expect it would take to get over something like that, assuming he was a teenager.

Piece of check airman advice—get in the habit of doing it right by the book BEFORE “going into business for yourself”. I’d bet more recurrent and line checks get busted over bad habits developed “on the line” than actual knowledge deficiencies. Know how to do the task correctly. If it’s done wrong, at least, make a mental note so the correct way is ingrained. Flying has lots of ways to accomplish tasks, but many can innocently get you a bust.

GF

The above is great advice. I am not smart enough to learn two different ways to do things.

I was just cutting the guy some slack and showing some compassion.

Yup. Learn it right the first time, then practice it on every leg. If you must make minor deviations, each time you do so silently remind yourself that you're about to deviate from SOP... then hopefully you can catch yourself before you do it on a checkride.

Normalization of deviance and all that…
If something isn’t going to be standard, just say it out loud so that the other guys know that you know, and you have a specific reason for changing it at that point time.
I.e., putting the landing gear down before flaps come out in order to slow down, intercepting the localizer in FMS, temporarily exceeding a normal descent rate.

That too...

We used to do the old school whiz wheel and paper W&B forms on that airplane, which usually took awhile once we got the bag and pax counts. It was standard to release the brake to block out by departure time and hand the paperwork out the window. As long as the before start check was done prior, and you verified with the ramp that it was safe to do so. Not justifying it, but that was what we used to do. My before start check was not complete however, and ballast was still being loaded. Like I said, just a dumb mistake, one that probably has delayed my career for years. So it goes.

Did I learn from it? Absolutely. Since then I've never allowed myself to be rushed by anything. I've gotten into it with a few pushy gate agents over the years because of this, and sometimes we are out 2 mins late because since that day I'm no longer willing to play those games. But everything is done correctly before the brake is released.

Safety-related items like the parking brake and the rotating beacon should never have been linked to crew pay or on-time statistics. It creates a dangerous conflict of interest, and will eventually lead to injuries. :(