Airline Pilot Central Forums - FDX: your first 10 yrs vs. family

Beatupsuitcase:

Good on you for coming here for advice. Thick skin is needed as one poster put it. Posting here shows you have the balls to get in the ring, take your shots, and maybe you are guy we need. If it was up to me, you'd be hired already, simply due to your bravery. But it isn't, so...

It sounds like if you do get hired, you should move to MEM and suck that up. You sound like you need a day schedule. I'd readjust that thinking. That isn't going to happen. This is primarily a night op for all of us for the first few years and that's just the fact. Like some have said, Memphis isn't the greatest place, but you can make it work for you. Sitting Reserve at home I've heard can be a great thing. The best thing about this place is that there is massive variety and you can do whatever you want...short, long, out and backs, domestic, international, day, night.

NIGHT--You will fly nights and it blows. If I never hub turn again, it won't be too soon. But you're going to likely do it. Assuming that you go to MEM, you could be flying crap for a while, that is, flying a lot of hubturns in the middle of the night. As always, your seniority will dictate what you can get. The 727 and the 757 are workhorses. You will work yourself silly in the middle of the night. Fine. Everyone did it and makes it through it. Some guys like flying the night stuff. Good.

As far as coping, everyone is different. Best comment so far was have a family that understands that you are going to need a day or two to readjust and a wife that cannot expect you to roll in Friday or Saturday AM and be ready to be functional. There is no way around the crushing fatigue that you will deal with during a weeklong hubturn. I can't tell you what will work. My experience has always been commuting, so I added a jumpseat on Monday night and I NEVER followed all this advice I'm about to give. I did it all opposite of what I'm telling you, and it hurt me. However, I'm going to assume that if you are lucky enough to get hired here and seeing as you'd like a day schedule (which is slightly whiny and idyllic, which sounds quite soft to us hardened dudes on this board...which is why you caught attitude in the early posts, deservedly so), you might have to wait for it for a while. But, that's all I'll say on that. So, IF I lived in base, here's what I would do:
1) Monday. Resist doing anything big. Like mowing the lawn, driving home from vacation, reroofing your house, anything stressful will just have to wait a week. Go into work early, around 9. Study FOM for help to get drowsy and you can sound very smart when someone has an FOM question in the middle of the night (good for those probationary reports). Sleep until 2 and go to work. Sleep all day. Eat/workout 3-5, nap until alert. ***Do not let any Captain invite you to sleep until 10:45 AM so you can be at the bar at 11:00 AM and have a few pops until the exact time he has calculated for you in advance (thanks!) because "This job doesn't have to suck and there is NO reason not to have fun on the layovers!". He might even offer to pay for EVERYTHING, including all your drinks and food for the whole week! Resist this tactic. Being hammered at 11:30 AM is no way to get around the system. Your sleep in the afternoon, while slightly rotational, will not be restful. After doing this for a week, you'll likely be more unsafe than normal. Save your drinking and your liver for when you have a 80 hour layover in Paris or when are so senior that you can do SIBA and you drink whatever you want while flirting with 70 year old, US flight attendants from your awful World Business Class seat on an airline named Delta, because they think you are "cute"...you aren't...they just have no perspective anymore. Clearly, I've digressed--this post is almost becoming more about me entertaining my friends here on this board rather than giving you good advice. Sorry...I'm recovering from a week of hubturns and I'm exhausted...oops, nope! ;-)
2) Tuesday. Don't yap during the hubturn. You'll be moderately functional. Grab the nearest FOM and sleep (plus get smarter...less work later when you upgrade to Captain)! Suffer to the outstation. Feel like you want to die when you realize you only have 3-4 days left. Make sure your FFDO manpurse has the locks firmly in place.
3) Wednesday. Uggh. Work out earlier in the day. Just get through it. Eat your Scooby for dinner and skip the 5 o'clock kibbitzing...it isn't that interesting...just another view of some of our finest in their jeans and tennies. Maybe they'll buy you dinner, but probably not...remember, they aren't thinking straight either at this point and/or are cheap (this does not go for international and is NOT tolerated--they will pay and you will go out). Resecure all bullets.
4) Thursday. Almost there hero! Of course, you are hating it by now. Skip your workout today. Ask your kids NOT to refer to you as Dad, because you'd rather have them call you by your name...so you can remember it.
5) Friday. You almost can't see and pray to God that you are going short westbound (Wichita or Tulsa should be your bid--sorry, you're on Reserve, so make it ummm, Boise), because long eastbound is a pain that you don't need today (like Portland or Providence or JFK). Pray for a DH later today. If DHing, delay your sleep as long as possible for a quick shift back into normal. Don't deviate and ride the jumpseat to get home sooner and save the money. NO! Spend the money, ride the schedule and get home on time. Your family would rather you are home rested and functional rather than shot and worthless. You'll be babbling by Friday anyway, you'll be lucky to even find the pax terminal, so just go to the hotel and work out and take the schedule later that night. Delay your sleep as long as possible. If you do, you'll be fine by Friday night. Saturday will be hazy in this scenario, but you can do a few things. ***The urge to turn around and go right home is extremely powerful. My experience was that it was better to get a little more quality sleep because I was borderline incoherent on the last day and my reasoning was so flawed thinking it would be better to go home. Everyone would rather see a moderately rested Dad on Friday or Saturday night rather than a raging prick coming home late morning on the last day, who can barely get undressed. It just starts a fight and that ruins your weekend...and into your week. TRUST ME!
6) Saturday. If your week ends here, that blows. It took me until Monday to recover. I always planned to be nearly non-functional the entire first day back home, whichever day it was, and I ALWAYS succeeded. Beg for an upcoming bid and dream what your schedule would look like if you didn't have to layover in South Bend...

--NO decisions within 24 hours of getting home...on anything. Thumb firmly on the remote and answer to almost no one. Do not answer any phone calls with a 901 area code--draft always comes ONLY on the first day back, usually within minutes/hours of you walking in the door.
--Tell your family that you must have quiet the first day back and that you will need a nap that afternoon, but that you can watch them play in the yard and that you are NOT going to a restaurant that night. Suggest a play date for this afternoon for your kids. Send wife shopping, or better yet, cheekily ask if she'd like to take a nap with you. Sorry, that was "nap".
--Second day home, you can accept small fighting from the kids, but NO attitude from anyone yet. NO yelling or loud noise. Moderate to normal activity. Take your wife out...this will help her attitude the next day...hopefully. Take her out big and you might get a bonus extra day of goodness!
--Third day back. NO excuses, get to work and take whatever the gang gives you. You've got a full week before you have to do it again.
--Bid off the hubturning asap. If you do live in MEM, God help you, but bid out and backs. More like a real job.
--Once you can hold international, do that and live where you want. Vow to never hubturn again. Move out of MEM and hope you can sell your house and make money...that last part is a joke! Bwaaahahahahaha!
--Melatonin can help on the first day back.
--Drinking does NOT help on any of the first few days home--it always made me feel like I was adding a day to the recovery. It works great during your week off. Standard.
--Don't believe that you'll adjust to this type of schedule. You will not. You'll just gut it out and you can do that for a while, but it isn't healthy. The weeks spent swapping all the time will eventually become a blur and you'll start noticing how blown out everyone looks in the AOC. Bleary eyes, general slothfulness, malaise, apathy...it's a joy. Bad lighting in that hellhole only makes it worse! But apparently, we've been told "We don't have a fatigue problem here at FedEx." Right.
--IF you do international eventually, live within a one leg commute of your base.
--Do not explain to the family how "fun" your trip is and how cool the bros are. It will sound like a vacation and you'll have a harder time convincing anyone that you need sleep because flying is "hard work".
--International jet lag can be easier to manage (my experience), especially if you are not trying to commute from say, Anchorage to say, Savannah. That action will kill you fast!

That's it dude! Sleep, no decisions, bid out fast. Oh, and check six when driving in MEM. That could save your life more effectively than not flying hubturns on some screaming airplane with your buds whom you want to have dinner with every night at 5 could care less what you are doing back there, or even if you are there, as long as the coffee is hot and the engines have some of that gas running into them, even if it is completely out of balance!

Good luck to you.

Wildmanny, out! :D