thepotato232

I agree with almost your whole post JB, except the implication that anyone who no-shows for a class is in any way "less than honorable." It's an industry-wide arms race for qualified pilots at the moment, and for some reason, the ACMI carriers seem to have this attitude that they are drawing from a different pool of applicants from the rest of the airlines. I see it all the time at K4 - perhaps a throwback to the days when management felt entitled to a newly dying legacy carrier to pick the bones of every five years. If a newhire gets a better offer, their loyalty should be to their family who expect their breadwinner will maximize their dollar value per day away from home, not a hiring department who have chosen to believe they can justify middling compensation because of vague intangibles like "lifestyle" and "culture." ACMI has been a welcome surprise for me, but I wouldn't discourage anyone from exploring their options at the earliest possible opportunity.

JohnBurke

You may have missed my point and I may have failed to elaborate; this has been covered in other threads on this site, specifically on that topic.

I have run into enough individuals in recent times who had class dates or tentative offers from the majors ("dream job"), who took a job with an ACMI while waiting, knowing and planning to take the training and run. There is nothing honorable about this act. Some, who have had their training given them, may feel that having more training given them before running away to the brass ring is an okay thing to do. It's not. I don't care which carrier or employer it is. If you accept a job offer and show up for training, knowing you plan to take the type rating and the training, class slot, and pay, and then run away, then you're lower than whale filth. I mean that very sincerely.

Those who accept a class date, knowing they won't be showing up, just taking that class date as a "backup," aren't much higher, in my opinion. The company has reserved a training slot. Someone else got a reject letter after they interviewed. Money has been spent. If someone thinks it's okay to accept an offer then run when they have something more preferable in their pocket...it's not.

I've had some damn good offers come up after I've accepted a job, and I've turned those damn good offers down...because, as I explain to the damn good employers, I wouldn't screw them over, and I won't screw over the operator with whom I have accepted employment.

It used to be that a handshake stood for something. For me it still does. For those for whom it doesn't mean anything, I have nothing but vile contempt, zero respect, and utter distain. Ranks right there with those who bought their jobs. I have no use for such dishonorable individuals, regardless of their excuse. "But, I want it," just doesn't cut it. If you make an agreement, then keep the damn agreement. It really is that simple.

thepotato232

A handshake means something, but it means a hell of a lot less than a contract. ACMI carriers are more than happy to put the screws to pilots when it suits them, as my former co-workers who joined Kalitta and Omni in the Bad Old Days can testify. If an employer cannot offer terms and conditions sufficient to attract and retain newhires in the current environment, it is not a failure of the employee if he or she approaches their job search with the same pragmatism on display by every corporate manager in the country.

An employment offer is not a suicide pact. ACMI carriers are currently only investing enough in their workforce to make themselves attractive prospects until "something better" comes along. Their dissatisfaction comes from the fact that "something better" is coming along a lot faster than it did in 2001 or 2008.

I have worked as an independent contractor for years. I own and manage a small business. Contrary to snide Facebook memes, a failure of management to hire and retain quality employees is rarely a result of the moral degredation of their labor pool. Pilots in the last 20 years have had to adapt to the times at great expense to themselves and their families. I have no sympathy whatsoever for managers who refuse to do so.

I don't mean to be hostile, and I pride myself on the effort I offer my employer so long as all parties choose to maintain my employment. My particular arrangement at my ACMI employer is attractive to me on the basis of my scheduling and residential needs, and on the frankly mind-boggling speed with which I became a 747-400 captain. I re-evaluate that employment arrangement on a daily basis, and I encourage my co-workers to do so as well.

JohnBurke

Either the employee is a bloody idiot taking the job offer in the first place and not knowing the terms, or the employee knows the terms and has agreed to them when he or she accepted the job offer.

Don't like the terms? Don't accept the god damn offer. Real simple.

If you do accept the offer, suck it up and do the damn job.

If you know the terms and deceitfully take the job, knowing you intend to bolt at the first sign of a greener pasture, own the dishonor. It's all yours.

thepotato232

Yes. Read the offer. And read the better offer you get out of the blue immediately after. And do the damn math. And understand you don't owe any CEO a new yacht. I'm glad we agree.

If your CEO thought taking a better offer when it became available was "deceit," you would both be unemployed. Your attitude is contrary to the capitalist fundamentals under which our companies operate. My former employers in China offered similar platitudes when I left for greener pastures back home, and I find them distasteful.

(For the record, they laid off all of their expatriate workers less than three years later.)

JohnBurke

Straw man.

The CEO doesn't solicit offers from job applicants, and then hire based on who is willing to work for the lowest wage. The employer offers a wage, and it's a take-it-or-leave-it proposition.

We're not talking about an employer lowering the bar.

An applicant who researches a company should know exactly what he or she is applying to. He should know the wage. If the wage is unacceptable, then very simple: don't apply.

An applicant who knows the wage and applies, and is subsequently offered a job, knows the wage he is accepting, and once accepted, as agreed to that wage. Pick up one end of the stick, pick up the other.

An applicant who has accepted the job, knowing the wage and the terms of the job, and who plans on taking the training and the type rating, and who plans on leaving the moment he has a shinier penny to mesmerize, is acting in deceit. An employer would not have hired that employee, knowing the employer would be pumping two months of training, hotel, car, meals, perdiem, wage, whatever, into that employee for nothing. Now the employer's training costs have doubled: he's squandered two months on a worthless, deceitful, lying employee, has nothing to show for it, must start over, and must repeat the process to put a warm body on the line. In the meantime, another pilot who wanted that job and applied for that job, has been told to go pound sand. The employer has bet on the deceitful employee, and lost. The employer isn't the only one that has lost. Others who wanted that class slot, who didn't get it, also lost, and for nothing, because it's been deceitfully squandered by a dishonest and disloyal, and dishonorable applicant.

We're not talking about Chinese employers. There are no 99 year contracts in the US. The US isn't China. China is irrelevant.

In the US, in an airline, the employer does not hire an employee, then while that new-hire is in ground school, find another employee who will do the job for a lower wage, fire the former employee, and hire a second. That's not done in airlines.

What is done, and what we're talking about here, because you chose to expand on this point, are dishonorable employees who take a job, knowing they have no intention to keep it, and who take the training and type rating, and move on. We're talking about those who interview, receive an offer and a class date, and never show up. Both, acts of dishonor.

If I receive a job offer from employer A for 200/hour, and accept that offer and a class date, whether I do so by hand shake or a formal letter, I have given my word. If after that time, employer B offers me 400 an hour, I am going to tell employer B that I have made an agreement with employer A. I would not break my word to employer A, and wouldn't do it to employer B. Perhaps another time. I've done that before, and would do it again. Integrity.

If I tell If I ask Sharon to marry me and we have a wedding date set, I am not going to back out because Shirley shows and offers to marry me. I've made a commitment.

I met a man in a class a few years back; he had a number of type ratings and relatively little time. I asked how he had so many type ratings, given his lack of experience. He said he liked to get hired, get the type rating, then go somewhere else and get another. I met another in the same class who was sharp as a tack, and told me that he was only after the type rating, that he intended to jump ship because he had interviews pending in the same type equipment from two other employers. Sure enough, he completed his training and shortly thereafter, went to one of those two employers. Another employee, a new hire, told me he was retired from other employement, and was "just doing this for something to do." He told me he'd get the type rating and probably bail. He did. Three different men, three different backgrounds and walks of life, each equally dishonorable.

It doesn't really matter if it's someone who takes the type rating and runs, or someone who takes the job offer, agrees to show up, and never does. They can justify it however they like, justification being the narcotic of the soul, but it's still deceit, dishonesty, lack of integrity, and dishonor.

Monkeywizz

The wife sent me to the grocery store yesterday to buy some tortilla chips. I grabbed the generic tortilla chips for three dollars. As I was leaving the chips aisle I spotted the name brand super tasty tortilla chips on sale for less than the generic brand.

I still bought those crappy generic chips because I made a commitment to them.

When I arrived home my wife beat me for buying the crappy generic chips.

BlackOcelot

lol, sure. You never turned down $400/hr when sitting on a $200/hr offer. Anyone that would do that, all things being equal, is a fool and I would not take advice from them or care about their opinion.

JohnBurke

I have turned down a 500/hour job, having accepted a 125/hr job, and turned down an offer in a 747 when I was committed to a single engine job. I was later offered the 747 job again, which I took, and later left as captain, for a pay increase in a single engine airplane, making 500 /hour. You may not understand the concept of "fool," well as you think, or honor, but I can say with certainty that none of the employers was left hanging, and I have recommendations from all. Whether you choose to take counsel or not means nothing to me. If you're willing to walk away from a commitment, you mean nothing to me.

At the end of the day, perhaps you'll sell out for a few more bucks, and that will be the price of your integrity.

Each of my offers was sealed with a handshake. My word is my bond. Is yours?

BlackOcelot

....and then they all clapped!