JamesBond

winner.


Guys talk a big game, but when it actually comes down to pulling the handles, very few actually do sans some external catalyst.

hindsight2020

Right, so even less incentive to stick around for a retirement based on compounding interest, when I otherwise have a small pension in the bag. Furthermore, schedule is never truly yours until you retire in earnest, especially for a guy with less than 15 years of longevity. If I ever make the switch I'm setting myself up for a late 50s exit. Less than 20 years in a second career is simply too little time to make it worth it.

Fact remains, Americans are workaholics as a collective. Blame it on vestiges of pilgrim work ethic and/or a dilution of pay as a function of productivity (which is in the bozosphere for americans) and you get this second marriage dynamic to one's job. Don't get me started on the misopedic nature to most work environments (which are now getting called to task by the sheer number of women and single parents in the workforce). America is a tough place to make family a priority, regardless of income potential.

Not me though. I wasn't raised pilgrim and have no quarrel with retiring at 57 regardless of what I'm doing. I rather go grab an additional 10 years of active lifestyle to do as I wish before things start slowing down. I've seen it in my boomer parents. People in their 40s overestimate their level of activity and health in their mid 60s when they decide to project these "money over time" extensions at work. To each their own though.

JamesBond

I disagree with this. At the current time, you can be senior in a junior category and pick rather than bid your schedule. I am guessing the #1 FO on the 717 has a pretty sweet lifestyle right now. Just guessing, but if not, he is passing up more money for a similar lifestyle.

And if you can and do pull the plug in your mid 50s, good for you. I think that's awesome. There are lots of guys here that could have but didn't for whatever reason. This lifestyle doesn't suck regardless of what some social media sites say.

gloopy

Yeah but a PFO doing super premium long haul working 9 days a month can't touch that in the 717 doing 90% uncommutable trips with 2 bag drags a day and 3am wake ups for a max duty day with no nap and whatever's left in the basket after second service.

JamesBond

Not everybody can handle 14 time zones. One of my contemporaries bid 7ER when we all got kicked off of Express, and couldn't wait to get off of it because of the time zone thing. That's the nice thing about working here rather than LUV. Options


One man's trash

Ferd149

True..........Lazy Ferd and Responsible Ferd are always in conflict! What keeps me from going a little early (thinking about another summer commute makes me want to puke) is my wife keeps coming up with expensive household projects that we need to do "while you're still making money".

Ferd

Ferd149

You're sorta right........if you look at human motivation from a historical perspective, we are only motivated by achievement or affiliation. People motivated by affiliation never left the old country. The new world was mostly settled by second and third sons who weren't going to inherit anything, so they came for gold, adventure, land etc.

I saw it all the time in a NATO unit in the military. The only guys sitting around doing paperwork after 4pm were Americans.....most Europeans went home to their families or to the bar.

gloopy

Agreed. There's also the coast-coast-coast-coast trips on the 75 and 73 (and to a much more limited case the 320). My reply was to refute sailing's claim that top tier FO's would also be top tier captains. That's not the case most of the time, and when it is its usually only the case in limited circumstances like 717/88A where the flying (especially at the lower seniority) is much worse than what you'd have to give up to get it.

Not to mention, senior captains can roll thunder in some categories, but they can't ever triple dip the buddy bid gravy train.

BobZ

Its far less frequent for the A position. But it can happen.

In a category standing up there are potential A trip buys that would clear one in hot on overlapping flying.

And if you happen to bid a trip that fits the cpo's plan...it can lead to a buy that again opens the door.

notEnuf

I'm planning to go early, then it will be on my terms. Financially I could do it now but the lifestyle would change. 58 is the target but that just gives me freedom to decide at any moment. Keep 'em guessing.