Looking For Job Satisfaction Instead
 

This article is about how older workers traded in their old careers for something with less prestige, less pay, fewer benefits, but lots more job satisfaction. You do not have to be an older worker, although I understand they are more financially able to take lower paying jobs than a younger person just starting out. However, there is enough food for thought here.

Older workers trade money for less stress - Careers- msnbc.com

I Agree
 

I believe that aviation makes more sense as a retirement job after the kids are grown and the money is in the bank.

Skyhigh

Taking another hit !!!!!!!!!!!
 

Let me get this straight, retiree has money coming in and takes another job after so- called retirement and will take said job at lower wage .
Anyone see anything wrong with this ?
Just about burst a blood vessel when I read this .:rolleyes:
STOP lowering the pay for those that come into the workforce behind you !!!!!!!!!!!
OOP'S my mistake it's all about them !!!:mad:

Your friendly neighborhood cargo capt .
Fred

Just Yesterday
 

Just yesterday I had a conversation with an ex-delta pilot who fly's for netjets as a retirement job.

What about the 40 year old retired military pilot? They have a nice retirement rolling in every month to supplement their crummy wages. They certainly do not have the same sence of urgency when contract time comes around like the rest.

The concept of using aviation as a retirement job is really fairly established and mainstream.

Skyhigh

Huh?? Nobody is saying the retirees are lowering the bar for others by accepting lower wages. They are switching careers and accepting jobs that pay less than their prior jobs. The jobs they are accepting pay them the prevailing wage and it is the same wage it will pay to a younger person.

This is not about the old versus the young. Pilots have been put into the situation of retiring at Age 65. There is nothing out there that prevents a pilot from changing careers when they hit 65. Or said pilot can sit around at home retired. There is also nothing out there that prevents a 35 year old furloughed pilot from changing careers. The article is merely discussing a study that found retirees who chose to accept another job (and it is a job that happened to pay less than their old one) are experiencing more job satisfaction. The new job pays less because it is a different job.

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That's just facetious.....You dang straight mil retirees and career changers with subsidy income are lowering the wage for younger workers. That the 20s crowd is short sighted and willing to "make due" with food stamp wages "for a while" is equally guilty, but in no way does that exculpate the subsidy-income crowd.

Nobody is saying with a straight face that there is a statistically relevant percentage of the pilot population that crosses-over to non-flying industries and by virtue of retirement wage et al, depresses the pay his peers would otherwise command in the absence of his existence. What is statistically relevant is that in the case of airline pilots there are plenty of people who come in with income subsidy and join the ranks of regional/major airlines, which maintains the oversupply of pilots healthy and pay low. To suggest otherwise is to try to cover the sun with one hand. That SJS is equally to blame for keeping wages depressed as the hobby pilot crowd does is fair enough, but that still doesn't make the career changer crowd less culpable in keeping wages non-livable.

An older worker telling the median pilot to "do it for king and country" (i.e. for the love, not the money) is so beyond disingenuous it's not even funny. Wiki Maslow's hierarchy of needs. These two groups command income-needs from very different levels in that pyramid. Freggin' boomers I tell ya....

interesting
 

Long time lurker, first time poster.
Hindsight, you make a compelling case and if I was in my late twenties vs my current late forties I'd probably be nodding my head in agreement.
Mainline carriers have offered professional courtesy in the last couple of years I've been out but since I have no long term aspirations I've declined.
I'm looking to work for a regional - 8 legs a day, on a CRJ taking orders from someone half my age, third of the hours. ... I'm ok with it. A couple of years of flying, for the (121)experience is all I am looking for. I don't see how a few ex military guys who would choose this, do much in the way of harming your future aspirations.

Perhaps the "straight mil retirees and career changers" have a better work ethic than most of the 'you-owe-me crowd of today' and this is the reason the regionals - fractionals - 135's etc prefer them.

As a career Police Officer, retiring in 3 months, I am looking forward to the view of DFW, or MCO or JFK etc from climb-out as opposed to cutting down a 20 year-old who just hung himself, or a 55 year-old wife who can't leave an abusive relationship. (the incidents are endless) I prefer to work for an organization concerned for their repective bottom lines, after-all, those will be the ones left standing when the music stops.



I would never presume to bad mouth my chosen career as some have done here regarding aviation. Law Enforcement, like aviation, like accounting, like basket weaving all have their respective ups and downs. How presumptious it would be for me to discourage an otherwise capable applicant because I made bad career choices. Shame on you. You know who you are.

Perfer?
 

I would not say that the airlines "prefer" to hire retirees however they tend to be happier at work and complain less. I would have been happier as a regional pilot if I could have been able to support my family to a reasonable degree. However I was always stressed about how I was going to make my american dream come true on 18K per year.

People of retirement age are in a different time in their lives. They do not have college tuition's to fund or a spouse who needs your help at home raising small kids. They can go home and sleep after a long trip and do not have a family at home who needs their attention. A retirement pilot only has to enjoy their job and little else. The money they get on top of their retirement is mostly only needed for green fees. They are past most of the financial hurdles and external life demands that someone starting out faces.

The differing needs and perspectives make it much easier to accept the low wages and difficult working situation being offered. It has nothing to do with a work ethic. Hopefully in a few years I can return to aviation as a retirement job as well. The career is much more palatable under those conditions.

Skyhigh