Two year update - left for law
#12
Um, is that a serious question? It's pay, schedule, work rules and retirement. You know, like every other occupation out there being pursued by non-hobby heads of households. This isn't limited to flying airplanes for money. Airline pilots are not brain surgeons, but regional pilots are no less qualified to do a mainline airline pilot job. As such, they do the same job for compensation and work rule differentials that are orbits apart. That is a deficit that creates massive discontent long term, as it should. The only people at the regionals who are not likely to bemoan that are folks for whom the economics of the vocational choice are immaterial. i,e, the vanity and avocational semi-retired crowd. It is a free Country and that is their freedom to pursue a job avocationally at the expense of their younger peers, but they do not set the tone for the profession, when by and large the majority of regional pilots rely on that occupation to raise their families and live life, and intend on getting paid as a mainline pilot as a pre-requisite for having entered the profession. This is nothing new.
#13
#14
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Jan 2009
Posts: 1,459
Depends on one's perspective on "recovery". To some, the OPs return to aviation is a case of relapse, not recovery. Stating this return to the cockpit as the right financial decision for the OP and/or for the long term stability of his/her vocational choices, assumes facts not in evidence. What is clear from these anecdotes is that, if you're unhappy in an office setting, you're unhappy in an office setting. If that means that your life choices are therefore limited to non-sedentary occupations that suffer from high income-volatility, then that's just merely the unfortunate opportunity cost you'll have to face in life upon your aversion to office work. Nothing particularly good, bad or indifferent about it, just life choices.
No free lunch in life. It'd be great if these choices weren't so mutually exclusive, and perhaps to a statistical few, they are indeed not. For the majority though, it does seem like a perennial exercise in trading off time for money, in a quantity not too great to afford no time to do what you really want, or too little money that it affords you not what you really want.
To the OP, sounds like the answer has already been sort of addressed by him/her already. The inference to "life would have been different had I lived in domicile" was made in passing, but it bears incredible relevance. Want to continue to struggle between two jobs, neither of which provide domestic comfort nor vocational contentment at the same time? Move to domicile and presto, problem solved. Time and money balance. Works for some, not for others. For the OP, it sounds like that might be the missing piece.
Good luck. Life's too short to be unhappy, and Lord knows there's no time to be in your late 30s restarting financial retirement plans like a regional slave.
No free lunch in life. It'd be great if these choices weren't so mutually exclusive, and perhaps to a statistical few, they are indeed not. For the majority though, it does seem like a perennial exercise in trading off time for money, in a quantity not too great to afford no time to do what you really want, or too little money that it affords you not what you really want.
To the OP, sounds like the answer has already been sort of addressed by him/her already. The inference to "life would have been different had I lived in domicile" was made in passing, but it bears incredible relevance. Want to continue to struggle between two jobs, neither of which provide domestic comfort nor vocational contentment at the same time? Move to domicile and presto, problem solved. Time and money balance. Works for some, not for others. For the OP, it sounds like that might be the missing piece.
Good luck. Life's too short to be unhappy, and Lord knows there's no time to be in your late 30s restarting financial retirement plans like a regional slave.
Um, is that a serious question? It's pay, schedule, work rules and retirement. You know, like every other occupation out there being pursued by non-hobby heads of households. This isn't limited to flying airplanes for money. Airline pilots are not brain surgeons, but regional pilots are no less qualified to do a mainline airline pilot job. As such, they do the same job for compensation and work rule differentials that are orbits apart. That is a deficit that creates massive discontent long term, as it should. The only people at the regionals who are not likely to bemoan that are folks for whom the economics of the vocational choice are immaterial. i,e, the vanity and avocational semi-retired crowd. It is a free Country and that is their freedom to pursue a job avocationally at the expense of their younger peers, but they do not set the tone for the profession, when by and large the majority of regional pilots rely on that occupation to raise their families and live life, and intend on getting paid as a mainline pilot as a pre-requisite for having entered the profession. This is nothing new.
#15
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Jul 2012
Posts: 157
I had a similar experience. Sitting inside a glass building, right next to the airport, trying to write code on a computer screen. I lasted exactly as long as you did - one year - before I was back in the cockpit. There's something about this career, despite all the pain and suffering, that enthralls me. It's a double-edged sword, really, because management has been taking advantage of this part of our personalities since 1978.
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