I once picked up some book talking about being successful in the office. I put it down right away after reading "if you want to move ahead in business, you better be the last one leaving the office". Working 80 hours a week, getting paid for 40, kissing the bosses a$$ so I can get a promotion, stabbing everyone in the back so I can get ahead....Sounds like fun to me.

 

Agreed. I work in an office... I am late for the door by 5:30 no matter how busy we are. I witness the health of those who do the 7pm-plus-Saturday thing, they look completely miserable and they describe their private lives as wastelands. One of them tells me he can't sleep most nights for taking his job home with him. Balance in life means you work all day and then you play, each and every day, plus you are off on the weekend. A manager prodded me into doing some business socializing for him on a Sunday afternoon so I purposely showed up half-drunk. I have not been prodded like that since and have no regrets.

 

Skyhigh, I agree that your opinion is valid and appreciate that.

However, I am having a hard time understanding what your objective is. Are you trying to gain assurance or attention to the fact that you are right? Or are you trying to increase awareness?

This is an honest question and is not meant to be negative towards you.

I am struggling with my career choices just as I am sure that many of us here are. I don't regret the path I have chosen however, I don't need someone telling me that I made the wrong one.

 

Nurses and teachers are two of my favorites.

We have a family friend who at 45 years old finished her nursing degree a few years ago and started out earning 65K. One year later she took a position at a rehabilitation clinic earning 85K. 9 to 5, 5 days a week.

The Seattle Times reported that teachers in the Seattle area my average 54K, get a nice state funded retirement and get every government holiday, two weeks in December one week in the spring and the entire summer off !!!!

Both of those careers are currently in high demand, require a much smaller investment in training and education and pay far better than the average pilot gig.


The average pilot career can not touch a nursing one. As an air ambulance pilot in Seattle I flew a Learjet and Citation on call 24 hours a day. At the time captain wages were 35 to 40 K per year. I as an FO earned around 850 to 1000K per month. The lowest paid flight nurse was on call for 12 hours 3 to 4 days per week and earned 85K.

Its not hard to best a pilot career.


SkyHigh

 

Right,,,,, and I guess that pilots are not on duty for 12 to 14 hours, often until well after midnight. They also are gone more than half the year in most cases. While at Horizon it was common for me to have well over 400 hours of time away from base each month. To me wasting away half my life in a concrete hotel room was like a prison sentence.

Pilots don't have to worry about their junior co-workers getting promoted ahead only that they will get passed by management and other pilot groups. In either case the results are the same. The guy who is willing to work longer and for lower wages still has an advantage.

Skyhigh

 

You have the option to work late if you wish or go home and possibly miss a promotion. As a pilot when the bid comes out you are stuck. Whenever management decides to put in 4 hour lay overs into your favorite line you have little choice about it. If your day runs long as a pilot you can not claim "no, I am going to skip the last two legs tonight. American Idol is on in 45 minutes".

Pilots work very hard in most cases. Days are long and often intentionally made difficult in order to keep the troops adequately frustrated. On top of that there are plenty of daily delays and changes that add to the mess until on your last leg it is often difficult to stay awake.

Once you reach the hotel it is a struggle to see if you can get to sleep amongst the screaming of the trucker couple in the next room or the train that shoots by every 4 hours. All this to be followed by yet another day of delays setbacks and unending layovers. No fun !!!

SkyHigh

 

I like your cat picture.

Others do need to be told.

Pilots are great at deluding themselves into thinking that the outside world has it the same or worse. They hear people complain about their jobs but then admire their new car, vacation pictures or home that they live in. Pilots live in a microcosm and their thinking gets polluted over time.

After spending most of a decade working up to earning 40K per year pilots begin to think that it is a lot of money when the guy who picks up the trash on Thursday makes much much more.

I think that it is imperative that pilots stop on occasion to survey where they are and where they are going in life to see if it matches with their life plans and expectations. They also need to measure their progress against others in a truly fair manner.

Per Diem isn't Pay.

Over time doesnt count.

The entire and full opportunity cost of college and training needs to be included in the tally.

Time Away From Base is still work.

Furloughs and layoffs need to be considered.

Base changes and moves are expensive.

Commuting is costly and takes away from QOL and needs to be considered.

Crash pads and food on the road is a real cost.

It is humiliating to be forced to eat Top Romin and other brought food out of your suit case at 33 years old because your profession can not afford anything better.


I am here to say that an average aviation career is inferior, to a large degree, to most other forms of employment when taken in an honest light. I think that most pilots know this someplace deep in their thinking but refuse to acknowledge it.

Skyhigh

 

Sky I dont get it... since you have been such a wet blanket on aviation..

Do tell us OH GREAT one who KNOWS ALL.... how would should an airline be run, if not to have its crews on the road flying, staying in hotels, etc. et al. I am curious as to what you thought the life of an airline pilot was going to be? You have extolled on numerous ocasions on how being away from home etc was a drag, and that being home was or is important to you.. GREAT.. I personally think we are all better of we you NOT in any cockpit.

It seems to me you watched one to many movies or read to many books about flying and what you thought it was suppose to be about.

Life is about choices, you obviously made the wrong one when you got into the flying business.

I think one thing we can all agree on is that I hope you are happy doing whatever it is that you are doing. Personally I think you loathe the fact that you are not in aviation and the only way you can live with that decision is to come here and denegrate those who have chosen for whatever reasons to be in the aviation business. As the old saying goes ...."me thinks you doth protest too much".

 

Sky,
Don't even TRY to talk to me about a nursing career. I was a nurse for 8 years and I would rather shoot myself in the head than to do that job for 40 hours a week for the rest of my life. 85K is NOT ENOUGH to do what nurses do. You know that Shania Twain song "That don't impress me much"? That's pretty much what I think when you say a nurse was making 85K. 9-5?
M-F? That don't impress me much either. Driving in rush hour traffic every day? Going to the store on the weekend when everyone else is there? I HATE the 9-5 M-F. No thanks! I can tell you from experience that any nurse making decent money WORKS THEIR A$$ OFF FOR EVERY PENNY! Last year, when I finally quit, I was making $56 an hour and it wasn't even worth it. Please please please, do not speak of things that you know NOTHING about. Don't even TRY this one with me. I can go on and on about this but this is just the tip of the iceberg.

 

Yeah, and the newspapers report that pilots make 300K. Do you believe everything you read in the paper?

You think 54k is great? It sucks.

Once again, my brother in law is a teacher and so is my best friend. It's not all peaches and cream either. My friend is just starting out at 34K a year and no guarantee that she will have a job next year. Maybe....if they like her. Oh, and that "state funded" retirement? Guess what? She has to pay into it so it's not all that great.