As a former Pinnacle guy, I'm proud to see this. There are the guys that give it a bad rap (like the 9E guy in ATL the other day I saw getting coffee with an unbuttoned wrinkled shirt, messed up hair and unshaven), and there are guys like you. Keep it up, network, have a humble attitude, and you'll be out of there.

If you come over to the widget side of things, feel free to put stickers on your flight kit. I keep them professional but it sure does make finding it in a bagroom with 2000 flight kits a lot easier.

Now if we can just figure out away to undo scope creep and get some movement in this industry.

See ya around a-town.

I understand your cool little "definition" of professionalism. But sad to say in a Union work group...its a little more like this.
http://www.driventoexcel.com/images/...ssionalism.jpg

I agree that the papers on the glaresheild are unprofessional. I agree that we have a professional job and need to act professionally. I will admit, however, that when I am on hour 4 of my sit in an airport that we have no crewroom in, I do not look or act like a professional. I am expecting to catch a lot of flack on here for admitting this. My company builds trips with a complete lack of regard for MY time. 4 plus hour sits in CLT are the norm. I did not sign up for this. I spend so much time sitting above the foodcourt in CLT that it makes me sick. As I said, we have no crewroom. Nowhere to store our bags. We lug all 70lbs of our s%#t with us for hours on end and are never out of view of the public eye. I absolutely will not go out of my way to act like a total professional in this situation. I consider it MY time when I'm at work and not being paid. I like to be comfortable when its "my time" so I will unbutton the collar and loosen the tie. I will put my earbuds in my ears and listen to the ipod. Frankly, I don't care at that point. I feel the company is taking 4+ hours of MY LIFE from me that I will never get back. They are doing this without paying me a single cent so no, I'm not going to go out of my way for them or for our pax. Sorry.

That being said, when I am walking to the airplane, my collar is buttoned and my tie is tight. No ipod and the hat is on. When I get to the gate I talk with the gate agent because I think it looks good, makes me look like Im on top of things to the pax. I make a nice bording announcement and keep newspapers and magazines out of view. At the end of the flight I say goodbye to all of the fine folks that flew with us.

When I am actually working I present myself with the utmost of professionalism. When the company is pi$$ing my time away, it aint gonna happen. Say what you want, I won't change, sorry.

just give a 100% in everything you do.. regardless.....that's what a professional is.. Even though I make minimum wage, I still make an effort to show up for work with an ironed shirt, clean slacks, polished shoes, show up on time for duty, help pax, rampers, and operate the flight. There are those who do just the minimum to get by and there are those who do what they are capable of. which one are you? there is always the door if you don't like your current situation!!! I'll gladly take your 757 seat and pay if you don't like it!!!:o The grass is always greener where you are at, you just have to change your perspective!!

enjoy your day my friend

Sits blow donkey balls... They are very high on my "most hated list" in this profession. I found them to be very fatiguing as well. The 9E guy in my post that you're probably referencing has a crew room to stow his stuff in.

If you're gonna sit and look like crap, take off your ID, wings and epaulets. Other pilots will be able to pick you out, but to pax you're just some dude with a weird shirt dragging a bunch of crap behind you. If you're going to keep the identifying items on, look as sharp as possible.

This subject is not cheesy, nor these convictions. Kudos to the original poster, because this is exactly what this profession needs – a little esteem. And I’ve got great news! Captains like Matt at Pinnacle and other airlines are just what we need.

First, these threads being denigrated by posters like “flyingsucks” are appalling to say the least. This just demonstrates that not only is every person allowed to read these posts, but any person can reply too! Use best judgment and disregard them like I do.

Second, every airliner is run by its Captain; every aspect from nose to tail. We need LEADERSHIP! Those that allow these awkward methods should be mortified! Newspapers laying all over the glare shield? As the aircraft commander, please stand up for yourself and your crew – and the public entrusting you with their safety.

Certain decision making and leadership skills are absent in today’s flying captains, as evidenced by this behavior. This is why it is intrinsically important to impart these skills to our newest aviators at the lowest level. Today’s captains were yesterday’s first officers, and everything we do as PIC is viewed by each person we make contact with.

You have a duty to operate your flight with utmost reliability, aptitude, and airmanship. Anything less and you should remove yourself.

If you give 100% at all times why should the company pay more? You're nothing but guaranteeing they'll get the same quality of service for less pay. While I understand the whole point of being a professional at all times it's a double sided sword.

Not a bad idea. I think I may do that from now on. Don't know why this has never even crossed my mind.

I didn't say I was expecting more pay by giving it my all. It's my work ethics I guess. You don't hand the customer two pieces of bread, half cooked patty, lettuce, cheese, onions, throw it in a bag, let them assemble it and say, here is your order because you are poorly compensated. You still have to do your job responsiblities! What you do beyond that is up to you. Hard worker and a professional is two different things...i guess No disrespect, I've read plenty of your post and mostly agree with what you say!!! I need a refill on my tall boy here in KFAT!

Actually, the doormen at my building average at about 32,000 a year... **** poor for the northeast, but at least they can afford a cheap lunch and a microwave dinner... Try that on 16 grand a year (while 75K or more in debt). I don't buy into that whole "paying your dues" nonsense. That's what we did in school - while PAYING for it. If you keep defending them, then it will only get worse.

Hell - for 16 grand, I'm surprised they don't moon or flip off the passengers on the way in. It's an insult. I guarantee - if you pay them like professionals, they will be MUCH more likely to act like them.

Imagine if that heart surgeon got paid 16 grand a year.

Explain the AA captain who was caught drunk trying to go to work last week!!! he was being paid like a "professional" What should be the ongoing rate for a professional anyways?:confused:

Can anybody recommend a professional-looking tent that can be set up on carpeted floors with a minimum of fuss?

If I'm going to be sleeping in the JFK terminal several nights a month I would like maintain my professional standards by not doing so openly, such as laying across the public seating.

Exceptions to every rule, friend. But look at the staggering majority of people that get paid 55 grand a year or more, and compare them to those that make less than 30... Which group will be more likely to dress nice, present themselves well, and/or not be addicted to drugs?

In general, people making $55,000 a year don't try to pees off the boss because they don't care about getting fired.

If people feel they are fairly compensated for their time, skills, and efforts, they are more likely to take care of the customer.

People who feel appreciated by management are more likely to appreciate their job, boss, and co-workers in return.

People who are paid well will try to keep a good thing going and devote large amounts of personal effort and sacrifice to that end.

People making 55,000 a year don't say "screw this place, I could be making more at McDonalds", they say "How do I take care of this golden goose?".

These statements are in general; there are always exceptions.

....

People working for $20,000 may be less inclined to raise the bar on a daily basis.

Someone at this level who shows up in a clean, ironed uniform and busts his hump all day will soon be promoted or move on to better things. But after several years without a raise or promotion, this guy will stop getting up at 5am to shine his shoes before work.

Someone who sees his benefits cut repeatedly and is ordered to work more hours for less pay will begin to see his employer as a tyrant and will not lift a finger to save the company.

People who are told they are just a number will see their customers as just a number.

People making $20,000 will do the minimum required, because it is McDonalds pay and everyone has worked at McDonalds and has seen firsthand that doing the minimum expected is good enough for 95% of the workforce.

My 2 cents.

Speaking of doctors my Sister is a nurse at Stanford University and she makes 37 dollars per hour. Times 40 hours per week...ummmhmmmm....carry the 2 = WAY MORE THAN AN F'D O!


America.....Is viewed much differently from an immigrants perspective.....They're just happy to be here.....

As for the professional thing goes...How professional is it to be treated like a second class citizen by your employer/management. :confused:

Thank you.

(The only stickers on my bag are aircraft related, union related, or in honor of those who I have worked with who died on the job)

I am a 44 year old FO who, when I was a CFI, argued with my coworkers that taking a job flying 30-50 passengers for less than flying a 152 and giving instruction was crazy. Back then, in 1997, the response I got was "I will earn more in the long run".

So be it.

I foolishly thought instructing, hauling freight in a Caravan, and flying an air ambulance in a 421 would make me attractive to a major. I was wrong.

So be it.

So now, a decade later, I took an FO job flying 340s (an old fashioned puddle jumper job) making 40% of what I made flying a 421.

So be it.

I had to bite the bullet and go back to starvation wages (not the rate I established), learn 121 regs, and learn to fly a transport category aircraft.

So be it.

I did so with eyes wide open. I cannot change the system by myself. But even though I was unhappy with my wage (the going rate), I still wore a freshly pressed uniform (at least the the beginning of the day) and worked to provide my passengers a safe, legal, prudent, and on time flight. When I accepted crappy pay, I did so with the intent of being a professional.


So call me a sell out. Call me a fool. Call me a pawn in the game that gave commuter/regional pilots low wages.

But NEVER call me unprofessional.

AND IF YOU WANT TO BE A PROFESSIONAL, ACT LIKE ONE! YOU TOOK THE JOB KNOWING THE WAGE. REALIZING AFTER THE FACT YOU CANT PAY YOUR BILLS DOES NOT RELIEVE YOU OF YOUR RESPONSIBLY TO YOUR PASSENGERS.

[quote=FlyJSH;619434]So call me a sell out. Call me a fool. Call me a pawn in the game that gave commuter/regional pilots low wages.

Sell Out! Fool!!! PAWN IN THE GAME!!!!!

In fact, I have never known such a professional sell-out fool. Without you, the regional jets would not fly.

FlyJSH my hat off to you!

I have been reading some of those posts and this is really pathetic. You guys are complaining about something you fully knew before joining! So what? You thought it would improve after? Booohooo! You accept a job with a very low pay then deal with it and stop complaining.

I know a couple of fellow pilots who refused to make the jump at a time when it was popular to join the regionals. Where are those guys now? Flying for XOjet, NetJets and the FAA.

Not really. Professionalism is a choice you make BEFORE you take that job and before you start each day of work. It isn't something you decide to do once you are there (unless you are trying to make yourself over, and by all means...).

It's simple really: You have two choices. Professional or unprofessional. Will today be the day you choose to look sharp, come prepared, operate by the book and not cut corners, review all material for that leg, work methodically, etc. OR, do the opposite.

It starts and ends with yourself. Take responsibility. Take Pride. Don't use excuses or blame others. Ask yourself if the problem really is with your long sit, your $21,000 a year, etc. Could it be something else?

(And yes, flight case stickers are great, don't think I haven't had my share in the past).

When a man makes 21000K, it wears on a family. And this money stress is a catalyst for so many problems. It will hurt a marriage. It will hurt a family.

Having said that, it is not so easy to say "well go work at McDonalds." Come on guys... we are in this because we love to fly. Not a thing wrong with that. Do what you love to do. And good for you for going after it.

Yes, the paycheck is all wrong. Increase it. Let ticket prices go up. Let jobs be harder to come by. But pay the man up front a decent salary.

Why did you accept this job then knowing you were going to make $21,000? :confused:

Without a doubt you are correct. Still, is it an excuse to not act professional? Life is about making tough choices. If your marriage is at risk, than you have to do what you can to fix it. If that means leaving this line of work than so be it.

I don't fly for a regional and I make about 4X's 21K. So don't be ignorant and make assumptions. And if you want the answer to your question, the read the post again. Lift your eyelids this time.

That's like 21,000,000 dollars!!!! OMG Who do you work for??? How is that not enough??? Is your house made of gold??

You are very right about that

LOL ... yea.. my bad... i don't make that.. and just for you... no pilot even makes 21000K.

i'm just a pilot...

Maybe it was the classifieds. You should have that person come over and cut your grass. If you give them 30bucks and they do it in less than an hour its one hell of a raise.

I agree with what you said I'm just playing devil's advocate on that one

I hate to admit it but the fact of the matter is your right. I hate looking at my w-2 it just ****es me off every year and the way the industry is going it will look even worse. I still get my shirts with heavy starch, kiwi on the shoes, and a fresh shave. Its the job we do. True confession my second job is looking for a second job but I like to look good when I'm doing it.

Are you doing it for your employer, or are you doing it for yourself?

Dumb Question
 

I think passengers are really misinformed by the media. Not to mention paranoid. I was jumpseating the other day, and it was a nice, sunny 73 degree day, when 2 male passengers asked me "Are we going to de-ice?" I replied to them---"De-ice? On a warm, spring 73-degree day?" They finally saw the light.

self = good
employer = okay
both = geek

This is such a blanket statement that doesn't always work. Ask a doctor why they spent years making nothing. Different circumstances. When I started chasing this career is was prior 9/11 where the game was different. Sure crappy wages still existed at the regionals but the industry was booming like never before and pilots were making good wages with nice work rules at that point in time. I took a job knowing I was going to make so little because in the environment at the time it was part of "joining the club" to become an airline pilot where after those first few years things would be completely different. Since then I've see terrorist attacks that grounded aircraft and led to furloughs followed by a recession that's doing the same thing again where people are still living on cut wages and benefits with no clear future in sight. Things have changed drastically since most of us started.

I wonder if it was the same Shuttle America guys I saw in Atlanta awhile back. They were in the train wearing huge DJ-style headsets blasting rap music, loud enough for passengers to take notice. One American pilot asked me if this was company protocol. How sad.

That's awful! Why would someone behave like that?

The problem with that argument is that there are boatloads of people right now waiting on the outside, in the environment you self-admit to be eroded and further declining, chumping at the bit to apply to these de facto fast food joints for a chance at a seniority number and a french fried dream. These people have NO reasonable expectation to attain the long-term compensation, work rules and lifestyle you argue you got yourself in the game for pre-9/11. The reality is that these people will make the EXACT same argument you are making for why they are willing to accept such hardship, and that's just disingenuous, because they KNOW the score. That they may try to push forth some cop-out "oh it's gonna get better" is just optimism-bias talking. Effectively, you can't have the cake and eat it too. They've been served.

You can't be the pre-9/11 guy saying "oh well things were different then" sitting right next to the 2007 new-hire who's using the EXACT SAME argument. Like the 'stache sporting dude in the CNN GIA interview said, people need to stop treating this JOB as a [paraphrase] "gee wheez, flying airplanezz is neeato, I'll do it for $7/hr and a free refill". The latter of course will ALWAYS be the case, which is why the industry is hosed. But the point remains, people can't hide under the "the future looks great so I can afford to starve while performing a technical and hazardous job" anymore, they just can't.

-- break break --

As to professionalism, I'm gonna have to revert to my Office Space quote. "You work hard enough not to get fired". This whole professionalism crap is unfunded altruism. Human beings work by incentives. Monetary compensation is a basic one, as it is one's means to attain your hierarchy of needs. The starving artist is an illusion. Nobody gives 100% for free. People do it for compensation, or in the case of pilots for the "promise of compensation". But nobody does it, when rationally and with lower tier needs not met yet, for free. Therefore the whole "do it for work ethic" is misguided. When there isn't adequate compensation for the valued effort nor does the promise of compensation exists anymore, it is irrational to provide the same amount of effort as one did when the former conditions were true.

I worked a retail catalog department while completing a graduate degree. I got paid crap. They needed somebody with a pulse and able to appease screaming customers. Criminal records were ok. I didn't have a criminal record so I was a god-send to these people. They knew I was overqualified, they didn't care, nor did I. Did I bust my hump? HEEEELLLL NO. I got paid crap. I was therefore 15 minutes late regularly and left the second my four hour shift was up. I was well liked by the customers and the job required one twentieth of my conscious attention span to accomplish. I did my job marginally which actually yielded above average results for their expectations, and was given the standard raise, which was still crap. I worked hard enough not to get fired. In the flying biz, that threshold is obviously considerably higher due to the technical nature of the work performed, but outside that higher datum plane, there is no rational reason these people should go above and beyond. If you think the extra effort gets you the cookie in a business whose goal is to have every employee be a carbon copy of each other (standarization, the achiles heel of pilot compensation), then you're a fool. When you get paid 21K with the explicit knowledge you are not going to break 100K in ten years and will probably be out of that employment within said 10 years, you have no rational need nor incentive to work harder than hard enough not to get fired. Some of you bellyache about that philosophy. You know what the rational thing to do is? It's to actually not take the 21K job in the first place! Irrational is to take the job and conduct yourself as if you were able to satisfy your needs with it, where you clearly cannot. But this is America, we can't accept we couldn't possibly make a living out of our affection for riding roller coasters (proverbially speaking). Life is soo unfair :rolleyes:

So how much would one need to pay you to get 100%? And when you get that much, will you actually give 100%? And what about next year?