Open letter to HR lady
 

Dear HR lady from my last airline,

You remarked pilots had it easy, because the "flying monkeys" got 10 days off and you got only 8. Having worked only manual labor and aviation jobs I wasn't sure what made office life so hard, but it must be terrible.

So I decided to try it. While completing an advanced degree and working in a demanding field, I spent the last few years doing the normal 5 day weeks with two or more classes mixed in (advanced degree, not like the undergrad degree you completed after 5+ years). Homework on the weekends, long drive to work, the whole "9-5" experience.

The verdict is in, office life is leaps and bounds easier than the captain's seat I sat in, or the F/O seat before that.

FNFAL

Ok....... was this meant to be posted or emailed? I don't get it

Yeah, he has us all wondering what he means.

mods chopped it up a bit (my first version had an attempt and humor that apparently broke the pg-13 rule, although i thought it was funny), hence lack of coherency. Although the original was also a thought fragment at best.

The HR lady in question had a great disdain for the pilot group, and was fairly vocal about it. She believed that we should only get 8 days off per month because that's all everyone else got. Now that i know how easy an 9-5 is compared to 16 hour days with snow on the east coast, its almost comical to me that she thought she worked so hard.

Thought fragment over.

Actually the HR dept gets more vacation time too.
If we get 7 days....Sun-Sat. They get Sat-Sun. That's 9 days straight.
Plus they most likely leave early the friday before.
Then i doubt they work Christmas, New Years etc...
There are 12 federal holidays that i work that i don't get paid extra for.

I think HR and Schedulers need to look at our time away from base. Or better yet, time away from family. 4 days away should equal 4 days home. I could go on but you get the idea....

Office poges get paid for the four hours a day they spend on personal calls and surfing the internet.

So do all the pilots I see using their 'smart' phones after pushback.

Just saying...



HR women- (and yes, they're all women) are the girls who washed out of Applebees hostess training.

She was the fine lady that did our initial F\O class. She lumped some dispatchers in with our class and asked us to "plug our ears" when she went through the vastly superior benefits package that everyone except pilots got. Extremely tacky and unprofessional, and something that would not be tolerated anywhere other than a subpar regional airline.

The edited content of my original post speculated as to her the recreational activity that she participated in whilst persuing her undergraduate degree, and some hearsay as to the nature of her relationship of with a percentage of my former pilot group.

This all poped into my head after watching the PBS special on regional airlines. I remembered how most office chumps thought we worked 8 hours a day 15 days per month and got a minimum of 8 hours of sleep per night. Hurray for fuzzy numbers.

I have now learned that taking multiple classes and working full time as said office chump feels like a part time job when compared with the life of a regional pilot. Although the view is decidedly not as good, and i will never make fedex pay...

by office chumps you mean roger cohen?

Just so we are clear on Roger Cohen's professional background I would like to post a quick bio from when he was appointed RAA Pres.

The Regional Airline Association (RAA) named Roger Cohen Presidentof the association, succeeding Deborah McElroy who recently joined Airports Council International-North America as senior vice president of government affairs. (RAA, November 6, p.1) Cohen, a veteran of aviation government relations, will manage all aspects of RAA's operations and assumes responsibility for meeting the strategic goals set by RAA's leadership.
Cohen also brings an impressive background in aviation public relations. Cohen is a past vice president, regional affairs, for the Aircraft Owners & Pilots Association (AOPA) and spent more than fifteen years with the Air Transport Association (ATA), where he served as managing director/staff vice president, state and local government affairs. Prior to ATA, Cohen was president of Pro Advocates Inc., a Southern California-based public affairs consulting firm that conducted corporate communications, government affairs and association management for clients including Trans World Airlines, Avis, First Gray Line and Hakuhodo International. He also worked for 10 years at TWA, where he held the titles of regional director, civic affairs, and regional manager, corporate communications.
His experience includes experience as a representative of numerous organizations and businesses in 35 state capitols, dozens of city halls, numerous Federal agencies and in Congress.
"We couldn't be more enthusiastic to have someone with Roger's background and experience taking the helm of our association at a time when the regional carriers continue to grow their share of the airline industry market," said Paul Foley, chairman of the RAA board of directors and president and CEO of MAIR Holdings Inc. (MAIR) "Roger is the right person to meet the demands of our industry and to be a proactive force on issues that are important to us in the legislative and regulatory arenas."
Prior to joining RAA, Cohen created and implemented the first-ever government affairs program for Teletrack, a subsidiary of the FirstAdvantage Corporation, a leading risk mitigation and business solutions provider. He served as the company's "in house" government affairs specialist, advising senior management and representing Teletrack before Congress, state and local governments, public interest groups and consumer organizations. Cohen holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Northwestern University, where he was a McCormick Scholar recipient in urban affairs studies at the Medill School of Journalism.
[Copyright 2006 Access Intelligence, LLC. All rights reserved.]


AirportBusiness.com » Article » Roger Cohen Named RAA President.

Funny, I don't see any regional airlines in there, except for a quote from Paul Foley. So what does he do?