Career advice needed
09-06-2012, 03:04 PM
#31
Prime Minister/Moderator
Joined APC: Jan 2006
Position: Engines Turn Or People Swim
Posts: 40,050
I agree. Still however airline pilots also live in San Francisco in the same neighborhoods along with handymen, grocery store clerks and mailmen.
Even the best airline wages are falling within striking distance of some very common jobs that do not require nearly as much luck, training or education.
Even the best airline wages are falling within striking distance of some very common jobs that do not require nearly as much luck, training or education.
Blue collar workers in high COL areas get higher pay due to market forces. But pilots just get the contract pay regardless of where they are based. We somewhat do this to ourselves in our willingness to commute...no airline will feel the need to pay a COLA to SFO based pilots, they will just be like "why don't you commute to Omaha?"
09-06-2012, 03:31 PM
#32
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Mar 2012
Posts: 125
BenS,
Your whole premise is based on a static future. If things stay the same your projections might hold true but aviation is anything but static. Ask the Comair guys about how their plans are going.
The good news about being a Pizza delivery guy is that he has nothing invested into his career. His job is easily replaceable and he is building job skills that might hold value in plenty of other similar fields.
The pilot blows a small fortune on an under preforming career and then has to deliver pizza after sending a long day as a flight instructor. Pay might go up but you could also be kicked to the curb several times in your career. Add up the cost to get trained and educated to the lost years of low wages only to have to start over again and the whole thing gets depressing very fast.
The main issue is that conditions for pilots are not getting any better. You are basing your projections on the industry as it is today. Ten years from now and you will be selling furniture or worse wishing that you were. There is no profit in paying pilots a fair wage. Pressure is downwards on pay and working conditions.
It might work out but it is an incredible risk for the thin promise of ever earning a return on your investment. An expensive long shot with a dim future.
Skyhigh
Your whole premise is based on a static future. If things stay the same your projections might hold true but aviation is anything but static. Ask the Comair guys about how their plans are going.
The good news about being a Pizza delivery guy is that he has nothing invested into his career. His job is easily replaceable and he is building job skills that might hold value in plenty of other similar fields.
The pilot blows a small fortune on an under preforming career and then has to deliver pizza after sending a long day as a flight instructor. Pay might go up but you could also be kicked to the curb several times in your career. Add up the cost to get trained and educated to the lost years of low wages only to have to start over again and the whole thing gets depressing very fast.
The main issue is that conditions for pilots are not getting any better. You are basing your projections on the industry as it is today. Ten years from now and you will be selling furniture or worse wishing that you were. There is no profit in paying pilots a fair wage. Pressure is downwards on pay and working conditions.
It might work out but it is an incredible risk for the thin promise of ever earning a return on your investment. An expensive long shot with a dim future.
Skyhigh
The pizza guy, when you said it was a good thing his job is easily replaceable, how is that a good thing? I've worked as a bus boy and being easily replacable is nothing to be proud of. I once worked for a casino restaurant (I live in Las Vegas, so just a normal office there) and one day after working all night they wanted me to come in early in the afternoon and I had asked if I could come in a couple hours later than when they wanted me and my request was met with "there are 100 other people who want your job, so are you sure you can't make it?" Being easily replaceable creates deplorable working conditions, and truely low pay. I was making $7 and hour and my take home was around $500 a paycheck. Tips were the only reason I survived that job. And you say career skills are learned that people take elsewhere? Where else might I ask? Another restaurant job? I've seen people trying to make a career out of being a server, to many they feel like $15k a year is the most they will every make. Sadly, for some, it really is all they will ever make and have to retire on. I've seen that lifestyle, I would never want that lifestyle, nor do I wish it on anyone.
Yet you made it sound like a good thing? A pizza restaurant I once worked for hired and fired pizza drivers very frequently. Most never stayed there more than 2 years, 6 months was average employment time. Buddy, I've seen true poverty, I've seen people working for less than 2 or 3 hundred dollars a week. There is nothing good about that lifestyle, and to think or make it sound good because they have no debt is really, in my opinion, a terrible way to think. I never heard any of the people I worked with say "well, I may only make $1200 a month, but at least I don't have $80,000 in school loans making $50k a year." They (career pizza drivers, servers, etc) sacrifice dearly for not having the life that comes with a skill trade such as being a pilot.
I will always agree with you though, when you say that pay is minimal at the regional level and that there is never ending downward pressure on wages. Pilots do need to continue to do what can be done to fight that pressure. I don't exactly know what the answer is. But I think there is an answer somewhere to fight the never ending pressure to lower a pilots wage, I just wish I knew what it was. And yes, I have laid out statements basing pilot pay, and senior pilot pay, on the way conditions are now. I wish there was more that could be said for stability of the regionals so that someone could be a career regional pilot if they wanted to. I do feel for guys who work for regionals that get shut down and then must go elsewhere and start at the bottom. Obviously, captain off the street isn't something we see today. So to go from senior captain somewhere back to junior fo at another, lower cost, regional has got to be the lowest point in someones career, and that is a pain that I could never relate to. Again, I wish I knew of an answer to that problem, but I don't.
The trouble is, I don't write the rules, I simply must play by them. I do wish that there didn't have to be the kind of things that happen to some people. But as I've said, although there are terrible circumstances at times in this career, I don't think the picture is really much different at other careers. I just think that no matter what I go through in aviation, nothing will ever compare to how I used to get by. I feel that with my debt and low income, I'm still better off than making $5.15 or $7 an hour, working two jobs just to pay rent, or working a graveyard followed by working another job in the morning and getting 6 hours sleep after a 16 hour day to start it all over again, 6 or 7 days a week. I feel that regional pay with the debt I have will always be better than having to spend a career in that past lifestyle with no debt.
But again, just my opinion, I'm sure for many they feel that they could go and make more and be more stable had they persued something outside of aviation. How was that for short? haha...
09-06-2012, 04:22 PM
#33
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Feb 2011
Posts: 787
I've had this thought for a while, and after reading this whole thread, maybe this is a good place to put it...
I've got many friends whom I graduated high school with that have all pursued different professional careers. Here is what they've told me, first hand, what they are going through...
Architect: 5 years of school, minimum 3 year apprenticeship building models and such before you can even take the test to be a licensed architect.
Lawyer: 6+ years of expensive schools, multiple unpaid internships, massive debt, low starting pay, extremely competitive job market.
Teacher:4-6 years of school. Pay for student teaching positions, extremely tough job market depending on location, mediocre wages
Psychiatrist: 6+ years of school, graduate credentials demand a high salary, tons of debt, competitive job market
Nurse: 4+ years of school. Work on the floor cleaning up sh!t and vomit for a few years, top out at maybe
$120k
Financial analyst: 4 years of college, get lucky, make $100k out of college working for JP Morgan (mother *********).
My point is that all professional trades require the same trade-offs that airline pilots face, if not more. Yes there are plenty of day jobs (sanitation worker, mailman, barber, wal mart "executive") that would definitely pay the bills with little to no overhead. And being an airline pilot is by no means glamorous. But in my opinion, whoever thinks it's all about the money severely needs to reevaluate their view on life.
To the OP: if you want to shovel elephant crap, go find the nearest circus. If you want to fly, go find a flight school or someone with a plane. There's a lot of guys on here that are just bitter and hate their jobs, and will preach that it's not worth it. So don't use this place to make career/life decisions. I just don't want to see you fall trap to the typical douchebaggery that goes on in these forums and wind up at a desk 10 years from now thinking "what if?"
I've got many friends whom I graduated high school with that have all pursued different professional careers. Here is what they've told me, first hand, what they are going through...
Architect: 5 years of school, minimum 3 year apprenticeship building models and such before you can even take the test to be a licensed architect.
Lawyer: 6+ years of expensive schools, multiple unpaid internships, massive debt, low starting pay, extremely competitive job market.
Teacher:4-6 years of school. Pay for student teaching positions, extremely tough job market depending on location, mediocre wages
Psychiatrist: 6+ years of school, graduate credentials demand a high salary, tons of debt, competitive job market
Nurse: 4+ years of school. Work on the floor cleaning up sh!t and vomit for a few years, top out at maybe
$120k
Financial analyst: 4 years of college, get lucky, make $100k out of college working for JP Morgan (mother *********).
My point is that all professional trades require the same trade-offs that airline pilots face, if not more. Yes there are plenty of day jobs (sanitation worker, mailman, barber, wal mart "executive") that would definitely pay the bills with little to no overhead. And being an airline pilot is by no means glamorous. But in my opinion, whoever thinks it's all about the money severely needs to reevaluate their view on life.
To the OP: if you want to shovel elephant crap, go find the nearest circus. If you want to fly, go find a flight school or someone with a plane. There's a lot of guys on here that are just bitter and hate their jobs, and will preach that it's not worth it. So don't use this place to make career/life decisions. I just don't want to see you fall trap to the typical douchebaggery that goes on in these forums and wind up at a desk 10 years from now thinking "what if?"
Last edited by sandrich; 09-06-2012 at 04:50 PM.
09-06-2012, 06:43 PM
#34
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Jul 2007
Position: 744 CA
Posts: 4,772
Even if he did make 115K....which I call BS on ...just because USA Today says so doesnt make it true....but even if he did...cost of living is hell there.... AND he is the exception rather than the rule.... I guarantee you sanitation workers in my town make less than 25K... cops less than 35k.. firefighters START at 24K a year.... things are different everywhere
09-06-2012, 06:50 PM
#35
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Feb 2011
Posts: 787
Even if he did make 115K....which I call BS on ...just because USA Today says so doesnt make it true....but even if he did...cost of living is hell there.... AND he is the exception rather than the rule.... I guarantee you sanitation workers in my town make less than 25K... cops less than 35k.. firefighters START at 24K a year.... things are different everywhere
09-06-2012, 07:41 PM
#36
Line Holder
Joined APC: Apr 2012
Posts: 68
I've had this thought for a while, and after reading this whole thread, maybe this is a good place to put it...
I've got many friends whom I graduated high school with that have all pursued different professional careers. Here is what they've told me, first hand, what they are going through...
Architect: 5 years of school, minimum 3 year apprenticeship building models and such before you can even take the test to be a licensed architect.
Lawyer: 6+ years of expensive schools, multiple unpaid internships, massive debt, low starting pay, extremely competitive job market.
Teacher:4-6 years of school. Pay for student teaching positions, extremely tough job market depending on location, mediocre wages
Psychiatrist: 6+ years of school, graduate credentials demand a high salary, tons of debt, competitive job market
Nurse: 4+ years of school. Work on the floor cleaning up sh!t and vomit for a few years, top out at maybe
$120k
Financial analyst: 4 years of college, get lucky, make $100k out of college working for JP Morgan (mother *********).
My point is that all professional trades require the same trade-offs that airline pilots face, if not more. Yes there are plenty of day jobs (sanitation worker, mailman, barber, wal mart "executive") that would definitely pay the bills with little to no overhead. And being an airline pilot is by no means glamorous. But in my opinion, whoever thinks it's all about the money severely needs to reevaluate their view on life.
To the OP: if you want to shovel elephant crap, go find the nearest circus. If you want to fly, go find a flight school or someone with a plane. There's a lot of guys on here that are just bitter and hate their jobs, and will preach that it's not worth it. So don't use this place to make career/life decisions. I just don't want to see you fall trap to the typical douchebaggery that goes on in these forums and wind up at a desk 10 years from now thinking "what if?"
I've got many friends whom I graduated high school with that have all pursued different professional careers. Here is what they've told me, first hand, what they are going through...
Architect: 5 years of school, minimum 3 year apprenticeship building models and such before you can even take the test to be a licensed architect.
Lawyer: 6+ years of expensive schools, multiple unpaid internships, massive debt, low starting pay, extremely competitive job market.
Teacher:4-6 years of school. Pay for student teaching positions, extremely tough job market depending on location, mediocre wages
Psychiatrist: 6+ years of school, graduate credentials demand a high salary, tons of debt, competitive job market
Nurse: 4+ years of school. Work on the floor cleaning up sh!t and vomit for a few years, top out at maybe
$120k
Financial analyst: 4 years of college, get lucky, make $100k out of college working for JP Morgan (mother *********).
My point is that all professional trades require the same trade-offs that airline pilots face, if not more. Yes there are plenty of day jobs (sanitation worker, mailman, barber, wal mart "executive") that would definitely pay the bills with little to no overhead. And being an airline pilot is by no means glamorous. But in my opinion, whoever thinks it's all about the money severely needs to reevaluate their view on life.
To the OP: if you want to shovel elephant crap, go find the nearest circus. If you want to fly, go find a flight school or someone with a plane. There's a lot of guys on here that are just bitter and hate their jobs, and will preach that it's not worth it. So don't use this place to make career/life decisions. I just don't want to see you fall trap to the typical douchebaggery that goes on in these forums and wind up at a desk 10 years from now thinking "what if?"
Last edited by northwestdc10; 09-06-2012 at 07:48 PM. Reason: clarify
09-06-2012, 08:54 PM
#37
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Feb 2011
Posts: 787
I actually meant psychologist. I can never decipher the difference. Psychologist is the one typically less qualified and can not write prescriptions right? If so, that's what I meant.
09-08-2012, 01:01 PM
#39
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Feb 2011
Posts: 787
09-08-2012, 05:45 PM
#40
Eats shoots and leaves...
Joined APC: Apr 2007
Position: Didactic Synthetic Aviation Experience Provider
Posts: 849
The big thing missing here is pilot pay (in the airlines) starts over at year one every time a pilot changes companies - I don't believe that is the case with the other professions listed here. Given today's circumstances, odds are very good that a pilot is going to go through at least three or four airlines in their career, that makes a big difference.
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