Who else is tired???????????????
04-14-2008, 01:55 PM
#211
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Joined APC: Jan 2006
Position: A-320
Posts: 6,929
the problem is that it you DONT need a lot of training and a college education to be a pilot. Sorry to break it to you, but we are easily replaceable. sure today the training is considered extensive, and almost all places require a degree, but tomorrow it wont be the case.
nobody will have sympathy for any of us. this drastic demolition of our profession is not unique to us. it spans all of labor in the united states. once again, sorry to break it to you, this is our future.
we all used to think we'd fall neatly in the middle class and live comfortably. Now the choice is yours to make and the future is limited to the following: upper class or lower class. Plan your future accordingly and youll end up in one of those 2.
nobody will have sympathy for any of us. this drastic demolition of our profession is not unique to us. it spans all of labor in the united states. once again, sorry to break it to you, this is our future.
we all used to think we'd fall neatly in the middle class and live comfortably. Now the choice is yours to make and the future is limited to the following: upper class or lower class. Plan your future accordingly and youll end up in one of those 2.
04-14-2008, 01:57 PM
#212
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Joined APC: Jan 2006
Position: A-320
Posts: 6,929
Think what you want, I suppose. In the Southeastern US, a new grad nurse will start out at around $20/hr, with virtually unlimited overtime. After a year of experience, you can start as a Travel Nurse. Travel RN pay rates are as high as $60/hr. If you go back and get your Masters and become a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist, you can easily earn upwards of $150,000 per year and NO FURLOUGHS.
I am not questioning your decision, but merely pointing out the facts. Please refrain from calling me a liar when you don't know the facts.
I am not questioning your decision, but merely pointing out the facts. Please refrain from calling me a liar when you don't know the facts.
04-14-2008, 01:59 PM
#213
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Oct 2006
Position: Center seat, doing loops to music
Posts: 843
Yeah but the difference is that said person with the good-paying job that they hate has the luxury of complaining about his/her job; your income is in essence your leverage to make such remarks. However, in the case of starving artists [pilots] your economic position does not afford you such luxury. That is why you can't come home as a pilot and go to your family: "I know you're hungry Timmy, but daddy had a GREAT week at work! Isn't it worth it now? I love you Timmy.." It is not a realistic computation of opportunity cost, i.e. you cannot feed your family with takeoffs and landings, or job satisfaction for that matter, you can only exchange goods with cold dead cash. You can adequately calculate your opportunity cost in job satisfaction against cash, and certainly against the well-paid peers who presumably hate their job (adjusted for the fact the love their salary), but only when you've met your basic needs. If you're not even meeting those, saying you're foregoing cash for job satisfaction is an artificial argument and that's why pilots don't have the argument leverage as the high paid nurse, she's got basic needs down, you don't.
You can always complain about the soul-sucking job that keeps your IRA account fat every year and affords you two cars and a house in the "desirable" suburb. It's not as much about choices as it is about leverage.
In order for a pilot career to be "worthwhile" you have to transcend the payment in takoffs and landings thing. You have to effectively leverage your economic position to the point where you can "afford" the career. The examples are pretty classic. You have the 20-something recent college grad, yeah he can afford the moving around for 20K/yr, with some remnant of parental subsidy (never acknowledged but always there), they have sufficient leverage at that specific point in time to make that choice. Likewise for the early 40s career changers. Fat in the savings account, they are able to leverage their present expense of a family with cold liquid cash and hedge their bets that they'll be able to regain suffcient income power to make their income leverage permanent as their savings flush month by month. Lastly we have the perma-bachelor, this is the only true case of permanent leverage in the pilot profession. Answering only to his personal spending and no family, he/she has the power to always leverage his income state in favor of his chosen profession and is able to effectively afford it at all times and during all employment circumstances (furlough, contract concessions, regional CA to major FO pay cut, lateral regional FO moves etc).
The median is the one who has the problem. Today's 30 somethings with the young family are the ones who represent the median. If you were unable to attain an income position in 5 or so years to sustain your lifestyle as your life circumstances change and dictate the increase in income, you're hosed. As we know, no lateral career progression, furloughs, no defined retirement benefits are not the kind of job descriptors that the median household would propose himself to use as a primary source of income for a family. Those on this board who were time/luck-favored to be able to attain high enough seniority have effectively leveraged their income postion to be able to say they can afford to "pursue their passion in life". That is of course until they get furloughed and are unable to command the same income position because of an industry without lateral career options, unlike the rest of the rational economic world.
Look, I'm in the boat of "fulfilling my passion in life" rather than put a bullet through my head as an engineering mouse-pusher in some window-less corporate bunker in Dallas-Fort worth, and I did make that choice, but I can only do so to the point where I can leverage my income position to be able to make such choice. I can't be an educated fool and pretend that if I click my heels and wish it so, that getting paid in landings is all I'll ever need and want because it gives me a warm fuzzy. Come on. You have to temper your desire to live in fantasy land with that econ 101 class I hope you had paid more attention in college to. That doesn't make your dream less legitimate, as much as the timing-favored finger-pointers on this board would like you to believe, but you have to meet your basic needs before you can be in a position where you can start knocking on the conventional wisdom that your neighbors are silent disheartened laborers in their slow march to death while they afford life and you don't. Maybe regional CA living in base is the closest to a secure enough dream as the median will be able to reach, and in that respect the boat has sailed and people need to get informed, but for the sake of your fellow pilots, let's quit it with the price inelasticity, it's embarassing and devalues your own bargaining power.
You can always complain about the soul-sucking job that keeps your IRA account fat every year and affords you two cars and a house in the "desirable" suburb. It's not as much about choices as it is about leverage.
In order for a pilot career to be "worthwhile" you have to transcend the payment in takoffs and landings thing. You have to effectively leverage your economic position to the point where you can "afford" the career. The examples are pretty classic. You have the 20-something recent college grad, yeah he can afford the moving around for 20K/yr, with some remnant of parental subsidy (never acknowledged but always there), they have sufficient leverage at that specific point in time to make that choice. Likewise for the early 40s career changers. Fat in the savings account, they are able to leverage their present expense of a family with cold liquid cash and hedge their bets that they'll be able to regain suffcient income power to make their income leverage permanent as their savings flush month by month. Lastly we have the perma-bachelor, this is the only true case of permanent leverage in the pilot profession. Answering only to his personal spending and no family, he/she has the power to always leverage his income state in favor of his chosen profession and is able to effectively afford it at all times and during all employment circumstances (furlough, contract concessions, regional CA to major FO pay cut, lateral regional FO moves etc).
The median is the one who has the problem. Today's 30 somethings with the young family are the ones who represent the median. If you were unable to attain an income position in 5 or so years to sustain your lifestyle as your life circumstances change and dictate the increase in income, you're hosed. As we know, no lateral career progression, furloughs, no defined retirement benefits are not the kind of job descriptors that the median household would propose himself to use as a primary source of income for a family. Those on this board who were time/luck-favored to be able to attain high enough seniority have effectively leveraged their income postion to be able to say they can afford to "pursue their passion in life". That is of course until they get furloughed and are unable to command the same income position because of an industry without lateral career options, unlike the rest of the rational economic world.
Look, I'm in the boat of "fulfilling my passion in life" rather than put a bullet through my head as an engineering mouse-pusher in some window-less corporate bunker in Dallas-Fort worth, and I did make that choice, but I can only do so to the point where I can leverage my income position to be able to make such choice. I can't be an educated fool and pretend that if I click my heels and wish it so, that getting paid in landings is all I'll ever need and want because it gives me a warm fuzzy. Come on. You have to temper your desire to live in fantasy land with that econ 101 class I hope you had paid more attention in college to. That doesn't make your dream less legitimate, as much as the timing-favored finger-pointers on this board would like you to believe, but you have to meet your basic needs before you can be in a position where you can start knocking on the conventional wisdom that your neighbors are silent disheartened laborers in their slow march to death while they afford life and you don't. Maybe regional CA living in base is the closest to a secure enough dream as the median will be able to reach, and in that respect the boat has sailed and people need to get informed, but for the sake of your fellow pilots, let's quit it with the price inelasticity, it's embarassing and devalues your own bargaining power.
Last edited by hindsight2020; 04-14-2008 at 02:08 PM.
04-14-2008, 02:05 PM
#214
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Jul 2007
Position: 744 CA
Posts: 4,772
dammit guys .....just marry VERY well!!!! What is so damn hard about that....
04-14-2008, 02:19 PM
#215
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Joined APC: Jan 2006
Position: A-320
Posts: 6,929
.Seriously though anyone remember the days when airline guys had a boat, two houses, nice cars, a Baron and two ex-wives, now I am impressed if I See an airline guy that has money to buy a Grande Latte for 4.50 at Starbucks
.It's not that I want all of those materialistic things, its the fact that this profession has taken such a dump that people leave it to become Nurses........................Gaylord Focker ring a bell?
04-14-2008, 03:00 PM
#216
Moderator
Joined APC: Oct 2006
Position: B757/767
Posts: 13,088
haha I have been looking at rings, I am marrying into money, but what kind of man asks his wife to come to the Porsche dealership to help him buy a Black on Black Porsche GT3 .
Seriously though anyone remember the days when airline guys had a boat, two houses, nice cars, a Baron and two ex-wives, now I am impressed if I See an airline guy that has money to buy a Grande Latte for 4.50 at Starbucks.
It's not that I want all of those materialistic things, its the fact that this profession has taken such a dump that people leave it to become Nurses........................Gaylord Focker ring a bell?
.Seriously though anyone remember the days when airline guys had a boat, two houses, nice cars, a Baron and two ex-wives, now I am impressed if I See an airline guy that has money to buy a Grande Latte for 4.50 at Starbucks
.It's not that I want all of those materialistic things, its the fact that this profession has taken such a dump that people leave it to become Nurses........................Gaylord Focker ring a bell?
Last edited by johnso29; 04-14-2008 at 03:24 PM.
04-14-2008, 03:19 PM
#218
Line Holder
Joined APC: Dec 2007
Posts: 58
I feel sorta screwed since my degree was in avation. Man, I hope I can land an FAA job.
04-14-2008, 03:29 PM
#220
Self Employed.
Joined APC: May 2005
Position: Corporate Pilot
Posts: 7,119
Hey Thanks man
I get tired too... But only after I had spent all night changing an engine on a 737 and then watched as the crew flew it away. I also get tired of flying an ILS down to mins in a tri-jet level "D" sim and then not be able to go do it in the real thing. I also get tired of giving technical (via satcom) advice to flight crews winging their way to HKG while I sit in a windowless office.
I have weighed all of the pros and cons of flying for a commuter and the pros far exceed the cons.
Recently, I was giving dual to an orthapedic surgeon and he had made his mind up to pursue an aviation career full time. This individual earned over 300k/yr and was prepared to take a massive pay cut with the full knowledge that he may never make that amount again. By the way, we were flying his shiny Diamond w/ MFD and downlink wx. Obviously toys like that are not enough to keep him in his current profession.
My point is to reinforce that age old adage "Do what your heart leads you to". If you are truly tired flying and not just in a temporary funk, then you probably should get out of the business. Hopefully you can find what really trips your trigger.
I notice that guys like "Tony Montana" and "Skyhigh" frequent this site and post much. Their heart is with aviation I think. In fact, I appreciate Skyhigh's point of view and believe he is a true friend of aviation. I would give him a job flying if I had the power to do that.
I have weighed all of the pros and cons of flying for a commuter and the pros far exceed the cons.
Recently, I was giving dual to an orthapedic surgeon and he had made his mind up to pursue an aviation career full time. This individual earned over 300k/yr and was prepared to take a massive pay cut with the full knowledge that he may never make that amount again. By the way, we were flying his shiny Diamond w/ MFD and downlink wx. Obviously toys like that are not enough to keep him in his current profession.
My point is to reinforce that age old adage "Do what your heart leads you to". If you are truly tired flying and not just in a temporary funk, then you probably should get out of the business. Hopefully you can find what really trips your trigger.
I notice that guys like "Tony Montana" and "Skyhigh" frequent this site and post much. Their heart is with aviation I think. In fact, I appreciate Skyhigh's point of view and believe he is a true friend of aviation. I would give him a job flying if I had the power to do that.
The best analogy I can give is that aviation is like a hot girl friend that disrespects and humiliates you. Why stick with something that is not going to be good for you in the long run? The temptation is there but rational thinking and a mature perspective should keep you out of trouble.
We can't have everything in life. Aviation is just too costly for most.
SkyHigh
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