Being a pilot is cool.

I've done the 9-5 since I got out of the Army in 2006...I have a wife and kid, and still think I'd be a much happier person and a better father if I get paid to fly...even being gone on trips. It's all about happiness and fulfillment. If you make a 150K a year in a cubicle and hate it, vs 30K the first year as a pilot with light at the end of the tunnel for things to get better, I believe one's outlook on life and overall attitude will be night and day.
 
Pilotdude3407 said:
I'll take your fuel load...mock you for it, figure out what I really need...order it and YOU'LL like it. CHEERS



Let me preface this by saying I do not want a 9-5...but this is the same arguement our management gives us when we told that 12-14 days off is a lot. Do the math of home time: Here's what we know...9-5 is mon-fri with weekends off. (we won't even do holidays) I am giving an hour to get to work and :30 min to get home. The pilots, I am assuming a commutable one end trip with commuting. Again, I am being generous on the times.

9-5: 14hr 30 min at home every night...multiplied by 5 days a week...with the weekend off....times 4 for a month. 482hrs average each month that you can be at home.

pilot with 12 days off: based on a 6pm home arrival time on the day they finish to a commute time of 6pm on their last day off (for simple math) gives you 72hrs at home each week...multipled by 4...equals 288hrs each month.

Obviously, this does not account for sick time, vacation time, or more than 12 days off a month. However, using this basic model, it would take an additional 8 days to match a 9-5. So don't ever let someone tell you that because you have 12 or more days off that it is somehow creating more home time for you than a 9-5. Work it with your own math...it never equals.
Click to expand...

That's a good exercise. Let me do mine. 9.3 at home, 5 days a week plus 48 hour weekends. 229.2 hours a month at home. Most every second of which is used to eat, sleep or catch up on things I am entirely unable to do during the week.
 
Pilotdude3407 said:
Let me preface this by saying I do not want a 9-5...but this is the same arguement our management gives us when we told that 12-14 days off is a lot. Do the math of home time: Here's what we know...9-5 is mon-fri with weekends off. (we won't even do holidays) I am giving an hour to get to work and :30 min to get home. The pilots, I am assuming a commutable one end trip with commuting. Again, I am being generous on the times.

9-5: 14hr 30 min at home every night...multiplied by 5 days a week...with the weekend off....times 4 for a month. 482hrs average each month that you can be at home.

pilot with 12 days off: based on a 6pm home arrival time on the day they finish to a commute time of 6pm on their last day off (for simple math) gives you 72hrs at home each week...multipled by 4...equals 288hrs each month.

Obviously, this does not account for sick time, vacation time, or more than 12 days off a month. However, using this basic model, it would take an additional 8 days to match a 9-5. So don't ever let someone tell you that because you have 12 or more days off that it is somehow creating more home time for you than a 9-5. Work it with your own math...it never equals.
Click to expand...

There are problems with your formula. First, commuting is a choice, not a necessity. You can always move to live in base. Commuting time shouldn't be calculated into the total, because that lost time is the sacrifice that you choose to make for the privilege of being able to live wherever you want instead of where you work.

Second, there's pretty much no such thing as a true 9-5 job that pays what pilots can make nowadays. People who work traditional office jobs are expected to work longer hours, answer their phones while at home, respond to emails, take work with them on vacations, etc. The typical work week for a manager nowadays is more like 60 hours, not 40, and that doesn't include all of that time answering phones and emails while not at the office. If you want a true 9-5 job, then you'll pretty much have to give up the idea of advancement and accept that you'll be in the cubical for the rest of your life instead of the corner office, and you're unlikely to ever top $60k per year.
 
And for the record, subtracting all duty time and driving time to and from the airport, my total time at home this month is 605 hours. Yeah, that's not a misprint. Try finding an office gig with those hours.
 
Again, ATN has it all wrong. I work around 20 hours per week and most of that time is spent chasing the prettier employees around trying to get in their pants. Then, usually a 2 hour lunch with liquor and steak. Back to the office then for a bit more grab-ass and then home for a nap. That's what the normal office job is like.
 
WacoFan said:
Again, ATN has it all wrong. I work around 20 hours per week and most of that time is spent chasing the prettier employees around trying to get in their pants. Then, usually a 2 hour lunch with liquor and steak. Back to the office then for a bit more grab-ass and then home for a nap. That's what the normal office job is like.
Click to expand...
And you look like this.

250px-Don_Draper_Wiki.jpg


You forgot to add that you also drink while working, in addition to the 3 martini lunch.
 
ATN_Pilot said:
There are problems with your formula. First, commuting is a choice, not a necessity. You can always move to live in base. Commuting time shouldn't be calculated into the total, because that lost time is the sacrifice that you choose to make for the privilege of being able to live wherever you want instead of where you work.

Second, there's pretty much no such thing as a true 9-5 job that pays what pilots can make nowadays. People who work traditional office jobs are expected to work longer hours, answer their phones while at home, respond to emails, take work with them on vacations, etc. The typical work week for a manager nowadays is more like 60 hours, not 40, and that doesn't include all of that time answering phones and emails while not at the office. If you want a true 9-5 job, then you'll pretty much have to give up the idea of advancement and accept that you'll be in the cubical for the rest of your life instead of the corner office, and you're unlikely to ever top $60k per year.
Click to expand...


Exactly, the grass is always greener...in ATN's case it looks like it actually is. My engineering job has me working a split to more second shift, I see my kids in the morning getting them ready for school and then three nights during the week for an hour or so before they go to bed. Weekends are insane with trying to accomplish errands and doing some family time. When pilots are home, they're home. I answer phone calls/texts from 8AM - Midnight and when I get back from vacations that mound of crap I didn't do when I was on vacation is waiting for me when I get back.


That being said, I don't think I would trade it for a pilot job at this stage of my kids lives. I can go to almost every event and see them, even for a little bit, almost every day.
 
z987k said:
And you look like this.

250px-Don_Draper_Wiki.jpg


You forgot to add that you also drink while working, in addition to the 3 martini lunch.
Click to expand...

I did work at a place, for two years and one day, that was probably as close to Mad Men as a place could be today. Drank at work, during work - mornings included, had a balcony off my office I could smoke on, women were generally treated as objects and clients were there to pawn expenses off on.
 
ATN_Pilot said:
There are problems with your formula. First, commuting is a choice, not a necessity. You can always move to live in base. Commuting time shouldn't be calculated into the total, because that lost time is the sacrifice that you choose to make for the privilege of being able to live wherever you want instead of where you work.

Second, there's pretty much no such thing as a true 9-5 job that pays what pilots can make nowadays. People who work traditional office jobs are expected to work longer hours, answer their phones while at home, respond to emails, take work with them on vacations, etc. The typical work week for a manager nowadays is more like 60 hours, not 40, and that doesn't include all of that time answering phones and emails while not at the office. If you want a true 9-5 job, then you'll pretty much have to give up the idea of advancement and accept that you'll be in the cubical for the rest of your life instead of the corner office, and you're unlikely to ever top $60k per year.
Click to expand...

In regards to living in base, is that always realistic? How often has your base changed in your career thus far, how many more times will it change in your career? How many of those changes are by choice and in areas of the country you would move a family to? If you are single it is easier, with kids that is not as easily done. I don't think I need to go into the reasons as to why.

However, your description of the "9-5" is spot on. I get emails from upper level managers all hours of the night. Being lower level and being paid well below them, I refuse to be connected 24/7 and have turned down the blackberry offers, aka requests to be availabe when they have a question for me. My time is my time. That attitude however, does not get you very far or earn you any favors.

I agree with pullup though, at this stage in my childs life, I would hate being away more than I hate working in an office. Seeing her every day is far greater than any pleasure a job could provide. She is a true source of happieness, a job is only a source of income.
 
Even on the days when I've absolutely had enough I'll look out the window, down to the ground, see something I otherwise would not have seen and think to myself, "Flying is pretty damned cool."
 
Matt13C said:
In regards to living in base, is that always realistic?How often has your base changed in your career thus far, how many more times will it change in your career? How many of those changes are by choice and in areas of the country you would move a family to? If you are single it is easier, with kids that is not as easily done. I don't think I need to go into the reasons as to why.
Click to expand...

Of course it's realistic. Pilots like to act like they're the only ones who can be subject to frequent moves for their careers. People in thousands of professions are subject to frequent moves, and yes, to places where they wouldn't especially love to live. That's life. Pilots are lucky to have another option in commuting, but it's just that: an option. You don't have to do it, and if you choose to do it, then you sacrifice some of your personal time.
 
WacoFan said:
Again, ATN has it all wrong. I work around 20 hours per week and most of that time is spent chasing the prettier employees around trying to get in their pants. Then, usually a 2 hour lunch with liquor and steak. Back to the office then for a bit more grab-ass and then home for a nap. That's what the normal office job is like.
Click to expand...
So you're a chief pilot? ;)
 
ATN - here are the things about flying for a job I would not like:
- Medical and possibility of loosing a career due to no fault of my own
- Instability in the industry (strikes/furlough)
- Constantly decreasing wages
- Being bored in cruise
- Dealing with TSA and other airport BS
- Hotels with bed bugs
- Being away from home when your wife ovulates
- Being away from home for birthdays/xmas
- Just being away from home every week
- High entrance cost
- Being stuck at a company due to the way seniority works
- Possibility of being the most jr FO earning nothing when you are 50
- Lack of diversity/change - the vast majority of retiring pilots have done exactly the same thing for the past 30-40 years (take off, fly, land).

To me that does not sound like a cool job. Albeit looking down as the earth moves beneath you is cool, that is probably about the only cool thing. Maybe it is a personal thing, just not my thing.
 
Some of what you list are certainly downsides, but other things are inaccurate. For example, I don't worry about losing my medical. If I do, my company has to pay me 66.6% of my normal earnings until the day I turn 65. Granted, I wouldn't have wanted it to happen while I was at a regional, but now it's not something that I worry about. The TSA? Going away for us now that Known Crewmember is being implemented. Decreasing wages? Mine have always gone up.

But yes, some of the things you mention are certainly true. You will miss the occasional holiday or birthday. You stay at the occasional crappy hotel. And yes, it is the same thing over and over again for 40 years. That's the biggest downside from my perspective. I really enjoyed full-time union work because I felt that I was actually accomplishing something and making a difference. I miss that aspect. But I don't miss the 18 hour days 5 days a week and nonstop phone calls and emails. When I got back to the line, parking the airplane and going home was a weird experience, because I was no longer taking my job with me. When that plane was parked, my job was done for days at a time. After three years in a corner office with all of the stress and work that goes with it, that was the biggest relief imaginable. In my opinion, it's worth all of the downsides.
 
At the risk of telling you what you already know, being a pilot, like being a dog-washer or a Senator, isn't going to fix your problems. If there's a danger, it's imagining that your job is your Identity, and lots of people make that mistake. Being a Pilot isn't going to make you fit, or bright, or happy. You gotta do that yourself. It's not rocket surgery. Get paid to do whatever it is you get paid to do, and then make meaning in your mind by doing things that are genuinely beautiful. "They were called test pilots, and no one knew their names". Words to live by.
 
ATN - See I look at my job as the best in the world, and when I leave after my shift, I too get to leave all the stress behind.
 
Boris Badenov said:
At the risk of telling you what you already know, being a pilot, like being a dog-washer or a Senator, isn't going to fix your problems. If there's a danger, it's imagining that your job is your Identity, and lots of people make that mistake. Being a Pilot isn't going to make you fit, or bright, or happy. You gotta do that yourself. It's not rocket surgery. Get paid to do whatever it is you get paid to do, and then make meaning in your mind by doing things that are genuinely beautiful. "They were called test pilots, and no one knew their names". Words to live by.
Click to expand...

A million times this.

I kind of laugh when I hear (younger) people yammer on about "being happy with your career" and "fulfillment at work" and "I would hate to do xyz so I'm glad I'm doing abc".
 
WacoFan said:
A million times this.

I kind of laugh when I hear (younger) people yammer on about "being happy with your career" and "fulfillment at work" and "I would hate to do xyz so I'm glad I'm doing abc".
Click to expand...

Yup. I always feel bad for those who their lives revolve around being Mr. Airline Pilot. Someday this industry will kick you square in the balls and then what else do you have? When that day comes for me, I'll be upset. As much as I complain, I still do enjoy this job. But when I get home and am met by my beautiful wife and two crazy dogs who are just as happy to see me even though I may not be an airline pilot anymore, I'll still be mostly whole.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top