Honestly, the pay doesn't bother me as much of the way it was implemented....neither of my parents made over 40k when I was growing up and I had a perfectly happy upbringing...the actual pay isn't a huge deal to me. But to take the entire collective bargaining process and make a mockery out of it because of a loophole is what ticks me off....but i'm not wussying out because of the pay.
Well, the unethical practice of getting us involved in the education promising a good salary, then when we near graduation they slash wages, ruin the QOL, while outsourcing FSS. . . it doesn't leave a good taste in my mouth for the agency. So nevertheless, I suppose I am wussying out. Call it what you want I suppose.
I figure a lot of you guys have SRS (Shiney Radar Syndrome) and will work for whatever pay just to be a "controller." I hope you enjoy working the overtime, the rotating eight hour shifts, missing holidays, the understaffing, missing your kids birthdays (if you have kids), while you pull in 40-55k a year after all of the FAA's consolidation and reorginization. With no competition in the market place to bring wages up.
Atleast with SJS you can eventually make 70-90K a year as a RJ CA, with prospects of moving to another company and eventually pulling in >100K as a 737/A320 CA or >130K a year on larger aircraft at larger companies.
Don't handcuff yourself, and remember your time is worth something, so is the skill you will posses eventually.
Much like you I am ashamed that a government organization is willing to undercut their employees, and future employees. The integrity that government agencies tell their employees to practice but when it comes back to the managers they are down right ignorant, lieing SOBs. It's like a plague. It happens in military, of which I'm tired off and am moving on, and it appears to occur in civil servant positions as well. While our administer Blakey is clueless, and has zero experience in air traffic, much less aviation safety, she continues to drive the boat deeper into the depths of darkness.
It'll be a another two years before she is even gone, she has only just begun ruining our nations air space system. I can't even imagine what she will do next, but more outsourcing is on the way I'm sure.
