Forbes Article on Regional Pilot Pay vs McDonalds Pay

I remember school being something like this.

Line up
Sit down
Shut up
Parrot these answers
Bell rings go eat
Bell rings go piss
Bell rings go home

Compliance not knowledge is rewarded. Now be a good little Marxist worker and do as your told.

Signing up for 4 more years wasn't on my mind.

I'm the simple minded kind of SOB that sees lightning and prepares for thunder. Guess I just see things differently is all.

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2
 
ATN_Pilot said:
Those studies focus on a single criteria. The real question is, are there better methods of determining whether someone will be a good employee than using a 4-year degree as a litmus test? I believe the answer is clearly "yes."

I hired someone two weeks ago. I honestly couldn't tell you what school she went to, what her degree is in, or if she even attended college. Why? Because it was irrelevant to me. Someone could graduate from Harvard with a 4.0 GPA and a triple major, and I wouldn't hire him. I'm interested in experience. The thing my eyes went to on the resume wasn't the education section, but the prior job experience section. And I saw 20 years of experience in real estate, with over a decade of solid property management experience. To me, that's far more important than anything related to college. I don't need to know her "trainability," because I know that she's already been doing the job successfully for a long period of time. What school she went to and what her GPA was twenty years ago is perfectly useless information. It tells me absolutely nothing about this person, and even less about how well she'll do the job.

The story is the same for pilots. While the degree may be a suitable method of weeding out candidates for entry-level positions at the regionals where most of the applicants don't have prior experience to use as an indicator, it's absolutely silly to use it as a criteria for selecting candidates for legacy and major airline positions.
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True! However, legacy carriers not all that long ago hired people in their early twenties. There wasn't much else to gauge how the person performs. Todd I'm with you on a lot of your points. I think vocational schools would suit people a lot better than college. Hell I've been saying that the people who know how to work with their hands are the next millionaires. My generation is pathetic when it comes to manual labor. YouTube has taught me a lot about how to fix and replace a lot of the things in some of my properties. If I didn't have that it would have been some expensive nightmares.
 
desertdog71 said:
I remember school being something like this.

Line up
Sit down
Shut up
Parrot these answers
Bell rings go eat
Bell rings go piss
Bell rings go home

Compliance not knowledge is rewarded. Now be a good little Marxist worker and do as your told.

Signing up for 4 more years wasn't on my mind.

I'm the simple minded kind of SOB that sees lightning and prepares for thunder. Guess I just see things differently is all.

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2
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No bells in college. No recess either. They expect you to be an adult and get your work done in a set amount of time. My last interview I had to bring my transcripts. It was kind of funny seeing how I did better in school when I was in season then when I wasn't. It all came down to time management and responsibility. I didn't pay a dime for college so maybe I'm jaded.
 
Boris Badenov said:
I think it probably depends largely upon whether or not you're studying things in which you're genuinely, deeply interested with people who are absurdly bright and well-informed. Worked for me, anyway.
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Were that my experience, or my honest opinion about the actual state of college... or, if, in some way, I had reason to believe that the above adequately reflected the "college experience" for the average attendee, I would likely be far more receptive to that argument. It sounds lovely, but it doesn't match my observation about the general state of things. Of course, there's still the institutional profit motive that I can't get around ... but if the system seemed designed to foster learning, as opposed to standards-based teaching, I would find it much more supportable.

Just my thoughts though. I'm sure for many people education is like that ... but I'm fairly certain that it does not describe the common experience.

Also... in my opinion, higher education, if made a general requirement, should be free to the learner.

-Fox
 
Acrofox said:
Were that my experience, or my honest opinion about the actual state of college... or, if, in some way, I had reason to believe that the above adequately reflected the "college experience" for the average attendee, I would likely be far more receptive to that argument.
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My experience was, I think it's probably safe to say, in no way "normative". I dropped out of my alma mater after high school because I was in no way ready to do it (not all that easy, it turns out). Then I went to a state school for a few semesters. Everything you say was just as true then as it is now vis a vis the "average college experience". But there are alternatives. When I went back to SJC, I was prepared to do the actual work of learning (and it is, in fact, "work"...if you're actually learning). Yes, the "higher education" system in the US is, in the main, not all that High (unless you mean some of them funny cigarettes). But let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater...MANY colleges being maybe a tick up from Clown College does not make ALL Higher Education box-checking BS. That's logic! They teach you that in College! ;)

Well, some of them, anyway.
 
amorris311 said:
That's the choice you get to make with your own airplane. It has been no secret for decades delta and others have required a college degree. If it's your dream to work for one of these carriers I think it would make sense to gt that degree. If you want to work somewhere else then don't get the degree. There are many people out there that have a degree that are smart and there are people out there without a degree that are smart. The conversation should have nothing to do with whether or not you're smart. I don't think belittling anyone that does or doesn't have a degree is just stupid. I fly airplanes for a living and I didn't go to school to do that. If anything, I went to play football. I applied myself and got a degree but does it make me any smarter? I don't know. Does it qualify me though to get a job at Delta? Sure does.
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Here, ladies and gentleman is the crux of the problem with this industry. We have people DREAMING of work. Work is WORK and shouldn't be something someone dreams of doing.

My "dream" is to lose my medical so I can go out on long term disability and get 2/3 of my pay tax free till I reach age 65.
 
All I remember when I was in school (high school, community college, and the university) is " Wow, I can't wait to be done with school, I'll have sooo much time! No projects, homework, case studies, 500 word essays, etc.. I'll get to do what I want. All I'll have to do is go to work!"

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA *deep breath* HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH....:bounce:

Yeah, I was wrong....



Seriously though... I get bored pretty easy and I like to learn new stuff. That's what aviation does for me. Keeps me on my toes, learning new things. I'd rather be getting paid to learn new stuff than the other way around. It's just the feeling that you never seem to stop paying you dues that can get discouraging.
 
Brand X said:
Here, ladies and gentleman is the crux of the problem with this industry. We have people DREAMING of work. Work is WORK and shouldn't be something someone dreams of doing.
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CAN. I GET. AN "AMEN"? A "like" just doesn't get it for this.

You've got maybe 80 years on this rock (provided you don't get hit by a bus crossing the street or any number of other unpleasant ends you might meet), spiraling through the infinite cosmos, figuring out what it means to be alive. Experiencing, learning, thinking. And you choose to spend your oh-so-numbered days dreaming about operating aviation appliances?

That's freaking BROKEN, people.
 
I have a dream job...it would allow me to commute (HA!) 25 minutes to work. Fly over my own neighborhood, VFR, during daylight hours, and return to my home base every day (with very few exceptions) make 6 figures and be off half the year...

...and the work would be the most fun flying ever and I can do it until I physically can't.

I am still in the game...lessee if it comes to fruition!
 
amorris311 said:
That's the choice you get to make with your own airplane. It has been no secret for decades delta and others have required a college degree. If it's your dream to work for one of these carriers I think it would make sense to gt that degree. If you want to work somewhere else then don't get the degree. There are many people out there that have a degree that are smart and there are people out there without a degree that are smart. The conversation should have nothing to do with whether or not you're smart. I don't think belittling anyone that does or doesn't have a degree is just stupid. I fly airplanes for a living and I didn't go to school to do that. If anything, I went to play football. I applied myself and got a degree but does it make me any smarter? I don't know. Does it qualify me though to get a job at Delta? Sure does.
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Let me be the one to answer your question - no! The degree did not make you smarter.

ZING!

You walked into it dork - had to take the shot.
 
TwoTwoLeft said:
All I remember when I was in school (high school, community college, and the university) is " Wow, I can't wait to be done with school, I'll have sooo much time! No projects, homework, case studies, 500 word essays, etc.. I'll get to do what I want. All I'll have to do is go to work!"

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA *deep breath* HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH....:bounce:

Yeah, I was wrong....
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Dude seriously! Glad I'm not the only one who had that experience.
 
amorris311 said:
Well if you want to go with the poor me approach then keep it up. I'm happy that you were a successful business owner and truck driver. Like I have said before, a very close family friend is too. Believe it or not he has a masters degree! He loves being on the road and the nomad life he lives. I can tell you from experience that you will have a hard time getting your dream job if you keep the I'm a dirty uneducated truck driver sense of thinking. Just my thoughts.
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desertdog71 said:
I've never had trouble getting what I want and the dirty trucker line is tongue in cheek. I have zero debt a beautiful wife and two great kids. I have the world by the balls.

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2
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I see both sides of this. I do think that DirtyTrucker needs to change his handle though - it's dishonest. He's a regional guy now - spikey hair, backpack, earbuds, and all else that goes with it. However, if he called himself "DirtyRJ Pilot" it wouldn't differentiate - aren't they all dirty? My suggestion:

Pigpen.
 
Boris Badenov said:
The Finns generally don't have a whole lot of nice things to say about the Russkies. It's interesting...I think a lot of Americans think of them as just another subdivision of Squarehe...er Scandos. But they're very much their own animal. I've had some great drinking adventures with both Swedes and Finns, and the experiences were quite different. Like, with the Swedes it was a hipper, more self-aware version of Muricans going to a bar and hitting on obviously disinterested women. With the Finns, it often ended in like Feats of Strength or trying to kill animals with improvised weapons. Interesting people, them...
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I want to go back to Helsinki (been for a week, for a university trip), but I'm afraid I'd just wind up asking for political asylum or refugee status, marrying a Finnish girl, flying an A320 for Finnair and hacking together an operating system.
 
Boris Badenov said:
You don't want to do this why?
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It does sound pretty good, now that you mention it.

Plus...

lonkero.jpg
 
My God, I think that kid that blew the Jeopardy! answer that misspelled "Emancipation" is probably going to be an un-degreed pilot bellyaching in a very similar thread in another ten to fifteen years.

Which side will he be on? :)
 
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