I agree with the notion that i never intended to be an airline pilot. I never nerded out over airliners, and i still wouldn’t be able to identify an A330 vs an A350. It was probably somewhere around my IOE that i learned to positively differentiate a 737 from an A320. All my kid dreams were reflected in posters framed on my walls, of Tomcats, Hornets, Intruders, etc. I was really fortunate to have gotten to live that fantasy. And after I decided that chapter of life was over (at least as a full time guy), it was a weird situation where for the first time in 37 years of life, I didn’t have a goal anymore. I got essentially an office job because COVID. It was fine and certainly paid the bills, but as i had instinctively known as a kid in school, the office life turned out to not be for me. Airlines were an easy segue. And it turns out, I enjoy it a lot. Way more than a lot of my peers have admitted themselves, following the transition. I find it to be pretty satisfying to fly really simple flights, and focus on doing the basics well. I don’t always meet my mark for that statement, but generally it is a whole different universe than i am used to, where flights are benign and generally start and end as planned. A couple days after i lost a motor and came back for an arrested landing in a gray jet, I was flying a very nice 737 MAX to HI and I had my most perfect landing ever in SAN the night before we went to the islands. Had a nice dinner, got a good rest, and had a really enjoyable crossing with a cool old CA. And I was paid somewhere in the ballpark of a million times more per hour than when i actually had to deal with a bunch of s**** single pilot earlier in the week.
I think i would sum up a pilot career at the major airlines as “work smarter not harder”, to borrow a phrase we used often in the navy.
* I’ll also clarify that I didn’t slog away as a civilian pilot for years like a lot of you guys did. So I’m a little bit greener, and probably more optimistic than many at this point.