Thank you SOOOOOOOOOOOOO much Delta Airlines Pilot!

and one for “realizing I had overloaded them….”

Ring the bell, FO. It’s your ticket to freedom. Ring the bell and all this pain goes away. Get you a nice steak dinner, a cold beer, an air conditioned room, some calm music. I mean, why would you want to be putting up with this stress and workload anyway? Ring the bell…..there’s no shame in quitting, FO.



:)
 
So far I’m a month or two into this whole captain thing and I’ve had an FO thank me for: not “being political”, not “discussing the news” and one for “realizing I had overloaded them and when to own it.”

I’m not perfect and I did get thrown a massive curve ball in the middle of the night but at least I have a smidge of empathy and learned how to can carry on a conversation at house parties in Santa Cruz during the 90s.

I feel like I’m going to have to pay for one of those submarine trips to find how far the bar has sunk for leadership.


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Well, with the quick upgrades, most of the support system fizzled.

Your first captains job is a CFI. You learn to reframe a message a number of ways in order to communicate effectively, you learn what types of small talk (or not) to make with your student and you learn not to micromanage.

A lot of guys aren’t CFIs anymore so their first true crew experience is in the seat of a regional with speedy upgrades. Chances are the guy in the left seat (a) just made it and (b) didn’t learn the basics as a CFI and might be a tyrant without realizing it.

Cue fast upgrades at the majors, the ones that could really use a few years in the right seat to “calm they ass down” and hone the dynamics of working on a crew are often are attracted to super fast upgrades then they’re raising the next generation of pilots.

A quick two-day “Charm School” isn’t enough for some and there a couple of individuals that would benefit from a trip behind the woodshed and a seat lock in the right seat. I wanted to ask a captain, one day, “do you think your FO ironed his shirt, put his epaulets on the correct direction and took a shower to sit in the cockpit and listen to your personal grievances with the world? Take a Prozac and have a vacation or something”…
 
Ring the bell, FO. It’s your ticket to freedom. Ring the bell and all this pain goes away. Get you a nice steak dinner, a cold beer, an air conditioned room, some calm music. I mean, why would you want to be putting up with this stress and workload anyway? Ring the bell…..there’s no shame in quitting, FO.



:)
I wonder how many people understand the reference? I hope lots and lots do ... but I wonder ...
 
Well, with the quick upgrades, most of the support system fizzled.

Your first captains job is a CFI. You learn to reframe a message a number of ways in order to communicate effectively, you learn what types of small talk (or not) to make with your student and you learn not to micromanage.

A lot of guys aren’t CFIs anymore so their first true crew experience is in the seat of a regional with speedy upgrades. Chances are the guy in the left seat (a) just made it and (b) didn’t learn the basics as a CFI and might be a tyrant without realizing it.

Cue fast upgrades at the majors, the ones that could really use a few years in the right seat to “calm they ass down” and hone the dynamics of working on a crew are often are attracted to super fast upgrades then they’re raising the next generation of pilots.

A quick two-day “Charm School” isn’t enough for some and there a couple of individuals that would benefit from a trip behind the woodshed and a seat lock in the right seat. I wanted to ask a captain, one day, “do you think your FO ironed his shirt, put his epaulets on the correct direction and took a shower to sit in the cockpit and listen to your personal grievances with the world? Take a Prozac and have a vacation or something”…

They should call our charm school “calm they ass down school”.

LOL


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Ha! :)

I'd tell my new captains that during OE: "The validation you think you're getting by discussing politics is just the FO wishing you'd shut up"


While I don't bring up politics first, I have no problem with a guy wanting to talk politics. I've had conversations (FO initiated) both pro-Dem and pro-Repub and never once did it get out of hand, emotional, angry, etc.

What ever happened to grown adults conversing like mature, grown adults?

I don't shut down a convo unless it's insulting/crossed a line, but merely discussing politics doesn't cross that line IMO.
 
While I don't bring up politics first, I have no problem with a guy wanting to talk politics. I've had conversations (FO initiated) both pro-Dem and pro-Repub and never once did it get out of hand, emotional, angry, etc.

What ever happened to grown adults conversing like mature, grown adults?

I don't shut down a convo unless it's insulting/crossed a line, but merely discussing politics doesn't cross that line IMO.

This is super on brand for you.
 
This is super on brand for you.

Like I said, I don't bring it up first.

And it's not like it's every flight. Just once in a while a FO starts talking politics (which is usually slipped into during discussion with a related topic, say schools closed down during Covid and how our kids end of year assessment scores were down compared to years earlier).

I've also had a FO with a pride lanyard who went into a discussion of LGBT. I don't mind. I can converse like a mature adult.
 
Well, with the quick upgrades, most of the support system fizzled.

Your first captains job is a CFI. You learn to reframe a message a number of ways in order to communicate effectively, you learn what types of small talk (or not) to make with your student and you learn not to micromanage.

A lot of guys aren’t CFIs anymore so their first true crew experience is in the seat of a regional with speedy upgrades. Chances are the guy in the left seat (a) just made it and (b) didn’t learn the basics as a CFI and might be a tyrant without realizing it.

Cue fast upgrades at the majors, the ones that could really use a few years in the right seat to “calm they ass down” and hone the dynamics of working on a crew are often are attracted to super fast upgrades then they’re raising the next generation of pilots.

A quick two-day “Charm School” isn’t enough for some and there a couple of individuals that would benefit from a trip behind the woodshed and a seat lock in the right seat. I wanted to ask a captain, one day, “do you think your FO ironed his shirt, put his epaulets on the correct direction and took a shower to sit in the cockpit and listen to your personal grievances with the world? Take a Prozac and have a vacation or something”…
Wait. What am I getting myself in to?
 
Ha! :)

I'd tell my new captains that during OE: "The validation you think you're getting by discussing politics is just the FO wishing you'd shut up"
I don't know if Europe scares the ultra conservatives or something but I find people flying international to be less politically outspoken overall. Domestic is a different ballgame full of conspiracy theories and unsupported claims.
 
I don't know if Europe scares the ultra conservatives or something but I find people flying international to be less politically outspoken overall. Domestic is a different ballgame full of conspiracy theories and unsupported claims.

Probably. I think it depends on the base too.

When I was LAX-based, it was mountainbiking, surfing, travel, etc. DTW was vacation house, commuting, travel, food, home brewing. ATL was MAH GUNZ MAH MONNAY!

However international on the 76 And 330 as FO, it never came up. 350, it came up once and I basically told the other pilot that I‘d be setting the tone for my flight deck and that didn’t include what he read on WorldNetDaily.
 
Probably. I think it depends on the base too.

When I was LAX-based, it was mountainbiking, surfing, travel, etc. DTW was vacation house, commuting, travel, food, home brewing. ATL was MAH GUNZ MAH MONNAY!

However international on the 76 And 330 as FO, it never came up. 350, it came up once and I basically told the other pilot that I‘d be setting the tone for my flight deck and that didn’t include what he read on WorldNetDaily.

I’m the LAX guy. But I somehow wound up in SEA…


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When I was DFW-based, it was sports, high school football, their son is the next Troy AIkman and taxes.

When I was MSP-based, it was what town you grew up in, where you went to high school and what hockey team your kid was on. If the other pilot and the lead FA were both locals, you might as well been by yourself.

It was the functional equivalent of flying with two mil-only guys when you were the civ FO/FE on the 727.
 
When I was MSP-based, it was what town you grew up in, where you went to high school and what hockey team your kid was on. If the other pilot and the lead FA were both locals, you might as well been by yourself.

It was the functional equivalent of flying with two mil-only guys when you were the civ FO/FE on the 727.

Everyone was a local on my last trip.

”Where do you live?”

”I’m out west, I live in…”

”Muskegon?”

”Arizona.”
 
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