The math for quitting FedEx to go to United
- Thread starter GypsyPilot
- Start date
Beep
Well-Known Member
Yeah, but you’re like 700 years old, so your house probably cost about thirty five cents when you bought it.
JK, I agree with your schedule and home life thoughts.
You mean you didn’t live completely beyond your means, acquiring a bunch of stuff you really don’t need, while divorcing your 3rd wife for some 20-something, and needing to work until you die while still living paycheck to paycheck?
Pilot Fighter
Well-Known Member
As an Office Space fan, the return of Loudermilk for a fourth season makes me happy.
View: https://youtu.be/GCjOj6jTNjs
Here the math for ya:
fed of (x)=2|x−3|+4
When you ask "why?" (get it?), pretty sure that'll give you 4 or more of whatever yer makin' now.
Next question: Is that justifiable by any reasonable human value metric?
CFI A&P
Exploring the world one toilet at a time.
Are you writing the forward to the career memoirs of JCs ZapBrannigan, with this?
I think about his saga every time I hear about someone’s unrealistic career plans.
“Going graduate UND at 22, immediately at a regional then Delta by 26, Captain by 30, maybe 28….”
Yeah, right kid.
CFI A&P
Exploring the world one toilet at a time.
Yeah, but you’re like 700 years old, so your house probably cost about thirty five cents when you bought it.
JK, I agree with your schedule and home life thoughts.
You forgot assembled on site from a Sears Roebuck & Co. catalog.
My grandparents lived in one of those. (Note: it was not the most aesthetically pleasing structure, but it never leaked.)
ClearedForOption
Displaced... again.
15 years ago it was the "SJS" that was knocking people around left and right... today it's the FOMO.
Right after I upgraded a friend's mom said to me, (paraphrasing a little bit) "You are a Capt now? At where, Jet... who? You want me to call Fred (Smith) about you? I can probably help you get on here." It was my spouse that said not just No, but Hells No! Then, in... what was it... '16? I was sitting on a bus waiting to be transported to a ALPA golf thing and all the UAL dudes were comparing pay rates on the (at the time) shiny new contract. That time I did spend 5 min. updating my pay-to-play app thing. I think.
Way back in the day when I was working at Southern Air a old FE told me that (again, paraphrasing) once you have a job at a career airline, just stay there. The one thing that you can't take with you is your seniority. Pay will come and go, airlines will come and go. The only thing you have is your number and it's not worth giving that up. (And even though this dude had his career torpedoed by the end of 'professional FE's' and one of the many hard landings of the airlines in the 80's and 90's...) It was good advice.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that this career is a marathon and not a sprint. Sometimes you just have to pull yourself inside your own head and find whatever joy you can in the day-to-day rather than chasing the grass is greener, carrot, keeping up with the Joneses... or FOMO.
Sorry. One wonderful thing about the golden handcuffs is that when they tighten up to a point, your bed is made and these decisions will just not factor.
Right after I upgraded a friend's mom said to me, (paraphrasing a little bit) "You are a Capt now? At where, Jet... who? You want me to call Fred (Smith) about you? I can probably help you get on here." It was my spouse that said not just No, but Hells No! Then, in... what was it... '16? I was sitting on a bus waiting to be transported to a ALPA golf thing and all the UAL dudes were comparing pay rates on the (at the time) shiny new contract. That time I did spend 5 min. updating my pay-to-play app thing. I think.
Way back in the day when I was working at Southern Air a old FE told me that (again, paraphrasing) once you have a job at a career airline, just stay there. The one thing that you can't take with you is your seniority. Pay will come and go, airlines will come and go. The only thing you have is your number and it's not worth giving that up. (And even though this dude had his career torpedoed by the end of 'professional FE's' and one of the many hard landings of the airlines in the 80's and 90's...) It was good advice.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that this career is a marathon and not a sprint. Sometimes you just have to pull yourself inside your own head and find whatever joy you can in the day-to-day rather than chasing the grass is greener, carrot, keeping up with the Joneses... or FOMO.
Sorry. One wonderful thing about the golden handcuffs is that when they tighten up to a point, your bed is made and these decisions will just not factor.
"Lifestyle"...
Anyone ever given any consideration to that "word"? It's origin? It's meaning?
Hint: that is not an English word. That is a marketing word, stolen from "psychology" and contrived entirely during the peak-consumer middle years of the 20th century. That word is a contrivance referring to a contrived concept. Still, amazingly but not surprisingly, that word has now entered the popular vernacular because people highly-paid to manipulate other people thrust it there and kept repeating it until average people believed it was acceptable and real.
roundout
VNAV monitor
I turned in a resignation today and it was mostly because of this, even if I lose some money and peace of mind in the short term.
///AMG
Well-Known Member
FWIW, I get the "I hate this I quit" mentality. I basically rage quit a "due-course"/on-track active duty military career at 12 years of service (i.e. over half way to a monthly paycheck starting in my mid 40's), for reasons not unlike the things OP is kicking around. It was a significant financial decision, and I lost plenty of future earnings due to it, no question.....I'll get a reduced pension, starting at age 60 (or maybe 58-59 depending on how the numbers break out), rather than the full pension that in my case would have begun in a few years from now. In hindsight, 100% worth it, regardless of the $$ amount. So I think there are other elements to consider than just the nebulous homemade "lifetime earnings" calculators some airline people seem so obsessed with. If you are truly unhappy, and have been, it isn't an invalid decision. If you are just spooked right now, I think that patience might be the better virtue. It's a solid company, and a job that many would be envious of, and in years to come, will be envious of again. Just my .02, not having any idea what you are currently going through.
Not sad that you did it. Sad that you found it necessary to do.
You could’ve been a carrier commander, even CNO. But you threw it all away…..
///AMG
Well-Known Member
haha Mike is on a roll today. Let's not get ahead of ourselves though. But maybe I'll be a reserve carrier commander someday
Maurus
The Great Gazoo
Honestly, you are literally getting a delayed hit from the covid years. All pax pilots dealt with this stress and such for a good year.
Based on this post you made several months ago I know the loss of money due to downgrade shouldn't be the biggest source of stress. You knew this was coming right after you upgraded and one would hope you didn't already adjust your lifestyle to CA rates over the last four months.
Hindsight is 20/20. I should have made a lot of different decisions over my career as well. I should have worked my ass off to go to Compass when they first started up and flowed to my current shop at least 10 years ago. I would be in a completely different position had I done that. Nothing I can do about it now so there is no need to kick myself for decisions I had no idea would turn out poorly. Hell, there is a good chance that during covid you would have been thinking about trying to get to FedEx had you gone to United in 2018.
My biggest point is that constantly going in circles about things you can't change will only cause you to be miserable. I see it all the time with angry pilots. It ultimately leads to the smallest crap they can't control setting them off all the time.
Focus on what you have and see if you actually like the job. Is your QOL good? Do you like the people you are flying with? What about the type of flying you are doing? If you go to your job and are miserable because the job makes you miserable then you should leave. If a temporary setback is the only reason you are looking to leave then I would advise against it.
Being fat by 700 pilots wont take long to rectify. FedEx has been bleeding junior pilots and has at least 700 retirements over the next 3 years. I doubt this setback will last more than 1-2 years assuming fedex doesn't lose more business over that time-frame.
Autothrust Blue
Welcome aboard the Washington State Ferries
I think there are legitimately bad (in the sense of “literally dumb/shooting one’s own bits off” or perhaps “willfully ignorant” or even “reckless”) career decisions you can make, but based on what you’ve described I don’t think either you or OP have made any of them. I’ve watched some people make them; this doesn’t appear to be that.
Someone’s always going to get “wherever” sooner. It’s a rat race, after all, a miserable, plodding exercise. Once the industry works out its various sillies (I think that point may have actually already happened) there’ll be less meteoric rises and more slow and steady churn.
For a hot few minutes (mostly during and immediately after the period in question, actually, where we all waited for the next catastrophe in the passenger business), FDX was the only job I would have left Yellow for.
Yes. And then if you still find out that you don’t want to work where you are, that you do find it intolerable (this is a thing), lay the groundwork, confer with your trusted loved ones, friends and colleagues, and do what you can.
Discernment is, for me, an agonizing process. I can do analysis paralysis really darn well. I’ve got a good cold-beer story about events from about August 2022 through January 2023, speaking of discernment (and “did that all really happen? It really all did happen”).
One thing that I do worry about, outside looking in, for FDX pilots, is exactly what FDX management want the company to become, versus what it is right now. I’m not really quite sure where they’re going.
You thought UPS was “just a trucking company that had some airplanes”. FedEx asks you to hold their beer…..