Thoughts on this?

[word302]

Honestly the only time I questioned my choices to jump into aviation late in life (mid-thirties) was when I was a junior captain at Skywest. Movement is pretty slow there in the left seat due to all the lifers (I think there are less of them now), especially on the west coast. The abuse you get on reserve is pretty insane. I can't for a second imagine being a DEC there where you literally never move up. I upgraded at the end of 2017 so covid hit soon after that and movement slowed. I remember sitting in my rented room over Christmas and not being able to get ahold of my family thinking what the hell am I doing. It gets a little better with seniority, but the work rules there are abysmal and nobody cares to fix it cuz they're either senior enough to not feel it or think they'll be out of there before it matters.

Signed: someone who fought to get ALPA onboard for over 5 years.

 

[🦈💜]

Honestly the only time I questioned my choices to jump into aviation late in life (mid-thirties) was when I was a junior captain at Skywest. Movement is pretty slow there in the left seat due to all the lifers (I think there are less of them now), especially on the west coast. The abuse you get on reserve is pretty insane. I can't for a second imagine being a DEC there where you literally never move up. I upgraded at the end of 2017 so covid hit soon after that and movement slowed. I remember sitting in my rented room over Christmas and not being able to get ahold of my family thinking what the hell am I doing. It gets a little better with seniority, but the work rules there are abysmal and nobody cares to fix it cuz they're either senior enough to not feel it or think they'll be out of there before it matters.

Signed: someone who fought to get ALPA onboard for over 5 years.

I was on the last two drives, and leadership on this last one, but I gave up this spring when a few milbros took over the OC and started making unilateral decisions, one of which was to move the OC chat to a different platform despite 50% of the people saying they didn't want that.

I also had one of those milbros go off on me about being a furry (due to my telegram user icon) and how it was inappropriate for a "professional" environment.

It's been radio silence since then, so I'm guessing the drive is dead. Not surprising, given the aforementioned.

The thing is, I'm fully willing to accept that my job is specifically the worst job in the industry, and that I'm too much of a trash animal to move on. But what I have trouble with is that when I say that, people come out of the woodwork to talk about how their schedules and work rules look like mine, or are worse. I feel like I'm being gaslit, and so when I come across an article like the one in the original post that compares strongly to my own experience, it seems like a reasonable baseline to check.

I also think people far too easily dismiss the long-term physical and mental health impacts of all of these factors.

Thanks to those who read and responded.

 

[Hiboglossi]

Finally read the essay last night. Certainly, the complaints in it could come across as whiny, particularly if you have a more difficult job, or one with a less employee-friendly job market, which as I understand it is most jobs right now. But it's hard to argue that it isn't largely correct. Especially since we often hear about how statistically, most airline pilots who retire at age 65 perish within a few years afterward, even though average U.S. life expectancy is now in the upper 70s.

 

[GloverMan]

I failed myself earlier in life making poor choices and not going into a different career, but it has turned out relatively OK. Have ~33 years left to go in the left seat but I do wonder sometimes how I screwed it up back when I was 20.

 

[Beaker]

Especially since we often hear about how statistically, most airline pilots who retire at age 65 perish within a few years afterward, even though average U.S. life expectancy is now in the upper 70s.

I don't know that this comparison has ever actually been done in a robust way (as in cohort to cohort). If it has, I'd love to read about it.

("Average age of a deceased pilot" is not the same property as life expectancy)

 

[BobDDuck]

I don't know that this comparison has ever actually been done in a robust way (as in cohort to cohort). If it has, I'd love to read about it.

("Average age of a deceased pilot" is not the same property as life expectancy)

It was based off of one Delta study done about 25 years ago.

I don't think it was particularly "sciency" science.

We tracked it for about 10 years over here, and I think the average was pretty close to the actuarial average for the date of birth, with a very small sample size though.

 

[Hiboglossi]

It was based off of one Delta study done about 25 years ago.

I don't think it was particularly "sciency" science.

We tracked it for about 10 years over here, and I think the average was pretty close to the actuarial average for the date of birth, with a very small sample size though.

I thought it was from Delta, didn't realize the data was that old though. I specifically recall people on here saying it was talking about pilots who retired at age 65 but obviously that can't be accurate if it's from 25 years ago.