Why I Left an Airline Pilot Career

Crazy he was hired at UAL 3 years after college in ‘85
Not a popular opinion, but I think the min age for ATP should be like 30+. Got guys in their 20s complaining orders of magnitude more than crusty lifers. It's like... dude, have you ever tried working for a living?
Yesterday, doing the visual into Missoula
It is beautiful. I've got few BZN, EYW, RSW left this month and a DCA with a 4.5 hr sit.
 
Got guys in their 20s complaining orders of magnitude more than crusty lifers.
Everyone has their own journey, but i'd generally agree that people in their 20s in aviation these last 5 years can stfu. These last 9 months however have seen companies go under, furloughs, insanity, etc. So the 25 year old RJ check airmen has been humbled, silenced, and wiser (hopefully)
 
Everyone has their own journey, but i'd generally agree that people in their 20s in aviation these last 5 years can stfu. These last 9 months however have seen companies go under, furloughs, insanity, etc. So the 25 year old RJ check airmen has been humbled, silenced, and wiser (hopefully)

It really sucks that some people are now facing stagnation and career setbacks. I don’t ever wish that on anyone.

But at least now some of the younger guys now understand why I, as a 38 year old, was a CRJ CA at SkyWest a few years ago despite already having well over a decade in the industry.

Nothing was more annoying than some clueless FO newb asking me if I had “considered” moving on anywhere, and that they were only interested in Delta and planned to be there in a couple years.

I still think I’m extremely lucky to have survived the “lost” decade and make it to a major by age 41. I know some people that are way better than me in every way that are still stuck.

Also, no disrespect to the people that decided to stay where they’re at and build a nice life, drive to work, and make a still very good six figure income.
 
I usually got the “it’s nice flying with someone who isn’t complaining all the time” comment from SkyWest Captains.

But first we had to get past how I got to be a first year FO at SkyWest at 39...

Still the best job I’ve ever had.


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I usually got the “it’s nice flying with someone who isn’t complaining all the time” comment from SkyWest Captains.

But first we had to get past how I got to be a first year FO at SkyWest at 39...

Still the best job I’ve ever had.


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Flying with older dudes who’ve been around the block a few times in the industry were almost always a true pleasure to fly with.

Not to be confused with old career changers, who were basically retired and wanted to play airline pilot for a few years. That’s a nightmare.
 
Evaluating programmers based on LOC as a productivity measure is dumb, because, well, fewer instructions is almost always mo-better. And if the assignment is to optimize then you get to put funny stuff like "-2000" in "lines of code written this year."

I work in that biz, no one that matters measures things that way. Caveat - dying businesses that don't matter do measure number of commits or LOC. They get the crap that they (barely) pay for.

Most of the real world has moved on to some variant of agile, devops, continuous something. The culture matters more than what you call it. Working down backlog per sprint is the normal metric now. Generally, a good one. The scrum poker cards, if you have ever used them, seem to be the most accurate thing I've seen for scoping projects.
 
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I work in that biz, no one that matters measures things that way. Caveat - dying businesses that don't matter do measure number of commits or LOC. They get the crap that they (barely) pay for.

Most of the real world has moved on to some variant of agile, devops, continuous something. The culture matters more than what you call it. Working down backlog per sprint is the normal metric now. Generally, a good one. The scrum poker cards, if you have ever used them, seem to be the most accurate thing I've seen for scoping projects.
That makes the thirteenth time today that I felt my age. :(
 
Still the best job I’ve ever had.
tenor.gif


...is Eskimo that bad?
 
Most of the stuff I work with didn't exist when I was in college, so don't feel bad old man. I'm old too.
Oddly, the most regular computer work that I do nowadays has to do with making text files into things that can be parsed into programs that then do useful analysis upon them.

Undergraduate me would consider me a filthy casual for this.
 
tenor.gif


...is Eskimo that bad?

It’s the 2nd best job I’ve had. It pays a lot, lot more. However there are some big issues that SkyWest didn’t have. Don’t care to go into details. I’m very happy here and 23 years later I’ll probably still be happy but the shenanigans around vacation time this year were outstandingly bad. Among other things.

SkyWest was so nice. Everyone I came in contact with was nice. It was like all the pilots I had ever wanted to meet during my career were at SkyWest. The base managers the CP everyone they were all nice to me and treated me with respect and expected me to be a professional. Easily the best I’ve been treated at any job.


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It’s the 2nd best job I’ve had. It pays a lot, lot more. However there are some big issues that SkyWest didn’t have. Don’t care to go into details. I’m very happy here and 23 years later I’ll probably still be happy but the shenanigans around vacation time this year were outstandingly bad. Among other things.

SkyWest was so nice. Everyone I came in contact with was nice. It was like all the pilots I had ever wanted to meet during my career were at SkyWest. The base managers the CP everyone they were all nice to me and treated me with respect and expected me to be a professional. Easily the best I’ve been treated at any job.


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How much time did you spend on reserve there? Even reserve CA and reserve FO life were wildly different at that place.
 
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