Where is the grass greener these days?
Grandpa Aerotart
Plus I don't have the manipulative skills required for plumber..if I dicked with the pipes they'd just leak worse after
Plus as one of my ground instructors said..a LONG time ago..."We become pilots 'cause we're too lazy to get a real job!!"
Chuckles
PS. I did allude to Regional pilots being home most nights...nothing wrong with a Job at Sunnies/Eastern...by National standards the pay is good, the aeroplanes are nice and the flying easy.
Plus as one of my ground instructors said..a LONG time ago..."We become pilots 'cause we're too lazy to get a real job!!"
Chuckles
PS. I did allude to Regional pilots being home most nights...nothing wrong with a Job at Sunnies/Eastern...by National standards the pay is good, the aeroplanes are nice and the flying easy.
Join Date: Oct 2000
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I commiserate with the author of the ode. It isn't all that bad. Depends on which outfit you're working with. I work with a great but little known airline. I fly twice, maybe three times a week. Salary is pretty good. Don't cross more than 2 time zones. Plenty of time to do other things. So in my case, it's really a lifestyle thing. Work is fun enough but I can truly say that it beats really working for a living.
Hang in there. There are airlines out there that still offers that lifestyle. They might not pay that well but you gotta balance it all up.
Hang in there. There are airlines out there that still offers that lifestyle. They might not pay that well but you gotta balance it all up.
Join Date: Dec 2002
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Splannny asks, somewhat naively, “Where has the glamour gone?” I will hide a hint of glamour somewhere in this fictitious tale:
You go to bed around 8pm and try to sleep. Around 1030pm you might’ve actually fallen asleep but you’re not really sure. What you do know is you feel particularly lousy when the alarm-clock just went off and it is that time again.
On the way to work you definitely feel tired enough to sleep but that’s not for you because your “day” is only just beginning.
You arrive at briefing to find the aircraft will be a half-hour late from previous service/maintenance/whatever. Eventually you make it on board and do your thing. An hour or so later and you’re waiting for some connecting passengers or some VIP who wandered off to the duty-free shop but his bag will take hours to find so he won’t be off-loaded.
You push-back nearly an hour late, already annoyed with the world and yawning your head off. You sit in the queue at the holding point for a while then blast off into the night and engage the auto-pilot because at this hour the last thing you feel like “enjoying” is hand-flying this heavy aircraft and the company doesn’t really want you to anyway, what with the likelihood of human error. Much safer to allow the automation to do its thing, that’s what Boeing intended.
You level off and after the paperwork, decide you can finally have a kip as you eye the beginnings of another “glorious” sunrise you’d rather not be awake to be witnessing. Soon the sun is all over you activating your body’s “daytime-mode”. You manage to sleep anyway because you’re SO SHAGGED and wake up an hour or so later with a sore neck, rotten taste in your mouth and a feeling of having been drugged. The other guy is looking like he could gnaw his own arm off just to have his turn to sleep having already prepared himself with pillow and blanket in place. He promptly nods off while you’re still trying to work out what part of the world you’re flying over.
You can’t believe how dry your lips and skin are even though you’ve been guzzling water like there’s no tomorrow (and you know that for you, the day when there is no tomorrow will most likely be sooner than for others because of your habits but you’re too tired to care.) Your butt is sore but you can not even be bothered getting up and walking around to stretch. Even reading the newspaper holds no appeal because by now, your enthusiasm is reserved strictly for escaping this constant, all-pervading noise and finding something soft and warm to sleep in. So you stare out the window and try to resist the temptation to check the chronograph.
Now and then you do battle with Bombay or similar on HF. Often, you only get through to them and make your position report just as you are about 20NM from the next waypoint, where it will all begin anew. The controller insists you make a seperate report there.
You make it to the destination without falling asleep again. You head to the hotel and un-pack your samsonite "home", shower and hop into bed just as the kids down the hall are heading down to the pool and back again and back again and back again and back again and back again. In doing this, they feel the need to yell encouragement to each other constantly. Around this time, late morning, some restoration work involving a jack-hammer begins in a building across the street.
You wake up in the afternoon after what really only qualifies as a "nap". You head down to the restaurant for a bite to eat and wonder how long you’ll feel like you’ve just come out of surgery. Later you have a few beers as the sun goes down and you wonder at how short this day seems to have been. You go back to bed but of course you only sleep a couple of hours because your body can’t understand what you’re doing to it. You wake up with a feeling of dying by suffocation because the hotel windows are sealed shut. You contemplate throwing a chair through the window because at this hour, in your state, you are desperate for fresh air and almost anything seems reasonable. You wonder if there’s anything else you are qualified to do for a living.
Because the turn-around is 24hrs you wake up too early to go to work but too late to fit in another sleep cycle. You really need a little more time on the ground to fit in two proper nights sleep but the company has money to make and this concept doesn’t suit their plans.
You go back to the airport and start to yawn as you’re going over the flight plan. None of your colleagues has ever gone back to the hotel due to exhaustion and you won’t be the first but you know if you make a mistake, one of the first things they ask you at the Inquisition will be, “Did you decide you were adequately rested?”
You go to bed around 8pm and try to sleep. Around 1030pm you might’ve actually fallen asleep but you’re not really sure. What you do know is you feel particularly lousy when the alarm-clock just went off and it is that time again.
On the way to work you definitely feel tired enough to sleep but that’s not for you because your “day” is only just beginning.
You arrive at briefing to find the aircraft will be a half-hour late from previous service/maintenance/whatever. Eventually you make it on board and do your thing. An hour or so later and you’re waiting for some connecting passengers or some VIP who wandered off to the duty-free shop but his bag will take hours to find so he won’t be off-loaded.
You push-back nearly an hour late, already annoyed with the world and yawning your head off. You sit in the queue at the holding point for a while then blast off into the night and engage the auto-pilot because at this hour the last thing you feel like “enjoying” is hand-flying this heavy aircraft and the company doesn’t really want you to anyway, what with the likelihood of human error. Much safer to allow the automation to do its thing, that’s what Boeing intended.
You level off and after the paperwork, decide you can finally have a kip as you eye the beginnings of another “glorious” sunrise you’d rather not be awake to be witnessing. Soon the sun is all over you activating your body’s “daytime-mode”. You manage to sleep anyway because you’re SO SHAGGED and wake up an hour or so later with a sore neck, rotten taste in your mouth and a feeling of having been drugged. The other guy is looking like he could gnaw his own arm off just to have his turn to sleep having already prepared himself with pillow and blanket in place. He promptly nods off while you’re still trying to work out what part of the world you’re flying over.
You can’t believe how dry your lips and skin are even though you’ve been guzzling water like there’s no tomorrow (and you know that for you, the day when there is no tomorrow will most likely be sooner than for others because of your habits but you’re too tired to care.) Your butt is sore but you can not even be bothered getting up and walking around to stretch. Even reading the newspaper holds no appeal because by now, your enthusiasm is reserved strictly for escaping this constant, all-pervading noise and finding something soft and warm to sleep in. So you stare out the window and try to resist the temptation to check the chronograph.
Now and then you do battle with Bombay or similar on HF. Often, you only get through to them and make your position report just as you are about 20NM from the next waypoint, where it will all begin anew. The controller insists you make a seperate report there.
You make it to the destination without falling asleep again. You head to the hotel and un-pack your samsonite "home", shower and hop into bed just as the kids down the hall are heading down to the pool and back again and back again and back again and back again and back again. In doing this, they feel the need to yell encouragement to each other constantly. Around this time, late morning, some restoration work involving a jack-hammer begins in a building across the street.
You wake up in the afternoon after what really only qualifies as a "nap". You head down to the restaurant for a bite to eat and wonder how long you’ll feel like you’ve just come out of surgery. Later you have a few beers as the sun goes down and you wonder at how short this day seems to have been. You go back to bed but of course you only sleep a couple of hours because your body can’t understand what you’re doing to it. You wake up with a feeling of dying by suffocation because the hotel windows are sealed shut. You contemplate throwing a chair through the window because at this hour, in your state, you are desperate for fresh air and almost anything seems reasonable. You wonder if there’s anything else you are qualified to do for a living.
Because the turn-around is 24hrs you wake up too early to go to work but too late to fit in another sleep cycle. You really need a little more time on the ground to fit in two proper nights sleep but the company has money to make and this concept doesn’t suit their plans.
You go back to the airport and start to yawn as you’re going over the flight plan. None of your colleagues has ever gone back to the hotel due to exhaustion and you won’t be the first but you know if you make a mistake, one of the first things they ask you at the Inquisition will be, “Did you decide you were adequately rested?”
You stagger out of the pub when it closes and suddenly you're hungry. You must have a kebab! Moist pieces of grilled chicken, onion, crisp green lettuce, juicy fresh tomato and tabouli smothered in hommus and chilli sauce. "Surely this is the greatest food ever created" you think as you rummage through your pocket for change to pay for it.
You devour it with relish, licking the sauce off your fingers as you continue your journey home.
Well, you think, as a little bit of heartburn kicks in, that was a great kebab, I'll definately have one of them again. I didn't like the hommus that much though, the lettuce was a bit limp, and it could have done with a touch of garlic sauce,but the chicken was sensational!
Thats why I do it.
grrowler
Manager
Habib's Krispy Kebabs
splannie, there is negatives to every job, surely you must realise this. Why do you want to leave your current field? I bet your view of that job is different now than it was before you started.
You devour it with relish, licking the sauce off your fingers as you continue your journey home.
Well, you think, as a little bit of heartburn kicks in, that was a great kebab, I'll definately have one of them again. I didn't like the hommus that much though, the lettuce was a bit limp, and it could have done with a touch of garlic sauce,but the chicken was sensational!
Thats why I do it.
grrowler
Manager
Habib's Krispy Kebabs
splannie, there is negatives to every job, surely you must realise this. Why do you want to leave your current field? I bet your view of that job is different now than it was before you started.
