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The
other night I had a dream/nightmare of an airline pilot's career.
In it was the FAA, crew scheduling, bad schedules, bad management,
unserviceable aircraft equipment, changing weather, no extra holding
fuel, ever-changing procedures, endless flight manual revisions, dead
heading in the middle seat, broken and lost luggage, nasty passenger
agents, crabby 65+ year old 170 lb. flight attendants that were 4 axe-
handle wide, all-nighters, foreign countries, sleep deprivation,
mergers, seniority squabbles, company threats, food poisoning, no
food, bad coffee, bidding, pulled away from my family for weeks at a
time, fleabag hotels, late cabs and maniac cab drivers, bidding
vacation, waiting for gates, weather, low visibility approaches,
aircraft de-icing, PCs, Gestapo FAA and company check air man,
medicals, commuting to and from work in unspeakable weather, the
parking lot from Hell, parking lot buses, inter-terminal busses,
spring break, Christmas rush, Easter rush, PA "PC" announcements,
insurance, unscheduled drug and alcohol testing, noise violations,
customs lineups, dry cleaning, terrorism, security passes, rude
security personnel, high gas/oil prices, pay cuts, pensions
reduced/eliminated, rush hour traffic, that infernal alarm clock,
crash pads, catching cold away from home, lackadaisical crew members,
sexual harassment threats, flight attendants and co-pilots implying
that they are a gift to aviation after being there a year, back
biting, gossip, cell phones, aircraft cram courses, plus laying my
job on the line several times a year with simulators, quick access
data recorders to spy on pilot procedures, endless procedural
memorization and Annual Recurrent Training days.
Then I woke up and joyously found myself still retired! Whew!!!
Now
read the New York Times article
here
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