Well, then, that's it.
You have all dashed my dreams of big money and high adventure in the aviation industry.
I was thinking of exploring the opportunities in Europe but if what I read in this thread is only half true you are all experiencing exactly the same problems we're having on this side of the "pond".
I guess the only significant difference is that over here we do commonly hire management straight out of university and those "managers" like to hire petrolium engineers into unsupervised positions as fuel systems engineers.
Based on your posts we're making about the same money for the same sized companies and suffering the same abuse at the hands of all those thirty-something managers.