The analogy with a Doctor does not hold water. With a dying person on your hands and following 6 years training for this day then this weeks pay packet is not really that prominent in your motivation.
Apart from the fact an instructor's student isn't dying, why doesn't it hold water? The instructor has trained long and hard for this day too. And he isn't usually facing a difficult situation alone, at 3am, after a twenty-four hour shift and not enough sleep for many months, as junior doctors frequently do.
Nurses are not angels. They often get hacked off with patients, have a bad day and think sod 'em and sod the job. Well, the ones I know admit that after a few glasses of wine and I don't blame them one bit.
Everyone gets fed up and says sod the job, no matter what they're doing. That was not your point, or mine. There is a great difference between getting humanly fed up, and not doing the job to the best of your ability purely because you resent the low pay cheque. ESPECIALLY WHEN THAT JOB AFFECTS OTHER PEOPLE!!!!!
How many teachers get killed at work?
I personally know two teachers who were attacked by pupils, one with scissors and the other with some other potentially lethal weapon. The first was off work for months as a result. The second left the profession. Both were incredibly traumatised. Don't you think it's worse to have someone genuinely trying to kill you than inadvertantly, as is generally the case with PPL students? And I have it on good authority that in inner cities at least, this sort of thing is not rare.
I got my PPL instructors job by filling the shoes of someone who flew into a mountain the fortnight before. I can recall at least three other instructors who ended up dead at work since then.
WWW, I knew the guy who flew into the mountain. He wasn't instructing; he was off on a jolly AFTER doing a check-out with an out-of-club-currency PPL (also someone I knew). No-one knew why they decided to head for the hills, or who was flying at the time, and no-one ever will. So it's an irrelevant example. Flying is potentially dangerous and always will be; we all know that.
It is with sweat shop workers and contract factory workers and black marker labourers.
No, it isn't, because they're not dealing with people. It should maybe be with care workers and other low paid auxiliary staff who deal with the public. And they work damned hard for very little pay. I know; I spent several months working in a home for disabled people once, surrounded by dedicated people who worked long hours and risked at least bad backs from lifting people, and often worse. Sure, they got pissed off. Sometimes they left. But while they were there they did their best.
I'm not in any way arguing that instructors shouldn't be paid more; OF COURSE THEY SHOULD!!!!!!!!! What I'm arguing about is your statement that people work well or badly depending on what they're paid. If you want the job, do it! if you don't, leave! If you think it might lead to something better, stick it out, but still do it properly. As you said in one of your early posts on here, that's what you did, and it got you a right hand seat. So why are you backing up the lazy sods who should be kicked out of the industry?