Originally Posted by
Spongeboeing
I appreciate that insight and I know I'd be taking a risk by doing that but I right now I think I would value more a job at a company I feel better about than command at a company where I'm not really happy at.
The problem is that command should come by the end of this year or beginning of 2023. Seeing how I'm climbing the transfer queue for the base that I've requested, my base transfer wouldn't be offered before command. So when I become a captain I would go to the bottom of the captain transfer queue for the base I'm requesting. It could take another 5 to 6 years before I end up based where I want. That's another 6 years based who knows where (Bulgaria, Lithuania...). If I end up in a base in a place hard to call "home", I would spend my days off jumpseating home and living in a cheap room during work blocks. For every colleague who got upgraded recently it was "Time for that fourth stripe! Now start looking for an apartment in Riga...". Honestly, if it turns out I'm happy with the job and the city, a longer wait until command wouldn't be that bad.
Professionally? Take the upgrade.
But, at a personal level? I wish I had the clarity of mind you are displaying in this paragraph, back in the day when I had to choose how to drive my career. Felicitazioni, you are one of the few pilots I know that are wise enough to put his/her mental wellbeing ahead of a logbook.
My experience of QR and EK goes back more than a decade so take it with a pinch of salt, but if I had to define Dubai it would be the only place in ME where you can still grab a piece of the West. And if I had to define Doha... well, in my time there we used to call it Dohell, and all the stories you can read here in pprune about how QR is run are true, all of them. I can't see any reason for a single young lad to go to Doha over Dubai.
When the time comes to leave EK you'll just need to plan it well ahead of time and make some adjustments. The main issue I see with pilots leaving EK and going somewhere else is that they expect to be valued ahead of the rest just because they have been using a "super" call sign (strapping a helmet as I type, waiting for the lynching that will come), but as long as you keep your 320/737 EASA ratings current, choose the right moment to step out, and keep your head on the ground, you will be absolutely fine, and happier than the rest!