This is just my opinion, because I've never worked ground crew - but if you are offered a ground position with a view to eventual line training/ICUS, don't work yourself to the bone. You're a pilot. Really you should be employed to fly a plane. Washing them and doing paperwork/occasional pilot maintenance in addition is fine. But being strung along for 6 months - 1 year in a ground position does not sit well with me. If your company employs you in that capacity, by all means pull your weight and do your job well but don't run around like a headless chook giving the company 200% of your effort for 6 months. It sets the precedent for people after you, a bit like working for free does
This is a great one. I know many owners, more so over the last 15 years, have had challenges with who they hired, not so much on the skills front, but attitude and professionalism. However, it wasn’t always the case, but the pool of applicants today, are very much the same. Early 20s, not really much in the way of a prior career, never managed a business or people, and unknown customer service skills. They say they have all the goods in the interview, they fly a tidy circuit, but what about the rest? Many owners simply had enough, and started the whole ground ops thing.
I agree that people, terrible or not, shouldn’t be strung out for months. Any Management Pilot or owner would be able to see any potential challenges from someone who is planted on ground ops, in less than a month. Generally after a week you can start to see any problem behaviour.
I don’t agree with 6-12 months on ground ops.
I did find it was fairly targeted. I watched one guy who strung out pretty much everyone on admin ops for 3/6/12 months. Then a guy mid 30s, ex corporate career walked in, and went to line training immediately. I know old folks with some previous life experience is valued highly by many, and are extremely hard to come by, but that isn’t great for culture.