mini mums,
you said,
How can I put this without stirring up too stronger feelings . . . for every day you work extra, your stopping someone elses career - imagine if someone was doing that to you? Care? Perhaps you should.
So what you're saying is that a pilot who works hard to succeed is not stopping another's carreer until the magical
and arbitrary day after supposed retirement.
To take your argument about stopping some one elses career to its logical conclusion, if there is a finite number of pilots needed worldwide then every employed pilot is stopping some wannabes career. Therefore all currently employed pilots should retire to let all the wannabes get a job. Then, when the wannabes get the job they'll be stopping some one elses career, so they should all retire to let the next lot of wannabes get a job, and so on.
What a load of toss!
You also sort of asked, care? No I don't care. When I started flying 20 years ago there were more pilots than jobs. Now there are more pilots than jobs. I wasn't owed a job. I kept chasing elusive jobs until I got one. I've worked hard at my career, and I don't owe you or any other wannabe a go at my job, until I no longer want it, or I'm no longer able to do it to a satisfctory standard.
As for the young turks who allude to us oldies being past it because we mightn't have the reflexes of youth, I have two words of wisdom for you.
- One day you too will be old and not young.
- When I was young, about 18, I was amazed at how stuipid my father was. He didn't know anything. By the time I was 23 I was even more amazed at how much he had learned!