I associate myself with those remarks very closely Fred.
I have many contemporaries from university who have gone on to become medicos and bankers, engineers and chemists. One thing that we share is a craft, a profession with awesome responsibility, a job well worth doing, peoples lives are better, safer, improved by things that we do everyday. We take pride in our professions and some of us are well respected and remunerated.
Except pilots. I earn a fraction of what some of my medical friends earn. A GP earns more than I do. Vets earn multiples of what I earn. If my anaesthetist friend cocks up his job, he could kill his patient and be sued by his family. If I cock my job up I could kill HUNDREDS and my family will be sued by the whole world and pilloried by what we laughingly refer to as ‘the press’ in this country.
The fact is that I don’t kill hundreds everyday, I spend my day salvaging the tattered image of this once great company. My crew and I put smiles back on faces when we do it right, frequently many choose to fly with us again because of what my friends and I do everyday.
Am I worth what I’m paid. Yes I bloody well am! Every pucking fenny!!
And for those of you who shed crocodile tears for our plight at Heathrow, just you try and do 3 or 4 sectors a day at the UK most badly run and poorly resourced airfield! It’s physically draining. While we try to keep some semblance of an operation on the rails, the company plays politics in their ivory towers. Waiting hours for passenger buses, deicing, tugs, stands, highlifts the list goes on and on and on. Despite our valiant efforts to coordinate all of these functions, we sit on the sidelines whilst the various silos work out who is to blame. You couldn’t make this stuff up for a sitcom.
And now in some grotesque parody of Robert Maxwell, the latest cleverdick tells me he’s going to steal my bloody pension!!
At least Maxwell had the modesty to try and hide his larceny!
No, this is it. This is the last straw. I’m sorry Joe Public, I’ve done my best for you over the years, but this is it. Someone is going to steal the bread from my childrens’ mouths whilst they laugh in my face and count their sordid bonus.
They just crossed the line.
I’ll take on the opposition anyday. It’s my management I can’t beat!