737-NG First Officer - to my knowledge, I have gained neither grace nor favour from my extracurricular computing work – indeed I work a
huge number of hours over and above those I’m required to as a mere FO.
And before anybody screams FTL’s, as far as I’m concerned, what I do in my own time is up to me !
E.g. As of tomorrow I start two weeks of leave. During this period I’ll be finishing / delivering / deploying systems for the automation of flight / cabin crew allowance payments, evaluating our flight fuel burn data (so that the company can accurately determine the forward-buy requirement on the ‘spot’ market), working on the development / evaluation of a new web based flight crew briefing system, finishing a system for the management of personal flight crew data, working on our company Intranet and crew-access web site, visiting the Defence Evaluation Research Establishment (DERA) for our ‘Boarder Guard’ project, etc….
– and yes I get paid a bit extra for it but, and to be honest, I could earn substantially (and I mean ‘substantially’
) more from being an independent IT contractor.
Being blunt, in my previous employment I earned more than a RyanAir captain – and for Go to employ the like of my expertise would cost an awful lot of money. However, and as such, I now give my time (relatively) cheaply; by way of 'putting something back' (a PPRuNe theme) w.r.t. my good fortune at having been given the opportunity of a life-time (i.e. to fly for a living).
Now in the last year I was (genuinely) sick twice to the extent that I couldn’t fly (e.g. in hospital on one of those occasions), i.e. my fellow colleagues only had to cover for me (from memory) on 3 days. On about six other occassions when I felt like crap I still pitched, rather than lose flying hours and / or subject a fellow colleague to have to work on my behalf. I drove 26,000+ miles commuting too and from work, yet on no occasion was I ever late for report (normally always arriving at least one hour before report – so that I can do a good job on getting ready for it – aka. professionalism). I flew as much as I was rostered for; Perhaps in the above it was remiss of me to forget to mention the occasions when I also volunteered for extra flying duties in order to help the company.
Outside of this I worked so much on other projects that on several occasions I have been told to go home from the office because I was doing too much ! (Don’t believe me ? then just ask just anybody in the office)
Again, I do these the extra 'office' duties because I want to make a difference - and the things that I can deliver using my IT skills do indeed make a difference.
Overall I’ve pushed the limits of personal endurance to a degree that has seen some folks leaving, and yet I’m still here - and intend to remain so.
What I'm driving at with this is that I'm not one to shirk my responsibilities, i.e. I will always Go the extra mile and I will always more than pull my weight (no pun intended) w.r.t both flying and other activities.
Thus, to be brutally honest, I find it totally insulting that you suggest that I’ve had some sort of ‘special’ roster; Indeed I’ll be more than pleased if you would contact our either our rostering chap (NW), or my team manager (BM), or the Chief Pilot (JM), or our Director of Operations (EW), or even Barbara Cassani with your concerns, that is if you truly believe that I’m getting some sort of special privileges – however I’m confident that you will find that you are wrong, and that you owe me an apology.
Ps. (Hence the edit) I should point out that the take-home pay figure, which I pointed out a few postings above, reflects a Go First Officers pay when on rate 1.
Nb. This net figure should actually be higher but my office duties have reduced the possible sector payments, i.e. a regular FO on the same scale would not lose these.
[This message has been edited by CrashDive (edited 07 January 2001).]