I love my job. We work hard in the summer and do bugger all in the winter. I was rostered 50 hours block in August with no leave! Yes August!!! Rostered 94 hours this month. Who cares? It's what I'm paid for and as a prospective SFO that's what you're told is going to happen at the interview stage. Compared to the rosters of my last employer, this is a dream.
Morale? well we are short crewed...who isn't? The Captains are having a much worse time of it than the F/Os. Max hours, max fatigue etc. Big bases getting messed around, I'm sure it's not fun for them. But I'm at Glasgow. The best base in the country IMHO! Great skippers, great cabin crew and engineers. A mix of Canadian ETOPs and normal 'bucket and spade' flying in just the 2nd year here.
As for Captains being messed around, yes it is bad, but as a new joiner F/O you'll have atleast 10 years to worry about that!!!
I love it up here. Don't know why you all wanna work down south? And no, I haven't been drinking!
Cheers
ACA