How many newly minted graduates have the following responsibilities:
The lives of say 100 people.
Company equipment that is valued at around $60 million.
Flight decisions that can save or cost the company thousands of dollars/euros per flight.
A minor mistake that gets the company on the evening news and years of good
PR can be destroyed.
What a complete crock of poopoo. The comparison is worthless. If a doctor screws up he kills one person, goes home has a stiff G&T and only has his conscience to worry about. Shipton took decades to kill an equivalent passenger load of a 737. If a lawyer screws up no one dies. Ever.
If a pilot screws up he ends up on the slab in the morgue along with the people (s)he is responsible for.
How many lawyers have to regularly be out of bed on a dark and stormy February morning at 0430 to get to their office, endure idiotic security checks, be zapped with unknown levels of radiation and, depending on aircraftt type, breathe contaminated air?
How many doctors or lawyers regularly have to spend 16-18 days separated from their families?
How many lawyers have to pay for training courses so they can work the company's photocopier?
How many doctors have to pay to learn how to work the machines that go ping in hospitals?
A little disingenious Flypuppy - you don't mean to suggest that at every moment the aircraft is
about to crash, and while certainly there is the possibility of certain actions causing the death of a planeload of punters, the same can be said of actions of management and non-flying staff in many roles, whose actions could ultimately cause deaths through cultural changes in an organisation or direct infringements of health and safety.
Your focus on the "death" factor has the implication that (a) you cannot price a life: untrue, as acturaries are able to do so daily, and (b) that the cost of a life is far more valuable than the cost of any other financial decision: this also is clearly untrue.
Many graduates have responsibility for:
- Actions that directly effect hundreds of people
- Access to company capital in the millions of pounds
- Actions that could result in negative PR on the front pages
Consider leaking merger information, costing billions to the subjects of the news, the company whose employee leaked the information losing reputation etc.
How many lawyers have to regularly be out of bed on a dark and stormy February morning at 0430 to get to their office, endure idiotic security checks, be zapped with unknown levels of radiation and, depending on aircraftt type, breathe contaminated air?
Your passengers - those going to the meetings, paying your wages, working 16 hour days repeatedly, with no union coverage or rest days to look forward to. Quite a number of lawyers follow this lifestyle.
An attitude that simply goes down the road of "a pilot does x amount more than a graduate/doctor/lawyer" is so often a fallacy, and represents little more than ignorace of others' jobs.
The standard comeback of "well, it is choice of those in the city jobs" is also complete crock - we all made our choices to get where we are.
Some of my colleagues paid £70k plus for MBAs, paid for training courses to get a look-in at the interview, and work until 3am every day to succeed. A little respect for those who aren't sky gods like yourself is in order.