GUV hits on a very curious point with his pilot/ bus driver analogy, and CSD/ FO pay and experience comparisons.
When it comes to day to day productivity, or maybe job difficulty and complexity, there's probably not much difference between a manager and pilot or air trafficer on an average day at work. therein it ends.
There are generally a multitude of skills involved in managing a jet or ATC sector that most of us posses to a greater or lesser degree but few of the general population have in exactly the right proportion, after all - it's the recognition of ones skills and abilities that drive an individual towards a particular career chioce in the first place.
Secondly, whereis it's reasonably simple to measure the performance of a day to day line manager, it's fiendishly difficult to directly measure that of say a pilot or air traffic controller perhaps. Thankfully it happens infrequently, but all our training and skills are called upon to save a few hundred arses - no second take, power breakfast with team briefing and glossy projections with coffee break involved. I just don't know how you can financially quantify such a unique field, the market has had something to do with it sure, but Guv is like so many bean counter I've heard spout on about pay and pruductivity - they know the cost of everything but the value of nothing.
[ 29 September 2001: Message edited by: buzid ]