Can't believe pilots think their jobs are stressful. Would love to know in what way.
If I’m at home, the day literally begins at 0230 when little one wakes up for his first feed. I wake up again anytime between 0500 and 0600 to cries of hunger. On average I'm out of bed by 0600. I would've had about 6.5 hours sleep with two interruptions of 15-20 mins.
Golly gee you're right mate, you deserve a medal there, clearly none of us working pilots have newborn babies or get up in the night to feed them
For work I do a lot of travelling. A mixture of driving and flying. I fly to Europe on average twice a week and back, albeit as a passenger. I travel at unsociable hours to get to where I need to be. Far from being exciting, travelling for work is now all about a.) refuelling the car, b.) sitting in the 3/4 lane car park that is the M25, c.) waiting in huge queues to have my bags checked/passport control and d.) indigestion (fast food on the move). It's not enjoyable at all and I'd rather be upfront flying
Of course, real pilots never have to engage in the commuting / travelling grind. We never work at unsociable hours, or have to leave home two hours before reporting time so we can sit in traffic on the M25 with the rest of the plebs. We just wave a magic wand when we want to leave home and hey presto there we are preflighting the aircraft.
I work with twits who are not only incapabable of achieving the technical task for which they are supposedly qualified but who lack common sense and intelligence. I deal with people who don’t understand me and me likewise due to language barriers; people who don’t like me (because I’m a contractor on more money and my doings will eventually result in their redundancies!); uncooperative and sometimes downright obstructive people too.
One word for you mate. SERVISAIR
My work is of a highly technical nature and requires me to be completely ‘on-the-ball’ with absolutely no scope for failure. Often I’m not allowed to make changes during the day, so must stay behind and work till midnight. I must keep everyone happy whilst adhering to standards. I eat lunch faster than a biblical sized swarm of locusts can attack a field of corn. I’m asked to produce more documentation than is humanely possible.
Think about what you've just posted there. Then, think about how you imagine a pilot's job is any different. Then please do enlighten us.
I'm out of the house/hotel room on average 14 hours a day. I consider all that time being at work. 14 x 5 = 70 hours a week devoted to my company with no overtime paid.
Very similar to my lifestyle when I worked at my large European low cost airline then. Nowadays with the longhaul it's different, I spend 4 or 5 days at a time away from the family, get home for one or two, occasionally even three days off / standby, and then away again for the rest of the week. Of course, according to your theory, spending a couple days staring at the wall in some bland fleapit of a hotel in dhaka or lagos for the 28th time this year, trying to get your body clock adjusted before the bus arrives to pick the crew up at 0200 for your 11 hour flight home, doesn't count as working does it.
Compare my working life to that of most pilots and there’s no comparison. I am not the only one, there are thousands of others like me and they work just as hard. Harder than most pilots for sure.
I can say pilots have it relatively easy ... because I know a couple of pilots (my italics)
Superpilot my friend, you have made some intelligent and thought provoking posts on this website in the past ... but that was definitely not one of them.