dickflys - I stand by my original comments. Just to clarify a few things:-
Six flights a month is not torture.
I am not in my twenties (early or otherwise) and neither are a lot of the people I work with.
The friends I have made are from a number of excellent trips I have done over the years. I speak to them and see them regularly out of work. I can honestly say that I've never had the experience of exchanging numbers from someone and not hearing from them again.
So many people see BA as the promised land and hold it up as a shining example. You mention that BA crew have a good laugh when they hear about our Crewing and Rostering. They get TWO trip requests a year compared to our TWELVE and most months they have to do a back-to-back. It takes years and years and years to get any seniority within rank. If people believe that BA is so wonderful and Virgin is so awful then why not hold out for that job offer from BA in the first place??