I am always amazed at the reactions of people on this bulletin board, moderators included.
Someone writes, that in my humble opinion, is a fairly reasonable post and everyone gives the poor guy a hard time. I guess this isnt the place to come for a bit of tea and sympathy.
It
is disheartening when you are down at the bottom of the ladder, stuck at the end of the queue. The seemingly Catch 22 situation of need the experience for job but no way of getting it is enormously frustrating. There can be few industries that require such and huge investment of time money and psychological energy.
Compare the after sales service you get when you buy a 35,000 car, you will get at least a phone call from the customer care department to find out how you are enjoying your new purchase. You wont find that written into the purchasing contract. That may not be a realistic comparison, but maybe you see what I am trying to get at. Just a phone call would be enough. It is all psychological, but the guy that just spent a mountain of money will at least feel someone gives a damn.
How often have I see it written here "no one owes you a job"?
Of course they fecking dont!! I dont see that written in Smartcol's post, not even reading between the lines. It isnt pleasant being unemployed at any time. It is even more unpleasant if you have completed a very difficult course of study, with no prospect of decent employment in the subject matter.
Working for nothing is of course not the way forward, but if I remember correctly there was another moderator who was advocating Flying Instructors working for free because they could afford to (on this
thread ).
I would have thought it
would be in the FTO's interest to give some assistance to succesful students to point them in the direction of a job, it would make a school more attractive if they could tell prospective customers that they helped x number of former students into jobs with a, b and c airlines, similar to some of the procpectii that universities and colleges send out. The big difference between University/College courses and gaining a CPL/IR is that at the end of those Uni/College courses you may have a debt of 5-8000 pounds, with the CPL/IR that debt is
significantly more.
Only the foolish or the very wealthy would begin upon such a course of instruction such as this without considering the implications, as pilots we are generally taught to hope for the best and plan for the worst. Even on saying that it is not easy.
At least N380UA posts something positive and helpful. Smartcol, I understand what you are saying.