Ok, I hardly ever post of PPrune but I feel compelled - for some reason. Firstly, I am a RYR cadet, due to start soon and I'm more than happy to admit that. I like RYR as a company and know several ex-Oxford people (yes, I'm one of "those" as well) who now fly for them and they're very happy to do so. They get paid every month, about three times more than I've been earning selling insurance on the phone for the last seven months - and they enjoy it. Fine, it's costing us an arm and a leg to do it, but ask yourself this, what would it cost us not to do it? By the time you factor in the difference in earnings for the next two years and the cost of keeping relatively current (IR Renewal etc) you come to a similarly large figure! The fact is that although I respect the opinions of TheBeak and WWW (the latter being slightly more sane than the former) I still come to the conclusion that it's the best option available - I'm over a barrel either way - and I accept that! That's the point.
The problem I find on here is that PPrune is very bad at supporting people - like captain_rossco said, it's a soapbox for those who see it as their mission to "inform" us newbies of greener pastures elsewhere - the problem is, these pastures are not accessible, so frankly they might as well not be there. There's no point trying to stop us going to Ryanair (and that IS what it basically boils down to) because Ryanair is the only option for us - we do not have a choice.
WWW I welcome your balanced comments, I'm not saying don't have a debate, just please, everyone, for the sake of the hordes of people who may read all this as gospel and be put off from a career in flying as a result, don't post negative comments and dress them up as "being realistic"- that's a subjective term anyway, what's realistic to you might be total boll*cks to someone else - you know who you are. Crew rooms in my experience (mostly student crew rooms!) are wonderfully supportive places where people bend over backwards to help out when you need some help and advice, can't we make PPrune just as supportive?
Anyway, here endeth the lesson. Be happy people, life is short.