“If you had to pick the most desirable trait for airline pilots, it would probably be placidity,” he says. He adds that “with exceptions, the ‘best and the brightest’ have never chosen to become airplane pilots, at whatever salary, because of the terrible this-is-my-life monotony of the job.”
Wrong on both counts.
Spoken like someone who has never actually been there. Commuters, maybe, but he's never taken a swept-wing jet around the world. Monotony? Balls.
And placidity will get you fired, eventually. They pay us to make decisions, often.
Gimli said it best: "You speak evil of that which is fair beyond the reach of your thought, and only little wit can excuse you."