I'm a glass half full kinda guy who enjoys what he does, has friends I enjoy the company of here, and makes the best of things. There are a lot of good things in life and I try to keep things in perspective. What we get to do is really a blessing which many don't get to experience in life. The shiny jets are well maintained, people take good care of you on the road, it is fun to see your friends, go fly and enjoy Asia and there are a lot of pretty cool things about this job. The flying is pretty much what large jet airline flying is anywhere else. I've found the trainers and folks I work with to be great people (like everything else there are d!cks here and there but for the most part the fellers and ladies are fine individuals of great quality and nice to be around).
Having said that my opinion is if at this point you are even thinking of coming to HK without full housing (other than maybe to sow a few wild oats throughout asia or as a very temporary stepping stone) and have any other options whatsoever in a 'normal' country you are nuts. Not just a little nuts but genuine grade-A Katie-bar-the-door voices in the head off the deep end nuts. Especially after hearing from folks who work here.
Things were pretty good for awhile but over the past few years IMHO we have fallen off a cliff. The solution to a 'temporary' manning problem has been to throw normal rostering out of the window and place all schedules on a type of continuous reserve. This grossly exacerbates an already significant manning problem by creating self-generated manning shortages; schedules collapse, controllers work harder to try to plug holes which get increasingly more difficult to plug (with no one available to do the plugging), wild swings into overtime and then sitting occur, time deployed goes up (which is a bad thing), body clocks and circadian rhythm become nonexistent and over time health issues invariably crop up (mostly due to transiting multiple time zones and continuous multiple body clock swaps--OK for a few months but over the span of years really screw up the body in a whole bunch of ways). Throw in the lack of labor law backstop toward abuse and there goes your health. Or job. Or both--take your pick.
When sickness rates spike due to legitimate issues (which they have) this is a real problem. It's the safety valve going off. But it seems we've become reliant on using the safety valve as the normal pressure cutoff switch on the compressor--maybe trying to put a brick or two on top of it from time to time because it's annoying when it pops. Might be funny to watch some redneck do this on You Tube (from a distance at least) but it's obviously not the right way to run a commercial operation.
And there's no real indication that things will get better anytime soon in HK. All the while you lose seniority somewheres else in a seniority based business. Better to scrape for awhile.
No furloughs if things go south and the world faces the zombie apocalypse ? Maybe. That was the 'old' CX. All one knows about the new paradigm of working conditions is it isn't as good as it was--and penny wise while being pound foolish seems to rule the day. One can hope the labour relationship gets better in HK but it is just that--blind hope with no real indication of fact to back it up.
IMHO I guess I'd describe the operation as schizophrenic. Some things are simply wonderful and some things bad with no real rhyme or reason. Some days the overseers do some great things; other days some bad things. Again with no real (at least to me) coherent pattern or goal.
Sorry if this isn't what you want to hear (or are wishing to hear) but I think it accurate. Words haven't been backed up by actions and so far wishing hasn't made it so in HK. If you want to 'give it a go' and have an exit strategy more power to you.
Oh, and that isn't even counting the economic stuff.