Yesterday I handed in my second sick note at crew control and overheard and witnessed a senior 777 captain with over 33 years in the company negotiate his flights for his reserve block next week. "I wanna do a London he asked. It will put me over 100 hours".
You know the type, brash confrontational and 'there i was' type personalities. Tell a great yarn and most every story commences with I.
Get them away from the little click, put them under any sort of pressure and you see the reality.
We all set our own standards. We all possess the necessary equipment to work on the street. Some can do tricks on the street corner, others set higher benchmarks.