NATS postings: any discretion over postings?
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popgun87
Best advice for you is to leave personal baggage at the door when going for interview. There are hundreds of applicants for each place, and business needs dictate where you will end up. As for exceptional circumstances or personal preferences.......we all have those.....yours are no more important than a thousand other worthy reasons.
The best of luck to you, and if you want a long, trouble-free and very well paid job then try to remain low profile; do the best you can without moaning all the time, and realise that occasionally in life you can't have everything. Remember that in the ATC family team, any slack you get has to be taken up by someone else.
The best of luck to you, and if you want a long, trouble-free and very well paid job then try to remain low profile; do the best you can without moaning all the time, and realise that occasionally in life you can't have everything. Remember that in the ATC family team, any slack you get has to be taken up by someone else.
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There are a lot of people on here who are no longer current and, in reality, have no idea of what the training is like these days. In their times you had to know everything about everything in order to pass - it's not like that now as someone finally realised that time spent memorising irrelevant crap is wasted. Plenty of people have done it while married with kids, I know several personally. If you want it, you can do it.
Also, there are people on here who over-estimate the amount of work required to be successful at college and I think some of those fall into the "won't somebody think of the children" camp here. Raise your children how you think best; don't listen to the armchair experts on teh internets. My wife and I both have full-time jobs and our kids spend time with their grandparents and in nursery while we are both at work. This, I think, is good for them both educationally and socially.
ATC is actually a brilliant career for those with kids, there's plenty of time off and I get to spend much more time with my family than I would if I was stuck in the 9-5 grind.
Also, there are people on here who over-estimate the amount of work required to be successful at college and I think some of those fall into the "won't somebody think of the children" camp here. Raise your children how you think best; don't listen to the armchair experts on teh internets. My wife and I both have full-time jobs and our kids spend time with their grandparents and in nursery while we are both at work. This, I think, is good for them both educationally and socially.
ATC is actually a brilliant career for those with kids, there's plenty of time off and I get to spend much more time with my family than I would if I was stuck in the 9-5 grind.
Last edited by reportyourlevel; 19th Aug 2013 at 18:54.
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reportyourlevel
Well said buddy.....top respect. [I'm still current by the way.] As I touched on earlier....leave the outside issues at the door when you come to work; the only relevant factor is "can you do the job, yes or no?" And when you are at work I'm not really interested in personal matters that reflect lifestyle choice....it is none of my business.....it only becomes my business if I am expected to pick up extra load as a result of bias.
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NATS postings: any discretion over postings?
Brian, you say one parent MUST be the homemaker! Who are you to comment on a family you don't even know and judge what's best for their child. Presuming your daughter is this "homemaker" what does she do between 9 and 3.30 everyday while your grandkids are at school? She could have had a mentally stimulating and rewarding morning shift in that time. My wife has ambitions outside of raising kids, does this make her a terrible and selfish mother when I have a well paid career too? She is trying to be a role model to our daughter as well as an amazing mum. Shift work is brilliant for raising kids. And as has been said already, a lot of you are a bit out of touch, the college have started taking into account where people would like to be posted. A happy trainee will be more successful than a bitter and resentful one the wrong end of the country.
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As a student who has recently been posted (yes, to Aberdeen of all places) I can say that there doesn't appear to be a great amount of personal preference taken into account. I requested Farnborough and instead two others who did not were sent there. In these circumstances I think it's important to keep in mind that NATS can and will send you where they wish and it's a risk associated with a fantastic career.
I can only fault the distance from my friends and loved ones involved with me being at this unit, all my colleagues and managers here are friendly, approachable and engaging. However it is a distance that I am not prepared to live with forever, how I resolve that problem remains to be seen!
I can only fault the distance from my friends and loved ones involved with me being at this unit, all my colleagues and managers here are friendly, approachable and engaging. However it is a distance that I am not prepared to live with forever, how I resolve that problem remains to be seen!
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Bad Parent
I think I am in the bad parent camp, I passed the college, I validated and, yes woest me, coped with the pittance of a wage, all with three children. I'd gladly take your set of cards to start the college!
In terms of postings, it's empathically emphasised from the first interview that you'll go anyway so NATS really will hammer the life out of the "permission slip" they make you read and sign to acknowledge you understand this. Personal preferance will be given lip-service but i very much doubt any more than this.
From a personal view, I was happy to take anything they offered just as long as I had a job!
PS no child is in counselling
In terms of postings, it's empathically emphasised from the first interview that you'll go anyway so NATS really will hammer the life out of the "permission slip" they make you read and sign to acknowledge you understand this. Personal preferance will be given lip-service but i very much doubt any more than this.
From a personal view, I was happy to take anything they offered just as long as I had a job!
PS no child is in counselling
Last edited by Slylo Green; 19th Aug 2013 at 17:16.
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Svix,
good luck at EGPD.
It's strange that the distances that you and your Farnborough based course-mates are now forced to travel to see your loved-ones, seems totally-at-odds with one of the aims of the NATS Corporate Responsibility Document, namely to reduce the CO2 footprint from staff commuting.
Good to hear what low-levelowl says though.
good luck at EGPD.
It's strange that the distances that you and your Farnborough based course-mates are now forced to travel to see your loved-ones, seems totally-at-odds with one of the aims of the NATS Corporate Responsibility Document, namely to reduce the CO2 footprint from staff commuting.
Good to hear what low-levelowl says though.
Last edited by ZOOKER; 19th Aug 2013 at 17:17.
Originally Posted by Brian 48nav
'I have had 3 children, it was my job to look after them, I did not seek nor did I get help from my parents so that I could work and more to the point I had more satisfaction from being a mum than any career could have given me'
It sounds like your children are doing just fine but there are many families out there who simply will not make any headway at the moment without some serious help from the grandparents. If that help comes in the form of contributions to house deposits and school fees, then great, but I know many grandparents who don't wish to downsize yet and have therefore offered 'free' childcare to help their daughter / daughter-in-law back to work. Don't underestimate the strength of feeling in the younger generations about this - most are too polite to say anything like this but you can bet that many are thinking it, so I wouldn't make too much of your hands-off grandparenthood!
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Good post Easy Street. In fact many of my generation are actually actively helping out our parents as they approach their senior years, if they didn't have good careers, so two earners in a household is a must.
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Yahoo: No, of course they won't.
I wouldn't dream about offering advice on something I didn't know about. I think you are giving poor advice, in a reasonably holier-than-thou manner, on a subject you are, at best, not fully up to date with. I appreciate why you feel the need to participate here, but please try to see that giving people career advice (and therefore potentially altering the course of their lives) based on the way it was years ago when you first started out is neither appropriate nor useful. Your defence of "my views are valid too" doesn't cut it when their basis is flawed.
I doubt many grandparents share that view, I think it's probably quite old-fashioned. Certainly among the ones I know, most are involved in caing for their grandchildren regularly. Not just to allow their children to work, but it's actually great for the grandkids too. My preschooler knows more about gardening than I ever will, because she spends lots of time helping her grandad in his garden. I think the days of an hour a week at granny's on a Sunday are gone, or at least going.
I too have dozens of friends, some with kids. Most, no, all of them have worked hard to get where they want in life. Maybe they don't HAVE to pursue a career, but WANT to. I can certainly understand that; the saisfaction I get from my career is immense.
Frankly, it doesn't bother me what you think. What does bother me is when you try to influence someone's decision with flawed advice based on outdated reasoning. If someone thinks ATC is what thy want to do then we, as a profession, are obliged to encourage them.
Edit for spelling.
This is a forum where members ask for advice, others give it and other members give their opinion on matters that are raised, which is exactly what I and HD have done.
As a grandparent of children ranging from 16 to 2, all six of whom I love dearly, I have no desire to be involved in their regular care and neither does my wife. In fact she feels more strongly about this than I do, she says often ' I have had 3 children, it was my job to look after them, I did not seek nor did I get help from my parents so that I could work and more to the point I had more satisfaction from being a mum than any career could have given me'. That is her view and it may be different to many of you here - BUT it is equally valid.
I have dozens of friends, roughly my age, from my flying and controlling days and I am scratching my head to think of more than one couple where both felt they had to pursue a career.
Frankly, it doesn't bother me what you think. What does bother me is when you try to influence someone's decision with flawed advice based on outdated reasoning. If someone thinks ATC is what thy want to do then we, as a profession, are obliged to encourage them.
Edit for spelling.
Last edited by reportyourlevel; 19th Aug 2013 at 20:33.
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Easy Street.
Bollocks. Not if you lived in the London area at the time of galloping inflation and wage restraint.
Many of those recently retired also held part time jobs at the beginning of their careers. Others, even more motivated to get ahead, did external university degrees. Several also did part time flying jobs.
Their careers didn't just fall out of the sky, they worked for them.
Re NATS postings I remember it as being offered as a choice of primary, secondary and tertiary locations. I was advised to write the same station in every choice to have even a remote chance of getting something suitable.
NATS is an organisation with a great work force in all disciplines but the top level management both then and now has never been of the best.
I resigned and took my modest talents else where.
to buy a nice house in a respectable location for 3 x annual salary and then surf the repeated property booms of the 1980s and 1990s up the property ladder while watching inflation eat your debt every few years.
Many of those recently retired also held part time jobs at the beginning of their careers. Others, even more motivated to get ahead, did external university degrees. Several also did part time flying jobs.
Their careers didn't just fall out of the sky, they worked for them.
Re NATS postings I remember it as being offered as a choice of primary, secondary and tertiary locations. I was advised to write the same station in every choice to have even a remote chance of getting something suitable.
NATS is an organisation with a great work force in all disciplines but the top level management both then and now has never been of the best.
I resigned and took my modest talents else where.
Last edited by Vercingetorix; 20th Aug 2013 at 03:53.
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I remember being told, back in the 70's, that if you wanted posted to, for example, Aberdeen then you put down "Anywhere but Aberdeen". That would guarantee you a posting to Aberdeen!
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In nats one used to be in a mobile grade and had to take postings as they came. I had at least two compulsory postings with only three weeks notice, and one with minus one weeks notice. I turned up for work after two cycles leave only to find it wasn't there any more. I wondered why the ops room was locked...
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Fortunately the staff at Heathrow nowadays are genuinely decent people and a pleasure to work with.