How badly do you want to be an ATC? You can't just skip a week as the course will continue on without you & there's very limited scope for making up lost time, particularly sim sessions. Everything runs to a fairly tight schedule.

I guess I'll find out just how much i'm willing to sacrifice for a job.

I think with ATC you just have to get use to having weird schedules and minimal time off over the holiday seasons. Good thing im young and single, ill just hope that overtime pay helps.

And there's the whole problem boys...

"ill just hope that overtime pay helps"

Idiot.

Baileys, can you please elaborate on why fivel is an idiot?

bit harsh baileys

A lot of misplaced anger in this thread I think.

well perhaps my comments shouldnt be in this thread anyway.
Some one should start one title "New ATC about to jump in the deep end, after a bit of advice"

From memory someone at ASA (when i visited) told me that you don't get paid overtime because that's incorporated as part of the salary already, its expected everyone does their share of overtime or something along those lines???

Overtime? What's that?
I've run my own business for the last 12 years.
No overtime there, you might work a 12 hour day (on tools) and then come home to 2-3 hours of quotes, invoices, tax payable, ringing builders who owe you thousands of dollars at a time. I can't wait to work for someone else. Maybe I'll get to see my kids.

Toboto, you might be getting confused with the conditions for some supervisor/management types.

We don't get paid penalty rates as that's all been rolled into our normal pay. We do get paid extra for additional duty - same rate for overtime & being called in.

We're expected to do a "reasonable amount" of additional duty, whatever that actually means. A discussion for another time & place.

Well I was just trying to point out that because I was young and without kids it's easy for me to do a "reasonable amount" of additional duty. I hope I didn't step on any toes using the "o" word.

Go your hardest, fivel.
I'm just bringing you my personal perspective.
More power to you!:ok:

Someone asked about tower courses before. I think the pass rate is generally pretty good. All of our course got through the college and I think all subsequently rated at their towers. A few have done multiple positions now (about 2.5years later).

Blippy you hit the nail on the head about Bailey's comments re overtime.

As a general rule at the moment once you go to your first posting you are permanently there (once you are fully rated). However off my course one guy has moved from Vic to NSW, one from a Radar tower to TCU and I did a stint at another tower for 6 months. The first 2 were essentially at the guys request, mine was a bit of an odd case but fun all the same.

Don't worry about moving around too much once you are rated at your final destination.

Surely if you've been pulling your weight wrt the 'reasonable amount' of additional duty that's expected, you are not obliged to accept any more 'overtime' offered?
I assume colleagues help each other out when one needs a day off for whatever reason, but has accepting all the overtime offered become a benchmark and therefore the 'norm'?
In any industry there are always those that grab all the overtime they can get, and those that, whilst still pulling their weight, are not that interested in the extra time away from family.
(See my earlier rant after a gutfull of vodka consumed at a Russian Christmas party. Spent the night on the couch after that effort:yuk:)

enemyMiG,

Controllers are pestered on their days off and while on their way home from work about returning for overtime.
Many will not answer their phones and those that do, not many of those accept taking on more hours; which is why there are various airspace closures every day.
The folks over at Civil Air (union for ATC) are a very helpful bunch and will possibly elaborate further! ;)

Also, try Ruski Standard (great Russian Vodka) - hopefully you can find someone who can read the cyrillic alphabet to determine which is ACTUALLY R/S! :)

Strangely enough, I can read the cyrillic alphabet, and it does say Russian Standard on the bottle.....although there are many standards of Russian vodka.....:suspect:

Good luck to those who have their 1st day of college tomorrow! :ok:

Cheers thanks Cookie7

No probs Nichollg.

TAAATS - meat won't be too fresh in the 44 degree heat tomorrow.
Do you work in the tower?

"Corporate Dress" tomorrow, just to make it that little bit more bearable.....

Is that some kind of sick joke? Kurwa!

Well, made it through the first day, and nobody's failed yet.
Nichollg and I seemed to be the only clowns wearing ties (What does "corporate dress" even mean?)
Shorts and polos tomorrow, that's for sure.
We had the tour in the morning, checking out the gym, caf, classrooms and simulators. We didn't get to see any operations, maybe because our group is so large (12 enroute and 4 tower). We're together for the theory phase (6-8 weeks) before going our separate ways.
Rolloffthetop, wait till you see the tower simulator, it will blow your mind!
AsA are in the process of setting up the new Eurocat sims, and this group of enroute might get the chance to use them before they finish. Also pretty flash.
Went through fire safety and evacuation procedures, OHS and suffered through a long powerpoint presentation on security before filling out forms to get our ASICs.
Tower crew were separated whilst we briefly went through the curriculum. Seems Jan and March Tower are the only Tower courses on the cards for a while. Feel pretty lucky to be part of it.
A mountain of material waiting on our desks for us this morning, we'll be getting stuck straight into it tomorrow.

So enemyMiG, nichollg and who else are in the tower course?
Was there airconditioning at least? If there wasn't, I'd be retiring to the airport golf course if I really wanted to be subjected to horrid temps and winds.

Sounds like you had a good first day enemyMiG, keep us all informed! :)
Maybe even create a blog, if you haven't already! :)

There certainly was air conditioning. We are lucky enough to be right under the outlet vent (almost could have done with a jumper). Think I'll do all my study, there in the cool. Great first day. Looking forward to hooking into the theory tomorrow.

There's a guy from Sydney and a girl from Hong Kong. She is fully rated in Tower, Approach and Enroute, but has been out of the game for 6 years. Apparently in HK its the norm to have all 3 ratings, and you might spend a month on approach and then a month on enroute! She wasn't a fan of the way things operate over there, reckons its much better here.
Rolloffthetop is the only other I know of who is on the March course, which leaves 3 other places on his course.
Airconditioning in the classroom was great, only felt the heat when we were walking around.
No blog needed, this thread is more than enough!

I see you beat me to it Nichollg.
That outlet vent was great!

Well all sounds well then.
So are there any tours/visits lined up? Is that gemmy character in your course?
Any word on approximation of day length, expectations and exams? How about average age (judging by looks)? :)

hahahaha Cookie7... This gemmy character is on the March course. Why do you ask?? :-)

The a/c sounds positively awesome!

It's either on a pulse system, coming and goung through temps, OR, on a three-tiered system of low-med-high.
Low of course being -4000 degrees and high being 80+ degrees.
Whoops, I forgot to say, flip on your sarcasm detectors! :)

Quite funny how this thread moved from AsA psycho testing to, who's been contacted, who's got final interviews and the state of the training classroom.

So a course has started this week, Gemmy reliably informed me that another course starts March, so are there any other courses this year and if so, who's on them?

Im in the April course.
Would have prefered the march but there was no melb enroute left

I'll be going to march, i believe gemmy, perkybog, mont, v11, 1208punk and rolloffthetop are also in the march course. We have a fair few on here from our course.

Like Nick83 & The_AU_Viper, I also found out on the 21/12 that I passed the panel interview and I'm on the merit list.

Thanks to everyone on the forum for sharing their experiences during the testing phase and with AsA. It has been helpfully & interesting read.

I have no idea how far down the merit list I am. Howerver, it would be nice to be in Melbourne during part of Footy season whilst training/studying. :)

Hi all

Same here got the email on the 21st - chances are we will probably end up on the same course (obviously depending on order of merit positions but cant think that many courses would be starting in 2010). Thanks also to everyone for the tips along the way especially Gemmy and enemyMIG. Let keep in contact on this forum to tee up some accomodation or at least catch up before course starts

The honeymoon is definately over :eek:

Got stuck straight into it yesterday, beginning with Comms, followed by our first exam, after lunch, on all the pre-course material. It was stressed that this exam has no effect on your marks, it's only to give the instructors an idea of where you are at.

Received all our login details and explored the system for a while, were introduced to Air Traffic Services and sat in on some sims from both student's side and blippy's end.

Today finally unwrapped the 'MATS from ATS' and the 'NAPM'; the home study has begun in ernest. My backpack isn't big enough to carry all the gear we need, might have to get some sort of man-bag like Nichollg's.

Although there's a sh!tload of stuff to do and learn, it really is a fantastic work/study environment. Everyone seems to be bonding easily and the instructors are very approachable and really know their stuff.

Congrats Laino and brissyboy, you guys are gonna love it.

+1 for the merit list email last month.

For those interested in courses for 2010, I have been told by someone going down to instruct that they intend to start courses of 8 people every six weeks.

Thanks a lot Max1 sounds like a few courses will be going through this year cheers

I wonder how that will all work out given classes go for about 10 months, there are some in the sim and who knows what the rest will be doing.
Maybe those on the order of merit list won't be waiting around forever like those who've gone before! :)