Wednesday, August 23, 2006
I'm sitting in the Broadway Cafe in downtown Timmins, eating some lunch and writing this. The flight yesterday was uneventful, a one-hour hop up here from Toronto. I forgot that we were travelling 350 miles straight north, so I am a little underdressed, but other than that, life is good. I saw the old hangar I was based out of when I flew the MU-2 for Thunder, but nobody is left from those days so I didn't go in to chat. With the industry in an upswing, they are having a lot of turnover and that makes sense to me - flying medevac is one of the hardest jobs in aviation due to the pager and the random work hours, and the MU-2 itself is a handful to fly, so a lot of pilots have gone there and only flown for a few months before heading over to regional air carriers or other niches in aviation.
Sounds like you give a lot of reasons for switching to the new job but not many for staying where you are... Could it be that you've made up your mind and don't realize it? Switching to a new job is always an event and it's never an easy choice.
ReplyDeleteAs for F/O I hear Aviatrix is looking for a job.
Good luck!
I'm not a professional pilot, merely an on-looker in your league of flying, but I have been involved with executive flying for more than 40 years ... since I was a kid sitting on the airport fence.
ReplyDeleteI have also, of necessity, held a number of jobs over 50 years, starting with sweeping hangar floors.
For my money, the new job offer is not a significant enough step up. You will antagonize the boss you have now (and you'll find a per diem deal as you have now, almost no where ;-).
Your new prospective employer, if roped into that $12K reimbursement deal, will subconsciously hold that against you,
And you'll be essentially flying the same equipment at a _lesser_ scope of responsibility (regardless of title, your office work currently makes you an aviation department manager as well as pilot).
5 years down the road an interviewer going over your resume would consider the move as you not being able to fit in/handle responsibility at your current position and being flighty and prone to make sudden, lateral moves.
The next job should be with a significantly larger organization, for significantly more pay, or in a significantly enhanced role.
At 35 you are paying too little attention to the benefits, as well ... job with them are few and far between and getting scarcer ... to take a job that merely "matches" your current salary doesn't sound wise to me.
U.S. readers might not realize that benefits are not as big a deal in Canada — we have universal health care for most things, so benefits typically cover only prescription drugs (which are already much cheaper in Canada), dental, and other peripheral stuff. I also doubt that Sulako's benefits include pension — you don't see that much outside of government and big unionized industries.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I think the other comments make sense — your next job should be significantly better (say, left seat on a CRJ, or right seat on a 737), not just flying slightly larger bizjets. Busting a contract to move to a virtually identical job does not look good. Also, your relationship with a new employer is always unpredictable, and you already know that you get along well with your current one.
Do you have anyone you can recommend to the other employer instead of you? If you know someone good, you'd end up making three people happy (your current employer, the other employer, and the person hired).
Recommend the FO you don't like flying with at your current company. :)
ReplyDeleteExcellent advice on staying put from people who know how the industry thinks. Stay put and wait for the reallu big fish to swim into your net. KM/nanaimo
ReplyDeleteIf you do decide to stay make sure that your current employer knows that you made the decision to stay with him because you love your job and you love working for him. If it were me I wouldn't even use it as leverage. Just as an aside on a flight one day mention, "Yeah, the guy across the street offered me a job with them last week. Of course, I love working here so I passed it up but I thought you'd like to know they were shopping your employees." :)
ReplyDeleteMy 5 cents worth - stay where you are. In my books you are honour bound (ie that contract)to stay where you are. Integrity and doing the right thing by your current employer is going to be of most benefit in the long term.
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