A Bit About the Job
I agree with most of the assertions and have emphasized the ones that are really quite true...
First of all, put down your copy of Pushing Tin.
The truth is, the job sucks, even for those of us who LOVE it. We are not appreciated by those that we protect, even though we save and protect more lives on a daily basis than any other profession.
The pilots don’t understand or even listen sometimes. The average airline passenger isn’t even aware of the role we play in their flight.
Everything we say is recorded, and we are responsible to back it up in a court of law should the unthinkable happen. We are responsible for knowing more rules than humanly possible. Frequently, the rules change without adequate notice. No mistakes are allowed.
We tend to have superiority complexes. We are in control. We control everything in our environment. It effects our personal life in ways that a non-controller cannot possibly imagine.
You can’t bring the job home, but you will have crash dreams. You will control traffic in your sleep. You cannot imagine the stress, which comes not from the job of separating aircraft, but the combination of ridiculous schedules, lack of sleep, and overbearing management.
You can never again tolerate a read-back error at a drive thru restaurant. Indecision is unacceptable in any scenario. You will have a lack of tolerance in communication. You expect people to say what they mean and mean what they say. Life is black and white (yes…it is…there is no gray).
Driving will never be the same again…you will use “anticipated separation”.
There is something “not right” about ALL of us. You will either look 10 yrs older than your age or 10 yrs younger than your age. You will be on blood pressure medication at an early age.
You never get normal sleep (this part REALLY sucks). You will work in the middle of the night and holidays (Christmas, Thanksgiving, Birthdays). You will never have “normal” days off. Getting over eight hours off between the time one shift ends and the next begins is a luxury.
You will never have a regular social life. You can’t participate in family activities. Your friends won’t understand that you can’t leave work or get off work. They won’t even be able to figure out your rotating schedule. They’ll stop calling because you’re never home, or you’re just leaving for work.
People will think that you are the guy on the ramp with the flashlights.
You may be the last person a pilot talks to, and hear the terror in his voice. You will never forget it. Ever. You will re-live it again and again.
We are unbelievably hard on each other (ridiculously hard). Thick skin is a requirement. No crying allowed. When you fail we will laugh at you (and laugh hard we will). When you succeed we won’t even acknowledge it (Good job, doing your job. We learned that from our managers.)
Workplace morale? What’s that? All anyone at work ever talks about is “how much longer until I can retire”. I have 18 years to go. The striking PATCO controllers in 1981 had higher morale than today’s controller workforce.
Management is a joke, and consists mostly of people patting themselves on the back for catching a controller doing something wrong.
Think you have what it takes to become an air traffic controller?
(And yes, in the above picture I'm eating a whole Domino's pizza while training Jeff on radar.)
