Pessimism

~Recent News~
So recently I heard that the United States is the most clinically depressed nation in the world. As a whole I believe that Americans jump way too easily towards pills to fix everything instead of genuine effort, but here is why I am feeling stressed out and pessimistic.

As a college graduate the hope and expectation is that you will be able to find a job, a job hopefully in your field of expertise, that will pay the bills. After watching my brother immediately find employment in his field that was salaried and sufficient for him to live off of as well as pay back student loans. I was completely unprepared to graduate with a dual BA and 7 certificates to my name to find myself making less than I would per year than I could have made at my job with out a degree.  If you knew me back in high school, you knew I was a lifeguard. From there I fell into a LGI (lifeguard instructor) position. If I had worked full time at that position I would have made $23,000 a year before taxes. It doesn't sound great or even like a sustainable salary in this day and age. However, after college it would take me until now, nearly five years after graduation to make $20,000 a year before taxes. Still not enough to pay the bills on.

Looking at the US as a whole, this is what I see. The baby boomer generation lost their retirement savings in the recent "recession" and as a result are doing one of two things. One, they are either not retiring at a normal age. Or two, they are retiring and then getting a job in the service industry or some other part time work. Either way the younger generation is losing out on decent paying jobs that the baby boomers enjoyed at a young age.

On a recent flight with a young professional we discussed the state of things, and looking at the age group from 25-35 year old that the two of us knew there are a startlingly high number of couples living apart from their significant other due to employment difficulties. Maybe I am wrong but I don't believe this was ever the case in previous generations barring the World War eras.

I read an article today that said that it was a great time to be a young pilot/instructor. The reason the article said was because we are coming up to a time in which there will be an extreme pilot shortage in the next few years. Unfortunately I am not as optimistic because by next year there will be a huge barrier to entry to the airlines set in place requiring all pilots to have 1500 hours and an ATP(airline transport pilot) certificate, which is the FAA's highest pilot certificate. While this is a good thing in terms of safety for the flying community it is a horrible thing for young pilots. That means either buying all those hours placing themselves under even more crippling debt or working in low paying pilot jobs that provide barely enough income to live on much less pay off the mountain of debt incurred from college tuition with flight fees on top. Add all of this to Regional airlines where all these young pilots will be hoping to be hired into paying $27 per flight hour at the most. Some people would look at that and say, "well that isn't too bad." But just wait for it, because the hammer hasn't dropped yet. That price per hour is based on a 72-75 hour month guarantee, which is less than half of what a normal full time employee can expect.

After jumping the new barrier to entry, however costly that may be, and then an additional five years of service as a first officer at your regional airline you might achieve a top salary of $40 per hour which taking into account the 75 hour guarantee means you will only be making $35,000 per year. It took me 4 years after graduating college to get 1500 hours of flight time. That means that it would take me 9 years after college to make what a starting teacher fresh out of college would make, and everyone knows/jokes about how poorly teachers are paid.

Now you know why I am up at one in the morning feeling nauseated worrying about the future.

The Hiatis

So I am not even sure that the title of this thing is spelled correctly. However, basically I am appologising for not keeping up with this blog. Additionally I am offering an explaition, not an excuse.

When I started this blog this household was a two computer home. I usually used my computer for music, and television mostly with the occasional work e-mail or two as well as the new blog. One night I was watching Hulu while doing the dishes and the phone rang. Some of you can see where this is going I am sure. As I ran for my phone I tripped over the power cord of my computer causing it to fall from the counter upon which it was resting. The resulting crash destroyed the screen of my beautiful apple laptop, and the happy household of 2 computers became the home of 1.

Seeing how we have more important things to be saving our money for right now other than a new computer Lauren and I are sharing her laptop that she got free from work.  And because she spends rediculous hours at school I usually don't get a chance to be on a computer until the evenings which severely limits the blogging time. So my dear friends I am taking a break, until when I am not sure as of yet. You may catch the random post here or there on the weekends when Lauren doesn't need the computer that much to do grading or other school related things. However, I am sure that my posts will be few and far between. You can still catch up with me on facebook and I do check my e-mail regularly. Much love to you all.

Joel

Late Nights

So... I really suck at taking the time to write to everyone out there. On days in which I am locked in my apartment because there is a tropical storm outside and flying is a distant memory I waste the day away instead of doing something useful. I am giving up on trying to catch everyone up on my life since I moved to Florida and from here on out will just stick to the title of this blog.  I am sorry if you are a friend of mine and decide to follow this blog because you will be subject to the inner workings of my mind whenever I get the urge to write.

Over the past Month or so since Lauren (my wife) started her new job as a teacher, at Imagine Schools, life has been insane. I have two students at Flight Safety who started from nothing so I am getting some good flight time logged and I am spending the rest of my time trying to be a supportive husband by helping Lauren in her first year of teaching. It seems like my life consists of nothing but driving, flying, and doing random things in Lauren's classroom.  To give you an idea my day could start anywhere from 5am to 9am and I usually don't get home until around 8pm or later.

Walking a paved path

So after the initial disappointment with my new job and of course a lot a bit of stress about how I am going to pay bills and support my wife, I decided to attempt to do something with the other side of my degree. As most of you know I graduated with an Aviation Flight Science Bachelors as well as a Aviation Science and Administration Bachelors, and I did this in the hopes that I would not have to go back to school for my MBA.  After about a week of setting up Monster.com and Careerbuilder.com profiles I started getting calls.  I took interviews for about a week, most of which were in Orlando.  In the end it came down to two positions. One would just be another job that I could do on the side from home and possibly make a commission or two after about a billion phone calls. The other position was again a commission based job but after your first promotion there is a base pay, nothing great but at least it is something stable to pay the bills with. Well after a first and second interview I was really hoping for something. The interviewers told me that they would call me around 3pm with there decision and I had to be at my flight instructing job at 4pm.  Because I live about an hour away when 3pm came and went I got in my car and started driving to Vero Beach.

Less

What do you do when life turns out to be less than what you expect? Where do you turn when every move you make seems to be the wrong one or get you no further down the road than the path you were on. I have a few good examples around me for which I am thankful but strangely that doesn't make things any better. I am fed up with this world and the million different ways that it sucks (by the way sucking is physically impossible it can only blow).  Let me explain a little more about my situation.....