I have to stand up for AEPilot here, and also apologize for this very long post. First, I'm nearly positive that he wasn't the original author of this work. I've seen it in various pilot sites recently and I'm guessing he posted it here, perhaps foolishly thinking to show people that what sounds like incredible wages ($100+/hr) really aren't as high as they sound. I wouldn't question his mental state or think that he hated his job. Consider that he takes his own time to come onto a site populated by airline frequent flyers to discuss issues and offer explanations. That alone should be evidence that he does enjoy his job and talking to his customers.

As to whoever wrote the original post, I'm sure that they're also an adjusted professional who enjoys their job. The truth is that it takes a lot of time, stress, and motivation to even make it into a regional airline pilot's seat. Once there, the job is not all sunshine and big paychecks. No one is going to go through all of that if they don't love flying. Despite what looks like a high pay rate, this is not a job you go into solely for the money. Pilots are human just like everyone else, and there are times when we get stressed and tired in our jobs and complain about them...just like everyone else. The pilots who truly do find that they hate their jobs quit and usually end up making more money in another field. You don't stick with it, dealing with the weather, the struggling industry, falling wages, and checkrides every six months during which you can lose it all.

Whoever actually wrote the original post probably did it recently, as I haven't seen it posted anywhere until the last week or so. This is a stressful time of year to be in the airline business, and probably the worst time of year to be a pilot. The actual author had probably just experienced the same things that I know I have over the past week and a half and was venting. With the ice storm of the past week we've all been sitting around airports for hours and hours on end waiting for an aircraft or break in the weather. During that time it's only natural that your mind drifts over to the "I'm not getting paid for any of this corner". When we did get into an airplane we got to deal with congested ramps, overstressed controllers screaming at all of us (and one call from them lands us in hot water with the FAA), and near white-out conditions on the taxiways. In the air, the wind and weather demanded a huge chunk of our attention. In the past, there were up to four heads in the cockpit to run weather scenarios and fly the plane. Now, there are only two heads and an autopilot to keep tabs on the weather at destination X, run the charts to see if we can land there, calculate fuel burn from there to an alternate airport, check the weather at alternate A, run the charts to see if we can land there, calculate the fuel burn if we have to go missed out of alternate A, find options for that eventuality, lather, rinse and repeat the next time a weather report pops up for destination X. Oh yes, and deal with the congested ATC environment, calculate that hold they just gave us and how long we can hold before we need to divert to alternate C, how much fuel we'll use getting to alternate C, and by the way - we just lost our #2 electrical generator because the aircraft do not like sitting around in ice and snow as long as they have been lately and things are more likely to break down. All of these problems are timed tests, because the fuel is ticking down every second. We do have an autopilot, but it's just a computer program and everyone knows that a computer program only works as good as the programmer (the pilot). I'm not complaining about flights like these, because that's what being a pilot means. It does mean that you are pretty mentally tired when you get to destination X, where you have to hand fly a snowy, gusty approach down to a runway that you won't see until you're seconds away from landing on it. If you're really lucky like me you'll have your anti-icing system fail when you're getting ready to land and be thinking about the ice and weight building on your wings as you're in the flare with the wind gusting from the side, blowing snow across a runway that you were told is only "fair" condition (read: slick). This is what we do, though, and so we wrestle the controls to plant the aircraft, left wheel then right so the crosswind doesn't blow us off the centerline, and firmly so we don't glide too long down our slippery runway or have the wind catch us again. Then, as we're saying good bye to the passengers that we got safely to destination X in the midst of the weather we get to hear "Son, you need to go back to landing school. That was the bumpiest flight I've ever been on." On a good day we can smile and laugh it off. After a week of getting five to six hours of sleep a night and then being physically and mentally exhausted each flight you lose your sense of humor, go to the hotel and write bitter-sounding diatribes on how no one respects what we do and we don't get paid enough.

The point to my long speech is that there are times when we feel underpaid and underappreciated, just like every other working human on the planet. These days it seems like all we hear from the media and our customers is how we don't deserve the wages we get and we don't do anything because we have an autopilot which some people think is a magical device that can do anything and everything. (Frankly, it's nothing more than a substitute...and a rather poor substitute....for another thinking pilot up there.) At one time pilots were respected people, these days we don't even get credit for the things we actually do. Just try to take all of that into consideration when you run across something written by a bitter-sounding pilot. He or she was probably just overexhausted and overstressed, lost their sense of humour and vented into the internet world without the benefit of a good night's rest or a little perspective. We still do love our jobs, the majority of us consider ourselves fortunate to have a job doing something we love so much, we like our customers, we love talking to kids and showing them all the bells and whistles after a flight, and we do appreciate that the rise of the global marketplace and the resulting elite road warrior has largely fueled the airline expansion which allows so many of us to have this great job.