I have now been at my facility 8 months. I am about one month shy of being off probation, and I
cannot wait. I am sick of walking on eggshells at work, trying not to swear, not to step on anyone's toes, not to sleep through alarms and be late to work (I've cut back from three alarms in the morning to just one).
In October, our Union negotiated a new contract (the Crimson Book), restoring pay to 2006 levels by 2012. So our pay lags 6 years behind where it should be if it weren't for the White Book. Not a huge deal, I'm happy to be making what I am (and will be) making.
What bothers me is that part of that contract included a part about developmentals bidding days off by seniority. At my facility, they gang-hired people like crazy. There are 21 developmentals and 30 FPLs. They brought 4 other people on board the same time as me. Therefore, there are 5 of us with the same seniority. And naturally, we're all training on the same thing. Before this new contract came out, we were all spread out on different days off. We never had to compete for training time, at least not like we do now.
Also, since we're lowest on the seniority totem pole, we all got moved to Tuesday/Wednesdays off. Now, I don't really care what days off I have as long as I have at least 2 in a row, but T/W is the absolute WORST set of days off for training. There's only enough traffic on Thursday/Friday nights to train on, and splitting an 8 hour shift up for 3-5 people to train results in about an hour of training. Saturdays and Sundays my coworker and I have taken to cooking breakfast for everyone at work and also a good deal of movie-watching happens. We work about 45 minutes, then get an hour or more off. Today I had the last 2 hours of my shift off. Mondays are pretty hit or miss as far as training goes. Some Mondays are super busy, while others are as bad as weekend days.
I came from Sunday/Monday off, and I know most people are like "oh yeah, no wonder you're pissed, you don't have weekends off anymore". Frankly, I could care less about that. Sunday/Monday is the second best set of days off for training, there is always a lot of traffic, no matter what day it is. When I was on that set of days off, I led the facility in training hours, with about 50hrs/month of steady traffic. (Last month I had about 20 hours of training on very light traffic.) Not to mention, there was a much greater volume of traffic and other shit to deal with (helicopters, pipeline aircraft, VFRs, etc). It was all around just a better opportunity. We bid our schedules mid-December, effective January 1, 2010. My trainer begged and pleaded for me to stay on Su/Mo off for only 2 more weeks to get me checked out by around mid-Jan. Management would have none of that.
I was pretty set in my ways after logging 80 hours with the same trainer prior to Jan 1st, and to go to this new guy who trains me about an hour a week was a huge change, and now after having about 10-15 different trainers, I'm thoroughly confused! I know how
I want to do things, but when you're in training, you have to please your trainer. If they want you to read the pilot the whole goddamn weather sequence along with their landing clearance, you better do it or else. If they want me to say "Indy Tower, wind 030 at 12, runway 23 R, turn left heading 210, cleared for takeoff" I better not say "Indy Tower, Runway 23R, wind 030 at 12, turn left heading 210, cleared for takeoff" or there will be hell to pay, a scathing training report, and I will be ratted out for not using THEIR phraseology. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?
So here I am, still slaving away at training with a trainer who doesn't seem to like me a whole hell of a lot. He calls me stupid, says I'm never gonna make it... Just doesn't have a whole lot of nice things to say about me in general. He never wants to train, so I'm always stuck training with a different random person every day who invariably tells me to do shit that contradicts what the last person told me to do. I try to hit gaps with one trainer and have a plane at 180 kts on a 4 mile final and they'll be like NO ITS TOO TIGHT!!! but the next day I will be training with someone else and have a plane at 180kts on 4 mile final again and I will remember my last trainer telling me NOT to do it, so I don't. Then that trainer will be like "you should've hit that gap". arghhhhhhh.
So basically, I train with this guy about 2 hours a week, sometimes a little more. I always fuck up some little thing and he immediately gets on my case about not being smart enough, how I'm gonna wash out, blah blah blah. I don't know if he is being a dick, or if he's trying to motivate me. Hint: telling me I'm gonna lose my job is not a good motivator. Telling me "good job" when I do a good job instead of just acting indifferent towards me is a good motivator.
It's just really disheartening to me. 2 months ago my first trainer was all ready to check me out. Now this guy seems ready to wash me out because sometimes I tell someone to turn left off the runway when I really mean right. Sometimes I tell someone "clear to land" when they're holding in position... I always catch my mistakes and correct them, though. I am not unsafe. I am not slow. I don't even ask questions anymore (that's a BIG deal, I was always second guessing myself, and I stopped doing that). I've even schooled him a few times on some things. None of that is good enough. I have to be PERFECT.
I just can't vomit out enough words into this little box to convey how frustrated/irritated/sad/disheartened/upset I am with this whole situation. I am not a dumb person, I don't like being called dumb, and I don't like being held back from things that I know I can do. I know I won't ever be perfect, no one is, but I think I'm good enough to handle working on my own.
