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I work as a freelance web/app developer, and also as a flight instructor in a traditional employer/employee relationship because gently caress owning and maintaining my own plane to freelance that. The pay for the former is very good, and it allows me to work basically as hard or as not-hard as I want, by selecting which projects to take on. The pay for being a flight instructor is poo poo ($26/hour, but only for flight and instructional time, which is weather-dependent). I get to pick my own schedule there, though, which is good, and it's actually fun instead of being boring and tedious. It's a small business by overall standards, but large compared to the other flight schools in the area. Management is... okay, and they respond reasonably quickly to any concerns, but there are a few hold-over policies from when there was significantly less demand that I could do without -- we have a 200-person waiting list for instructor availability, and we're booked often months in advance, but we're still treating some students as if we need every student we can get. Ultimately, it doesn't matter to the instructors too much, but I'm disappointed to see motivated students hamstrung by the lack of instructor availability when we're still plodding along with people who schedule one or two flights a month and make very little progress, and I think it's impacting instructor morale overall. It's a great example of how a more democratic workplace culture could drive policies that increase employee morale while literally costing no money. In fact, it'd probably make more money, since motivated students wouldn't cancel bookings nearly as often.
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Aug 27, 2018 16:35
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| # ¿ May 15, 2024 03:04 |
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Ultimately there's always going to be poo poo parts of every job, even good jobs, and people you don't get along with. A good job run by competent people will minimize the impact of these things so it's just an annoyance instead of something the causes depression and hopelessness.
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Aug 30, 2018 20:15
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SpaceCadetBob posted:I'd love to hear your opinion on how these kind of issues play out from a generational perspective. I also work in the trades (fire protection) and see a pretty big shift away from some of the worst of the above with the younger guys. I currently have 2 apprentices avg age of 30 and both are really great about not giving any regard to the toxic crap, and also look at working as a tradesman as a very intellectual pursuit. Considering the knowledge required to properly install and service the modern integrated systems of MEP trades, being a dumb-dumb is the least apt descriptor. Yeah, I started out as a software developer and now I'm a pilot (which is sort of a trade, I guess?) and there is way less toxic poo poo in the latter profession. I mean, it still exists, but given that all but one of the pilot examiners in our area, and most of the instructors, are badass women who take no poo poo, you will not get very loving far if you have a bunch of bullshit machismo nonsense. And like with all trades, the only people who think it's easy or somehow non-intellectual are those who aren't doing it. It's actually much more mentally challenging and engaging than designing the same goddamn web app over and over again for a slightly different client.
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Sep 3, 2018 03:22
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Ocrassus posted:Super curious about this, what made you transition and at what age? I got my private license at 17 with the aim of flying commercially, but at the time the job market for pilots was terrible and everyone advised me to get a university degree, so I did, again with the intention of then going back to flying. But at the end of university, especially with good job prospects, I didn't really want to give up a pretty easy lifestyle to go back to training, low pay and a job that would involve a lot of actual hard work and no more partying whenever I wanted, etc. About 6 years after I got done with university, so around 27/28, I decided I should get back into flying just as a hobby this time, since I always enjoyed doing it. A few people advised me to get a commercial license just for the extra training, and a possible insurance discount if I were to buy my own plane. Then, a few months into the training, I realized I was driving to the airport in the middle of winter around the asscrack of dawn, to have to pre-flight and fuel the plane in -20 windchill, and I was actually looking forward to it, as opposed to dreading getting up to do a job I long since stopped enjoying any part of despite the fact it was "easy" and I got to work from home. So, I completed the commercial license, then I did multi-engine and instrument ratings, and my instructor rating, and now I'm working part-time as an instructor and part-time as a freelance developer (which has allowed me to be a lot choosier about the projects I want to take on, and at the same time, if I can't fly because of a string of bad weather or whatever, I can still make money). It's amazing how many people have similar stories, actually. I've run into a few people now who've done basically the exact same thing. As for the political leanings, I've worked in tech and the majority of the stuff I've done is for oilpatch companies, and I live in the most conservative province in Canada by most metrics, so I think the industry is less conservative than what I'm used to, but it might still be fairly conservative overall. The place I work is also pretty diverse compared to those other industries I'm familiar with, so if you're some kind of racist or sexist, it will likely be intolerable for you. That being said, this may not be the case at other employers with a different corporate culture.
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Sep 3, 2018 17:54
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wateroverfire posted:Twist: The work at the non profit is not very rewarding in practice and the executive director and their staff seem really well paid while you scratch out a living making less than you would washing cars because you really believe in the mission, assured that next year they will try their best to get you full time hours and benefits if they can just find room in the budget. Yeah, it's certainly not all non-profits, but a lot of them rely on guilt and the idea that you're contributing to making the world a better place, to exploit the gently caress out of employees. Charities and such organizations primarily using guilt, either to solicit donations or employees, can shove that poo poo right up their rear end and gently caress off as they're doing it. I donate to plenty of charities and the one thing they all have in common is that they made a good pitch, and then let me decide whether to donate and how much. That's how an ethical organization behaves.
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Sep 5, 2018 15:19
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Owlofcreamcheese posted:Like I said, I work for far too low pay for a bunch of the schools. I could phrase it like they are guilting me out of it, but it seems legitimately like me squeezing an extra 5000 or whatever out of them would help me very marginally and hurt them very greatly. Yeah, it's obviously a balance. There's a difference between doing what you're doing, or helping out a friend for below-market-rate or something, and a non-profit offering a full-time job at clearly exploitative wages and guilting employees into staying. What you're doing is essentially charity -- think of it as giving the difference between what you are making and what you could be making -- and charity is one of humanity's most noble callings, but it shouldn't be a full-time gig.
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Sep 5, 2018 16:25
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| # ¿ May 15, 2024 03:04 |
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President braindead, so what?
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Sep 6, 2018 16:03
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