Well, maybe “hate” is a strong word. But they are tasked to enforce agency directives and what not but sometimes they overstep. A good sup can make your life at work easy and a bad sup can make your life hell.
Controllers are generally very good at running a shift without a sup. Sometimes the sup is just an extra cook in the kitchen if ya know what I mean.
A lot of time they are the bad guys for disapproving leave and shift changes for reason that don’t make sense. They use some BS excuse like “denied for staffing” even though we have plenty on people to run a shift. And that’s just one of many examples.
yeah lol i get it, i had to deal with a lot of those in the military. sometimes you had a good sup who not micromanage and would go to bat for his guys but more often than not it would be the opposite
About pay: the higher base will raise your retirement. So doing it for 3 years at the end of your career could be good. But the old sups in their last couple years seem way more liked.
Unless you get a sup who only become a sup because he realizes he has not enough in his TSP before he ages out. Then, tries to become a Sup to ATM so the age doesn’t apply........
I suppose I shouldn’t have made a blanket statement.
There are a lot of facilities who haven’t released anyone under NCEPT in 2+ years because they are understaffed, yet every 3-6 months someone gets an exception for a sup job somewhere else.
Exceptions keep getting approved and this is why many controllers don’t like NCEPT.
Unless you get a sup who only become a sup because he realizes he has not enough in his TSP before he ages out. Then, tries to become a Sup to ATM so the age doesn’t apply........
So would it be a fair statement to make a ’smart’ placement pick upon academy completion in terms of a location you like and comfortable level facility over fear of not being able to move for a while?
So would it be a fair statement to make a ’smart’ placement pick upon academy completion in terms of a location you like and comfortable level facility over fear of not being able to move for a while?
I think the typical advice is to choose a place that has good staffing numbers and low training times so that you can certify quick and transfer to where you want to go. But you should also keep in mind it may take a long time to transfer out so pick somewhere you can live with for a while
So would it be a fair statement to make a ’smart’ placement pick upon academy completion in terms of a location you like and comfortable level facility over fear of not being able to move for a while?
Chose where you want to live 1. If unable that chose where you can get out of the quickest
I think the typical advice is to choose a place that has good staffing numbers and low training times so that you can certify quick and transfer to where you want to go. But you should also keep in mind it may take a long time to transfer out so pick somewhere you can live with for a while
Where would one obtain staffing level and training time information?
Something else to keep in mind, is for those who are enroute it’s pretty important to pick a place you’re “comfortable” with(assuming you didn’t finish in the bottom half of your class) because training time might take a while and it might be even longer before you can transfer.
Which is my next suggestion, look at training time and success rate. If you go to certain centers you’ll be stuck there for quite some time. Even after certifying you’ll most likely be stuck for a while before NCEPT does it’s thang
Which goes back to my first point. If you’re in an area you hate and the training/transferring time takes forever, you’ll be miserable.
For terminal, both points are still relevant but you may weight them differently in importance. If you go to an up/down you’ll be in training for about the same time(if not longer) than at a center as you first learn the tower part then move to learn the radar part. If you get a tower only, odds are you’ll get a quick checkout time. Again, look at training time and success rate. Also check to see how their staffing is, if they are super under staffed don’t expect to leave any time soon. So, hopefully you like the area.
how do we possibly get somewhere we want to live? there's no way of getting Florida out of the academy lol
You dont. You get a list of facilities on the other side of the country from where you're from and then you choose which of the most undesirable places you want to live. Pray you certify and then pray you win the ncept lottery to transfer. You probably won't see florida for years unless you get there out of the academy as thats somewhere most people go to finish of their career.