Facility Downgrades / Upgrades

RalphBeast said:
Don't understand what the big fuss is. I am from the Chicago area and got ZAU out of the academy. Chilled with the parents while training, married, we lived with my parents another 2 years. We almost paid for our first house in cash. Lived there for 2 years, and it's now a paid-off rental generating $3.5k/month. At our current home, we are locked in at 3% interest for another 20 years. Wife earns $90k/year, I'm a CPC at ZAU that work a moderate amount of OT.

My advice - it's enroute or bust nowadays baby. Level 11-12 pay for life or GTFO.
Click to expand...
You come from an extremely privileged background straight to a $160,000 job, lived rent-free during training and don't understand why other people don't have that same experience?

... you know people don't have a choice between en route or terminal, right? Let me share my wildly different experience-

I was also lucky enough to get assigned en route. I worked hard at the academy and got first pick and was able to be where I wanted, close to home, although still 4 hours away. It was an extremely high cost of living that I couldn't even comprehend when I made the decision to go there. I just saw the $$ CPC pay and figured it would be no problem.

I arrived and rented the cheapest studio apartment I could find which was $1,500 per month. This was more than 50% of my take home pay, and I was only putting $100 per check into TSP. I was extremely frugal at the academy, saved as much as I could despite having a car and student loan payments. I stayed at Kim's where food and everything was included so I didn't have to pay for groceries. I didn't claim any per diem from the FAA until the last day which paid out a lump sum of around $4,000, and that's the only way I could afford the down payment on the apartment. I don't have rich parents to help me out, or any family or friends in my new city, I did this all on my own.

The $1,500 rent was killing me. After that, my loan and car payments, groceries and utilities, I had zero dollars leftover to save. Some months I went negative and had to put groceries on a credit card and carry over a balance. The only thing that kept me going was the promise of everyone at the academy telling me "AG pay is only for the first few months, you'll quickly reach D1, and so on every 4-6 months after." Many people act like I should have known they were lying to me. Who in this position would expect their employer to be lying about their pay?

I arrived to my Z to an atrocious training backlog. Despite studying and monitoring everyday, there was nothing I could do but wait. My first D side class was 14 months after I arrived. Many of my OKC classmates were in radar class at this point. I was struggling financially, accumulating debt just to be able to live, paycheck to paycheck. I could only train a couple days per week due to "staffing". Even though I finished every position close to minimum hours, I didn't receive my first raise to D1 until I had been in the building for 22 months.

By that point, the extra money had to all go towards paying off the debt I had accumulated during training. It took me years to get back in good financial health, and it wasn't until I was CPC that I was debt free.

This is all from someone who was fortunate enough to start at the highest pay band. I can't imagine how hard it's been for terminal folks who are capped at a 7 and then it's impossible to transfer.

Do you see what the big fuss is about now? AG pay needs to be abolished. Every controller needs a raise, ESPECIALLY the 10's and below. The rising cost of living is unsustainable to keep this job staffed.
 
RalphBeast said:
One thing about many Zs (prob same story with consolidated TRACONs) is that your success heavily depends on the area you are assigned to. The areas can be heavily unbalanced traffic/complexity/difficulty wise. And to make things better, the harder areas with higher wash rates are often lower-staffed, which makes training harder, which propagates the feedback loop and the trainers tend to be... more direct which offends sensitive types.

I work at a 12 in the busiest/most complex area. Low level transfers are basically treated as OTS hires. Success rates are similar. Best advice IMO is to KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT and LISTEN. Do not ever talk about your previous facility. IDGAF you rocked the house pushing 10AC and hour. Do not act like a rock star.

It's doable, and IMO working busy challenging enroute traffic is very rewarding - time goes by fast. Best part is that there are far fewer morons in the difficult areas, even our worst CPC is minimally competent. I don't feel nervous when I or my family flies through our airspace. Can't say the same about the idiots on the other side of the building, who somehow manage to f***ck up 2x more than us despite having better staffing and way easier traffic.

If it's the only way you can get home, then go for it broski. Love you man.
Click to expand...
I love you too brother. Thanks for the thought out response. God bless america.

corn4ahead said:
This is pretty spot on. I was a level 6 to level 8 to most complex area of my 12 Z. Extremely accurate.
Click to expand...
Were they up down facilities you came from or tower only?
 
Spiralbox21 said:
Honestly. Anyone here do the jump from a 5 tower to a Z? Whats the learning curve like? Only way im getting my family where they want to be.
Click to expand...
There is a definite learning curve. Terminal transfers historically have a harder time adapting than AGs (same Z as corn4ahead) but there are a lot of variables that go into success rate as others have stated: area, training team, and your own personality/work ethic. That last variable will always be the biggest decider of outcome.

Coming from terminal, you essentially need to memory dump 70% of what you have learned and the unconscious bad habits you have picked up over time; and while your training progression might be the same straight line as someone who went through the enroute academy, that straight line you have to progress through will be at an additional 7% incline because of the habits you have to break and system you have to learn that is not entirely unlike what you already learned in the up/down environment.

I'd encourage anyone to take the leap, but you have to be willing to work harder than other trainees because the FAA stacks the deck against you by not letting you go back to OKC for some kind of enroute exposure course (all while they afford enroute controllers/washouts to go to OKC for a pass/pass terminal class).
 
abc1234 said:
You come from an extremely privileged background straight to a $160,000 job, lived rent-free during training and don't understand why other people don't have that same experience?

... you know people don't have a choice between en route or terminal, right? Let me share my wildly different experience-

I was also lucky enough to get assigned en route. I worked hard at the academy and got first pick and was able to be where I wanted, close to home, although still 4 hours away. It was an extremely high cost of living that I couldn't even comprehend when I made the decision to go there. I just saw the $$ CPC pay and figured it would be no problem.

I arrived and rented the cheapest studio apartment I could find which was $1,500 per month. This was more than 50% of my take home pay, and I was only putting $100 per check into TSP. I was extremely frugal at the academy, saved as much as I could despite having a car and student loan payments. I stayed at Kim's where food and everything was included so I didn't have to pay for groceries. I didn't claim any per diem from the FAA until the last day which paid out a lump sum of around $4,000, and that's the only way I could afford the down payment on the apartment. I don't have rich parents to help me out, or any family or friends in my new city, I did this all on my own.

The $1,500 rent was killing me. After that, my loan and car payments, groceries and utilities, I had zero dollars leftover to save. Some months I went negative and had to put groceries on a credit card and carry over a balance. The only thing that kept me going was the promise of everyone at the academy telling me "AG pay is only for the first few months, you'll quickly reach D1, and so on every 4-6 months after." Many people act like I should have known they were lying to me. Who in this position would expect their employer to be lying about their pay?

I arrived to my Z to an atrocious training backlog. Despite studying and monitoring everyday, there was nothing I could do but wait. My first D side class was 14 months after I arrived. Many of my OKC classmates were in radar class at this point. I was struggling financially, accumulating debt just to be able to live, paycheck to paycheck. I could only train a couple days per week due to "staffing". Even though I finished every position close to minimum hours, I didn't receive my first raise to D1 until I had been in the building for 22 months.

By that point, the extra money had to all go towards paying off the debt I had accumulated during training. It took me years to get back in good financial health, and it wasn't until I was CPC that I was debt free.

This is all from someone who was fortunate enough to start at the highest pay band. I can't imagine how hard it's been for terminal folks who are capped at a 7 and then it's impossible to transfer.

Do you see what the big fuss is about now? AG pay needs to be abolished. Every controller needs a raise, ESPECIALLY the 10's and below. The rising cost of living is unsustainable to keep this job staffed.
Click to expand...
You are only at work for 40 hours. What did you do with all the rest of your time? I'm in agreement that AG pay sucks and i've been there. But given the situation at hand, why go into debt when you can get a second job for a short period of time? Plenty of new hires worked at restaurants and bars. I did doordash on the side. Is it ideal? no. Should this job pay a livable wage right out the gate? yes. But it doesn't. I go up and encourage new trainees to go get another job while they wait upstairs.
 
the inquirer said:
You are only at work for 40 hours. What did you do with all the rest of your time? I'm in agreement that AG pay sucks and i've been there. But given the situation at hand, why go into debt when you can get a second job for a short period of time? Plenty of new hires worked at restaurants and bars. I did doordash on the side. Is it ideal? no. Should this job pay a livable wage right out the gate? yes. But it doesn't. I go up and encourage new trainees to go get another job while they wait upstairs.
Click to expand...
Your take from all that is that I should have got a second job. That's embarrassing that you say that to new hires. We want people to be focused on studying and becoming great controllers, not working multiple jobs just to afford groceries. wtf.
 
the inquirer said:
You are only at work for 40 hours. What did you do with all the rest of your time? I'm in agreement that AG pay sucks and i've been there. But given the situation at hand, why go into debt when you can get a second job for a short period of time? Plenty of new hires worked at restaurants and bars. I did doordash on the side. Is it ideal? no. Should this job pay a livable wage right out the gate? yes. But it doesn't. I go up and encourage new trainees to go get another job while they wait upstairs.
Click to expand...
When I got to my Z I was told the next D school wouldn’t be for a year. We then had a meeting with all the new trainees. Management told us if we got another job outside of this one we would be fired immediately.
 
abc1234 said:
Your take from all that is that I should have got a second job. That's embarrassing that you say that to new hires. We want people to be focused on studying and becoming great controllers, not working multiple jobs just to afford groceries. wtf.
Click to expand...
These are not serious people, I don't know how this profession survives, with friends like these in our ranks who needs enemies.
 
Didn’t they just meet for this quarter? Any idea how long it takes to hear what the results are?
 
Where can you see actual updated levels? Seems like everything I look at still has outdated levels.
 

Similar threads

L
Quitting prior to CPC
2 3
Replies
48
Views
4K
Louie212
L
J
  • Question
Slate Book, Appendix B. D3 Pay
Replies
5
Views
737
jfol
J
FloopThePig
I just got warned of a "pattern" in my sick leave from taking the last few Fridays off for fatigue leave. How will this affect me, if at all?
2 3 4
Replies
65
Views
9K
Thebullisback
T
C
Fixing NCEPT/academy placement
2 3 4
Replies
78
Views
10K
SquawkHijack
SquawkHijack
G
NEST LIST ANY AND ALL HELP IS WELCOME
Replies
5
Views
3K
FightingIrish2012
F
Back
Top Bottom