What's one thing you wish you knew?

[MJ]

Like the title says... What's a good bit of info you wish you had found out sooner or that you should have been told but never were? I'll add good answers to the first post. Hopefully we'll all learn something new.

Mine is, when I started, no one even explained that the leave year didn't align with the calendar year. Always nice to start off the year in the hole 🙄

• Don't try and adapt to your trainers styles. Take the best pieces of each trainer and make your own style. Flip flopping between different styles will training all that more complicated.
• The leave year doesn't align with the calendar year
• If you ask for Sick Leave on WebMT, you still have to call
• picking a facility based off of Up/Down over a Tower only is nonsense just to get a radar ticket. Pick whatever facility is best staffed and fastest checkout time. Move on and up from there.
• Max out that TSP as soon as you can afford it.
• Get involved ASAP in NATCA and/or the legislative side of it. Attend CFS, NATCA Academy Classes, the conventions, NIW, etc. It's by far the best way to network and meet people in this small agency. Make connections, especially at places you want to go. It will help you advance your career much more than a strong resume will in this day of NCEPT. Remember, a lot of the time its who you know, not what you know.

 

[Shikaka]

I guess it would have been nice to know how subpar the training is, how horrible the culture is towards trainees. Not cool being in a facility with a 50% realistic training success rate.

 

[CF]

I guess it would have been nice to know how subpar the training is, how horrible the culture is towards trainees. Not cool being in a facility with a 50% realistic training success rate.

This, if you have no experience training in an ATC facility its a huge wake up call when you make it to your first facility and have to learn to play the game of being a trainee as well as actually learning the job.

 

[DankVectorz]

I wish I had known I could have gotten this job without experience. Being FAA at 22 instead of AF sounds magical.

 

[Super Salt]

How NCEPT “truly” works.

 

[Dolan]

That NATCA is absolutely, completely dominated by the larger terminal facilities and centers. Our RVP pretty much told our facrep to their face they they really don't give a shit about small towers.

 

[Super Salt]

That NATCA is absolutely, completely dominated by the larger terminal facilities and centers. Our RVP pretty much told our facrep to their face they they really don't give a shit about small towers.

Well that’s a given. Bigger facilities = More numbers.

 

[Dolan]

Well that’s a given. Bigger facilities = More numbers.

So what happens a lot due to this is policies get enacted that have neutral to positive effects on large facilities that are disastrous for the small ones. Robbing Peter to pay Paul, if you will.

 

[Super Salt]

How the ATO categorizes experience.

 

[Stinger]

How the ATO categorizes experience.

You're talking about working military/dod and getting hired into the FAA?
Or once in the FAA and transferring around?

 

[GulfCharlie]

That I had listened to my Mother in 2008 and applied right out of Highschool when they were doing massive hiring instead of getting drunk on the beach and shagging half the girls in class.

 

[Super Salt]

You're talking about working military/dod and getting hired into the FAA?

^^

 

[Maintainvfr]

That I had listened to my Mother in 2008 and applied right out of Highschool when they were doing massive hiring instead of getting drunk on the beach and shagging half the girls in class.

Poor thing

 

[MJ]

He went to an all boys school.

Thread hasn't gone the way I intended for the topic... 🙄

 

[GulfCharlie]

He went to an all boys school.

Thread hasn't gone the way I intended for the topic... 🙄

By the numbers then...
-How random and inconsistent the hiring was going to be
-That I had been on the "in" during the whole Shelton Snow debacle with "diversity" hiring
-That simple changes (ie the Central Selection Panel) would have continued hiring by region only and not by states
-How screwed up the ERR system was about to change

 

[Move78]

That NATCA is absolutely, completely dominated by the larger terminal facilities and centers. Our RVP pretty much told our facrep to their face they they really don't give a shit about small towers.

This is basic triage. NATCA and the FAA are national organizations. Scale anything and people are just numbers.

 

[OrangeYOGAMat]

If you ask for SL on WebMT, you still have to call. That one gets a lot of new people.

 

[GWE8613]

If you ask for SL on WebMT, you still have to call. That one gets a lot of new people.

What's WebMT?

 

[DankVectorz]

How screwed up the ERR system was about to change

This. I don’t know if I would have accepted my TOL to NY if I knew I’d be stuck on Long Island for life. Also that if I had waited for the next bid where they gave lists instead of pick 2 states I could have wound up like everyone else from my base at SoCal, Denver or Miami TRACONs

 

[bam91]

This. I don’t know if I would have accepted my TOL to NY if I knew I’d be stuck on Long Island for life. Also that if I had waited for the next bid where they gave lists instead of pick 2 states I could have wound up like everyone else from my base at SoCal, Denver or Miami TRACONs

Is life on L.I really that depressing? I live in Queens.