JTLD is right… nolabird is female **** Nice try JTLD. now let’s see how you do when you compare apples with apples. You’ve got two recent MBA grads with equal GPA, both highly qualified individuals. One takes a job as a buy side research analyst and the other takes a job as an investment banker. The research analyst makes $80k/year and works 40-50 hours a week. Maybe the occasional 65 hours during earning season (although this work is probably done at a lower level. The IB makes $150k/year and works 80-100 hours a week. You have to at least agree that there are valid arguements for each side. You should understand SellSide’s point that the research analyst as more time to spend with his/her family which is part of “being there”. I’m sure that SellSide would agree with you that making a decent living contributes to providing for the family. *** This is a completely different point than I was trying to make in terms of benefits. My point is that total compensation involves a lot more than a salary and bonus. In certain situations, a company is in a better position to provide benefits (ie they might get a better price… health insurance as an example) than you would be if they gave you cash and told you to go find it on your own. My company provides a detailed analysis at the end of each year that shows our total compensation, and it is significantly higher than my salary. If I decide to leave and get a new job, I would be sure to compare not just the salary, but the entire compensation package… also taking into consideration the quality of the benefits as well. Not all health insurance companies are created equal and not all funds offered in 401k accounts are created equal either. If you don’t give a $h!t about benefits and think that its just something that poor people use as an excuse for not making more cash, you’re not doing yourself a favor. Benefits cost companies money, and most benefits are valuable.
I read this number yesterday and I shocked. That’s less than what I was making as a useless graduate student. The starting salary for bus drivers in So.Cal is around $62K + benefits. You would think that pilots are paid more than bus drivers.
SkipE99 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > 62k my ace… > > http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=bus+driver&l1=Los+ > Angeles%2C+CA Looks like they had to take pay cuts since I last worked there 
… Serious, I heard it on the radio the other day … or maybe it was police officers
nolabird032 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- If you don’t give a $h!t > about benefits and think that its just something > that poor people use as an excuse for not making > more cash, you’re not doing yourself a favor. > Benefits cost companies money, and most benefits > are valuable. That’s fine, your argument makes sense, except when I criticize low income people for using benefits and “quality of life” as a crutch I’m not comparing someone who makes 70K to someone who makes 80K. I’m talking about people like KJH who said “My brother was a regional jet pilot. He made a little more than that ($25K). He hardly ever had to work and got excellent benefits (free travel, healthcare).” His implicit argument there is that his brother’s life is better than a person who makes say 10x more because his brother has a lot of benefits and doesn’t work much. My argument is that someone who makes $250K with no benefits can theoretically afford to shell out his own cash to pay for the exact same benefits. Unless those benefits are worth more than $225K, then the guy making $250K is better off, in every financial sense, than the guy making $25K. Furthermore, KJH is implying that because his brother doesn’t make a lot of money, he has time to enjoy life, while people who do make a lot of money hate life. That couldn’t be further from the truth. I, and I’m sure most people on this board, make much much more than $25K. If you’ve read some of my previous posts, I often wake up at 10am, play video games, sit on the balcony and get a tan, and then work on my laptop in bed all day. I work in finance, my hours are long but reasonable, I am decently compensated to the point where if I had to pay for my own benefits I would still be much better off than the guy who makes $25K, and above all I enjoy my life and have plenty of time to spend with friends and gf. So, the poverty = great benefits + happy life while richness = sh!tty benefits + misery theory does not hold, and my assertion is that it is not even close to reality.
Alright, I understand what you’re getting at, and I semi-agree. Although I know it isn’t 100% true, but I’ve never met anyone that makes $250k and works less than 50 hrs a week. paradox of life - make more money, but have less time to spend it. here is something that (surprisingly) no one has mentioned. being a pilot is cool. everyone wants to be one. there are people (my husband included) that pay good money to get a pilots license. for fun. then if you want to fly, you’ve got to rent an airplane etc. its an expensive hobby. anyway… with that in mind. imagine getting paid to do something that you’d do for free? or better yet… getting paid to do something that you’d pay good money to have the opportunity to do. renting a plane is expensive… something like $60/hour. if you think of the job itself being something that you’d pay $60/hour to do, and then add on your salary and benefits on top of it… $25k isn’t really all that bad. And if you have enough free time to get another job on the side good for you! you’re doing something that you love, getting paid (maybe not a lot, but something), getting benefits. i don’t see what the huge uproar is about. not that bad of a lifestyle. of course… this only pertains to being a pilot. but i think there is a lot of truth in it. my husband really wanted to be a pilot, but it didn’t work out so he decided to become an aerodynamic engineer instead. so i guess he sort of worked towards what you’re talking about, but i guarantee that if he had the opportunity to switch gears and be a pilot for $25k/year + benefits… he’d do it in a heartbeat.
Things you love have a way of falling out of favor when they become your job. Look at porn for instance.
nolabird032 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- >And if you have enough free > time to get another job on the side good for you! That, in a nutshell, is the catch to doing something you love for low pay. Unless you live in Mexico and fly planes for a drug cartel.
nolabird032 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Alright, I understand what you’re getting at, and > I semi-agree. Although I know it isn’t 100% true, > but I’ve never met anyone that makes $250k and > works less than 50 hrs a week. Really? You must work in the states. In Europe, that kinda money (with bonus) and a regular 9-6 is fairly common. While I think about it, my old boss was a pilot. He took me up over the mountains in his two seater. All I know is that I couldnt wait to get out. He did it at the weekends every weekend. You can have your cake and eat it. You just have to be willing to travel.
nolabird032 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > > here is something that (surprisingly) no one has > mentioned. being a pilot is cool. If you’re 12 years old, yes, pilots are cool. When you grow up you realize that they’re no more than glorified bus drivers.
mo34 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > nolabird032 Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > > > > here is something that (surprisingly) no one > has > > mentioned. being a pilot is cool. > > If you’re 12 years old, yes, pilots are cool. When > you grow up you realize that they’re no more than > glorified bus drivers. OK smarty pants. just FYI… you can be a pilot without working for a commercial airline. there are a lot of recreational pilots and those are the people that I’m talking about. according to the FAA, the average age of recreational pilots is 50 yrs old. http://www.faa.gov/data_research/aviation_data_statistics/civil_airmen_statistics/2008/media/08-air13.xls thanks for playing though. it’s been fun. Mudda- yeah… i’m talking about americans. My brother was working on getting his pilot’s license and i went up with him once. scared the crap outta me… and that was with the instructor sitting shotgun. My husband has his license in Italy, but doesn’t have a US one… yet. I think he’s going to start working on it this summer. I’m not all that excited about getting in a little plane after the experience with my brother.
My cousin flies a plane, and my other cousin wanted to learn. I went up with him once in a small plane and was hanging on for dear life… turbulence comes in and the whole plane just suddenly drops four feet like a rock, and then stabilizes. I dunna hao dey duit! Still, if you’re a pilot, maybe you are attractive to flight attendants… 
A friend of mine took me and another friend over the Everglades and a bit of Miami the day after he got his pilot licence. Strange feeling in that little thing, but I was okay. Until he discovered a runway in the middle of this friggin jungle. He tried to touch down, but was still too fast. We were racing towards the end of that runway and the little sh!tty tin-tube was rattling like the wheels were going to break off any second. Then he pushed the throttle and we ascended again. We were all very quiet for the next few minutes, the whole situation was kinda embarrassing. Then I took a peek over my shoulder and my other friend who sat in the back was white as a sheet. I really thought he would puke right in my neck. The part flying lowly over Miami was great, but the rest reduced my appetite for travelling in small planes for quite some time.
After 10 - 15 years of hell, pilots comp can go up quite a bit. If they manage to make it up to large passenger jets (787’s), or cross-oceanic flights, they can make ~$200k.