Reply #25: depends on how you look at it

[hfojvt]

I was a phone customer service rep, and I think I was good at that. What I sucked at was selling the crap that they tell you to try to sell to somebody who calls asking for help with a problem.

If he got to work at a job he loved for 18 years (and getting a fair amount of pay as an AF major I would guess) then he has already had a much better life than me. Now he gets to learn how the other half lives. It's not a fate worse than death though to have to live as I do. My guess, though, is that he quickly lands another job that he loves (if he loves flying) and probably makes more money in a month than I do in a year.

I have applied for jobs that I thought I would like, like finance director and assistant librarian. In the latter case, I did not even get an interview in spite of my 8 years of college and seven years of owning a bookstore, and I did not get the finance job either.

We do occupy different worlds. That's for sure. He was up there where he could collect a $40,000 pension at age 42 and lifetime medical benefits. And I can see that it would suck bad to lose that for spurious reasons, or for any reason, but especially for spurious ones. But if he gets a $60,000 a year job as a pilot, as I am sanguine about, then it looks to me like "he will live" and probably live much better than your average part-time janitor.