It's actually so simple I can describe it in pictures. The worst thing about being an airline pilot is this:
That's the sad look my dog has the night I've left for a trip and it's bedtime and my side of the bed is empty. But there's more:
Our Australian Shepherd, Orion, went from that tiny puppy who was smaller than our cat to a 55-pound ball of energy. Each of those pictures (except the first, which was from the ad the puppy rescue had that brought him to us) was taken by my wife because I wasn't there to see him.
As he was going from the little Frisbee show-off who would catch it and trip over it while bringing it back because it was wider than he was to the solid dog in the third picture, I missed out on a lot of his growing up. As he was going from the runt in the first picture to the dog in the last picture who is so big he would be hard to hold up like the puppy rescue did, I was in a hotel room somewhere. Maybe Maine, maybe Missouri, maybe Florida or North Carolina... I don't know where.
What I do know is that being in a hotel room more often than your home is hard at times. It is wearying living out of a suitcase so many days a month, carrying your whole life with you, city after city. I've said that you're not a real airline pilot until you've woken up in your own bed in the middle of the night and tried to remember what city you're in.
More than once, I've had the chorus to Bob Seger's "Turn the Page" in my head. He does a great, poetic job describing what having a job on the road is like.
Say, here I am, on a road again
There I am, up on the stage
Here I go, playing the star again
There I go, turn the page
That said, I still wouldn't want to do anything else, just as I doubt Bob Seger would want to be anything else but a rock star. This is just a small glimpse into a downside of a job that has a huge upside.
Besides, being an airline pilot lets me afford nice things like new cars. Next week, I get one and examine a dogfight on the license plate. See you next Wednesday!
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The author is an airline pilot, flight instructor, and adjunct college professor teaching aviation ground schools. He holds an ATP certificate with ERJ-145 and DHC-8 type ratings, as well as CFI, CFII, MEI, AGI, and IGI certificates, and is a Master-level participant in the FAA's WINGS program and a former FAASafety Team representative. He is on Facebook as Larry the Flying Guy, has a Larry the Flying Guy YouTube channel, and is on Twitter as @Lairspeed.
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