Fate Laughs On

I was thinking today about the course I took that coincidentally included the Badger Airlines training staff. On the first day there was a getting-to-know-you session where pairs of participants 'interviewed' each other to tell the class about the other. I was paired with a Badger training captain, and one of the things he asked me about was career goals. I didn't say straight out, "I want your job," but it's what I really wanted.

I'd envisioned my career starting, as it has, at the lower echelons of the industry, and progressing to a company like Badger. I knew all along that aviation was a pyramid scheme, and that not everyone gets to stand on the top wearing the uniform of a jet captain, so I accepted that my ascent might stop at Badger or its ilk. I was, and am, prepared to complete my career becoming an expert on a niche airplane, the go-to girl who knows every in and out of the aircraft and the company's destinations. I'd run the groundschool and become a company training pilot, and check pilot. And I'd eventually get a new car. You know, the idle fantasies of the student pilot.

What hit me this morning is that I have certainly at some point said words almost exactly matching, "I want to work with the Badger training department." And of course, for four days in May, I did. I got exactly what I asked for.

I guess I need to be more specific. I want to fly a Boeing jet. But I don't want that to come through a real life scenario from a really bad movie, where I'm on a trip and the pilots become incapacitated and one of the passengers has to land the plane. Exciting as that might be, I don't want my dreams fulfilled via loopholes. Although that could happen too. It always works out pretty well in the movies.

Oh, and I've reconsidered. For a just-once opportunity, I'd rather fly a DC3 than a B787. But for a permanent job, I want the new Boeing.

(And before you remind me, I know I've been neglecting my mammals. Too many twelve hour days lately. I can't compose cover letters or make coherent phone calls when I consider that I've already republished this twice after finding I'd accidentally typed the same word twice, and then accidentally typed the opposite of what I meant. Plus at work today it took me two tries to spell VFR. And yes, it's pronounced vee-eff-arr.)