281–290 of 660 posts
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20/20 vision in each eye (no contact lenses) is also a requirement. I have a feeling thatll rule out a lot of software engineers on this site.
I assume plenty of people will be happy to go through LASIK for that
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Certain immigrants actually seem to excel in trucking and even enjoy it (Punjabi truckers especially in California - I always see the Sikh logos on the back of their trucks between LA and SF!). A quick policy adjust would resolve any shortage in truckers with other people who'd probably also enjoy the work. However, there isn't a massive pool of people abroad who can handle US airspace demands (which now seems to inc…
> and also includes people like my former college hallmates who take handheld aviation radios, ask for permission to depart, and run on the taxiways with their arms extended, to great dismay of ATC You can't just drop a tidbit like that without elaborating.
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Seems like reasonable pay for what is a very important job. Wouldn't object to paying much much more.
I'm an Air Traffic Controller and I'm required by the FAA to say these opinions are my own and not necessarily of the FAA. Some fully-certified air traffic controllers cannot afford to live where they work, not to mention the trainees that have the added stress of training and making less money. At my first facility, to live within 45 minutes of work, my whole paycheck went to rent, thank goodness I had savings from…
How many days per week?
Paid vacations?
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I've toured a couple of ATC towers recently and my impression was they were surprisingly low tech. A tech upgrade seems like the most viable solution at this point. There are processes for writing and testing software and hardware for environments such as this, but the government needs to be willing to make the investment.
The general problem here is that we need to do something about the government contracting process. It has been thoroughly captured by large government contractors who do mediocre work for enormous sums of money while excluding anyone who could do better from the process through corruption and red tape. Which in turn means that important systems become frozen in time because upgrade attempts become boondoggles that ca…
The obvious downside to this is that hardening code becomes a potential large amount of effort/overhead that could normally be concealed behind binaries and proprietary code.
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Everything you have listed above could be solved with money. Only 10% of applicants are physically and mentally qualified? Sounds like you need more applicants? Want to attract more applicants? Offer more compensation. The training and onboarding is incredibly long? Sounds like a doctor? Do you know why people go through the pain of becoming a doctor? Because they make a lot of money when they get through the other s…
> Do you know why people go through the pain of becoming a doctor? Because they make a lot of money when they get through the other side. I think the guaranteed respect and admiration that comes from the title is actually a more powerful draw. Don't get me wrong, the money is good, but on par with senior manager in any large tech firm. Doctor is a primal respect that technical roles do not carry. You're not getting i…
Used to be. Not anymore. Nowadays many doctors act as a smartass business people.
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Everything you have listed above could be solved with money. Only 10% of applicants are physically and mentally qualified? Sounds like you need more applicants? Want to attract more applicants? Offer more compensation. The training and onboarding is incredibly long? Sounds like a doctor? Do you know why people go through the pain of becoming a doctor? Because they make a lot of money when they get through the other s…
> Sounds like a doctor? Not disagreeing, but the US also has a doctor shortage for at least a decade that it is seemingly unable to fix.
Is this a US ONLY problem? I'm not trying to start a flame war, I'm genuinely wondering for example: European air travel doesn't seem any less safe than the US so whatever they are doing seems to work just as well. Do they have trouble hiring and keeping ATCs? Is their comp/work life/training/etc very different than ours? Would appreciate any insight from folks that know.
It looks like Europe also has staffing issues, but they're more likely to cancel/delay flights rather than overwork their ATC https://skift.com/2023/08/22/europes-air-traffic-controller-...
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Reagan taking away collective bargaining rights for ATCs seems to be what have led to the shortage and the helicopter accident last week.
The official investigation report is of course going to take a bit, but the ATC audio is public, and the helicopter was warned twice about the plane, and said they had a visual of the plane. Besides never missing an opportunity to 'slam' the opposition, I have no idea why this is being construed as an ATC failure.
Just saying what I've heard. One issue is that the controller allowed visual separation, to begin with. They say he should have known that it was difficult, especially at night, and shouldn't have allowed it.
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> Sounds like a doctor? Not disagreeing, but the US also has a doctor shortage for at least a decade that it is seemingly unable to fix.
The USA restricts the number of positions for medical schools and residencies. It's a problem that money could solve.
It should be noted that the FAA is facing a lawsuit alleging it discriminated against capable candidates[1]. If this is true, this surely must factor into the shortage of air traffic controllers. Admittedly, its a big if, and second even if it is true it is not clear to me how much of a factor this is in the shortage. [1] https://mslegal.org/cases/brigida-v-faa/
Trump was likely referencing it with his DEI comments about the FAA.
Pete Buttigieg's tweet response (acting as if Trump's accusation was coming completely out of left field, when there's literally a case named "Brigida v. Buttigieg"): https://x.com/PeteButtigieg/status/1885013865676562491