Hello TBD readers.
First, I should get the serious news/bad news out of the way. No, I didn't injure myself, and no, I didn't die. I found out that come April 19th, I will be unemployed.
You see, the airline that I work for is called Lynx Aviation. We were a wholly owned subsidiary of Frontier Airlines. When Frontier filed for bankruptcy in April 2008, Lynx went in with them. Frontier needed to gain some capital and get out of bankruptcy. To do this, they needed someone to buy them. A buyer emerged, named Republic Airlines, came out and decided to purchase Frontier. With this purchase came Lynx Aviation. The CEO of Republic, Bryan Bedford, publically said he had no idea what to do with Lynx. In the past, Bryan has made it quite clear that he is not a fan of turboprop aircraft. I can understand that to an extent. The public is still fearful of turboprop aircraft. But in terms of cost and efficiency, a turboprop is amazing on short routes. That's why it works so well in the mountain towns and on these short hops. But Bryan doesn't understand that. So he said they would "reevaluate" Lynx and revisit it in 6-7 months.
Well, 6-7 months came and Bryan's decision was to get rid of the turboprops and eliminate Lynx. Just like that, about 400 jobs have been eliminated. 400 more people treading the unemployment line. 400 people who have to re-adjust their lives because their CEO doesn't care about them, only about flying fancy jets. April 6th, 3 of our airplanes will be gone and 40 pilots will be on furlough. April 19th, 3 more will be gone and 40 more of us will be on furlough. And by September, the rest will be sold and all of us will be on furlough.
Basically, this is another challenge that life has thrown me. No problem, right? Wrong. I'm getting tired of these challenges. I'm getting tired of always having to pick myself up and dust myself off. Just as I get established, I have to deal with something else. It's really frustrating and I'm getting sick of it. None of my friends have to deal with this. None of my family. It really feels like it's only me.
Realistically, I know it's not, but still...
Anyway though, I should hit the high points thus far of the month...I've been doing well in terms of working out. I have kept up with the running, hitting my goal of over 8 miles last week. I swam 1950 meters last week (miscounted...oops!0 and I've done a couple treadmill sprints. So far, the year has gone better than I was expecting in terms of working out.
The rest of life...not so much...
So sorry Brandon!!
ReplyDeleteYeah, now you have too much time to train :-(
For what it's worth, the first time I went to med school I was thrown out! Not for breaking any rules, but because I didn't pass a pre admission test that didn't give the results until after I was in school for a while. At any rate, I persisted, retook the test and now, as you know, have an MD after my name. You'll get back too, because you have the right stuff!
If you happen down this way, let me know and we'll go flying, buddy.
Dr. J