high stress

sick Newcomer

everytime i bring up to someone i want to be a ATC i hear "high suicide rate" "crystal meth addiction" "divorce" "alcohol" "depressed"

wtf.....ill be honest, i dont care how much i hear that.....i want to do this. too bad there isnt a fuggin cti school in north carolina, you know? the home of the first flight? whata joke...but thats another story.

anyways, anyone know what all this crazy depressed suicide talk is about? should i be worried? i have no past issues with anger, depression, being stressed....iam very funny, relaxed, laid back guy, that works hard and doesnt take things too serious.....i honest think i can handle it (i know i dont know the ins and outs of it yet) but i honestly feel like leonardo dicaprio in "the departed" no matter what situation.....my hand is steady, iam calm.

so whats the word?

aprolla23 Junior Member Raleigh, NC

Well not really answering your question, but I live in NC and go to a CTI school currently. Online is the way to go, but I definitely agree with it being strange that we don't have one located here. I mean this state is full of colleges that could certainly make it work.

DOD_ATC Senior Member Chicago, IL

Here is a good way of looking at stress regarding our profession that I read on a retired controller's website...

The Big Sky Theory Website - Stories About Air Traffic Control

"One thing I discovered as my career progressed has to do with stress. Now I have to say that I am almost certainly unqualified to discuss this much because I almost never felt stress. I reached this conclusion simply by thinking some things out.

Picture some young kid, 20 or 21 years old, fresh out of the military with military ATC experience. He gets hired by the FAA at a pretty good salary—certainly far more than he was making as an E-5 (the numbers have changed a lot since I wrote this and certainly since I lived it—that's why there are no specifics). He goes to the Academy, returns to the facility, pulls strips for a year or two, gets promoted two grades, and then goes to D-school. By then, he's probably gotten married and had a kid. As soon as he gets D-certified, he gets promoted again a couple of grades. Another kid comes along and they buy a new house.

A year later he starts radar training and starts noticing that traffic seems to bother him—he's not comfortable—often because he doesn't “get it”. He takes a while longer to certify, but as soon as he gets a couple of radars, he gets promoted again. He works his two radars, but he's still uncomfortable. He trains some more and eventually gets four radars (harder sectors, too) and another promotion. However, despite his gaining experience, he finds he's working at his maximum level a lot.

With all the money he's now making, he buys a new house and has another kid. Finally, with a lot of training, he gets his last radar and his last promotion. But he never gets any better, and he's scared every day he comes to work. That's not even the stress part, although it certainly contributes.

He is making at this point (in Chicago in the ‘90s) something on the order of $70-90K (four times what he started at a mere five years earlier). Where in the world is he going to get a job with his high school education and highly specialized, non-transferable experience that will pay anywhere near that? And how will he pay for his house, kids, and cars? He has to keep coming to work every day, working at his maximum, scared to death every time. That is stress..."

bmb221 Junior Member So Cal

Thanks for the link to that site. Excellent insight for us wannabees.

Roddy_Piper Resident Knucklehead Vegas baby

still alive
hell no. never have, never will
still married, going on 9 years
nope...when u have kids it's hard to be

i suppose it all depends on the person. i haven't seen or heard of a single suicide. not saying it hasn't ever happened, but no one has told me about one.

now the divorce thing is real. it's a tuff job to have and keep a loving marriage. our hours are not conducive to normal family life. it takes a lot of work. if u love your spouse (and your kids) enough, you'll find a way to make it work. over half the people i work with are divorced at least once (not counting the never marrieds).

DODO_STNX Trusted Member Birmingham, Alabama

Is that not the same stats of pretty much all occupations these days ?? Why would your married life be so hard to sustain with the ATC field? I really hate to hear that since I just got married last month and I am heading to zau . Unless I transfer to Hawaii with my current job sooner because I'm tired of waiting... And so is my wife.

sick Newcomer

thankyou so much for the insight, i love this place

aprolla23......could you please for the love of god show me where you are getting cti certified in NC? this is my passion, but its so hard to reach in NC with no cti school.

Rosstafari Daaaang. /X

I wonder out of all the people who do the whole, "Oh, I hear that's very stressful. High rate of suicide/alcoholism/necrophilia/jetski ownership" thing have ever A. Known a controller or B. Read any legitimate report on actual stress levels for controllers.

I think it's just the public perception, however right or wrong it may be.

RdRunnr12 Site Editor

Or C.) Watched Pushing Tin and assumed it was Non-Fiction.

Roddy_Piper Resident Knucklehead Vegas baby

marriage is hard in all occupations.

what makes ATC different is the hours. for example, i have W/Th off. the 2 non-school nights i'm at work on a night shift, so i miss out on family time with the kids. my 2 days off, the kids are at school all day. it's just the hours that makes it hard to spend as much time as you would like with your family.