The Letter

There was e-mail today from Bilby Flights, the company I interviewed with last. I always tell them e-mail is the best way to contact me, so the medium itself says nothing. And it has an attachment. Is an e-mail with an attachment the electronic equivelent of the "fat letter"? My heart flutters. I want to fly jets. But I don't want to quit my wonderful job!

I open the e-mail. It's a one line message directing me to "Please see the attached letter." The attachment is a word document.

I'm pretty sure that's going to be a "no." The e-mail is from the interviewer himself, and I would have written "please see the attached offer of employment" or something more encouraging, if I were sending a yes e-mail.

I direct Word to open the attachment. This being a computer running Windows, that process gives me a further moment for suspense. I kind of want it to be a no. It's very normal to leave an employer, and may pilots in my position would have done the PPC even having another job offer in hand, so I shouldn't feel bad if I give notice right after doing my PPC. But I really do like my job. Hurry up Word, open the document already.

It opens. It's a no. It's a standard FOAD copied out of the standard manual on rejection letters by someone in the personnel department, for Steve to send to his rejects. But it still feels personal, because Steve was nice. And not personal in the bad "hey don't take it personally" way. It feels as if someone actually took the time to thank me for my interest. Yeah, and sometimes my horoscope feels personal, too.

I e-mailed back, thanking him and regretting. The thanking is very sincere, but deep down I'm not really regretting. But of course even rejection from something you didn't have your heart set on is still rejection. At least I decided beforehand and I know I'm not just saying "Well I never wanted to go out with you anyway!"

Meanwhile the US economy tanks, putting their pilots out of work. This erases the possibility of NAFTA opening up the border to pilots, siphoning away Canadians and leaving some Canadian airline spots open to me. Not going to happen. Borders snap shut in hard times. I'm wondering if I shouldn't just forget about an airline career. It's not happening, so don't try to force it? I was going to say that I was over it, anyway, but a blog post about how over the airlines I am is about the career equivalent of a 2 am phone call to your ex to tell them how over them you are. It reminds me of the Bob Segar song "Like a Rock." The only point in declaring how emotionally sturdy you are is to try and talk yourself out of bursting into tears.

But no tears for me. For now, I'm a commercial pilot with a good job, good health, and a safe place to live. Life is good. I don't mind not knowing what tomorrow will bring.