FlightOfTheShortGuy

Anyone on the fence about this career and want to hear from someone who saw OPs post back in 2019 and is now a controller? Well that’s who I am. I had a degree in something completely unrelated and it was looking like I wasn’t gonna land a career in that field. Then I see OPs post, applied and made it through all pre-employment screenings and testing, and then made it through the academy training and now I’m an ATC at an airport.

I love this job. The actual work is great, the work environment with coworkers is fun, and I get a lot of breaks. With how many breaks you get, you end up getting paid 6 figures for really only 25ish hours of work. The other 15 (in a 40 hour work week) are on break. Just this past work week alone I watched 2 different movies on my breaks and a Bunch of TV shows. But also note that every facility is different depending on staffing.

The retirement is great and I have realized that I will likely retire a solid 10+ years before my friends.

I would say most my coworkers are not stressed at all in their day to day lives and have a lot of other endeavors in their time away from work.

If you’re on the fence please apply! You literally have nothing to lose.

There’s a standardized test called the ATSA that has several different exercises that test memorization skills as well as testing the ability to prioritize tasks and due multiple objectives at once. From there if you score well you go to the academy and most of the testing is done with the simulators where you work airplanes. Basically the FAA is testing your ability to be trained and see if you can work the job. The number one reason for people failing the academy is nerves getting the best of them. But part of the job is managing those nerves.

Yes that happens on occasion but most controllers just move on to the next task once the pilot finally does what you say.

Most controllers at my facility are really friendly with pilots and the pilots are friendly back.

What’s your favorite video game of all time?

Thank you for your response! I’m gram-positively sure that sure that it made my day!