Aviation Story #4 - Air traffic controllers

Air traffic controllers are the people most responsible for your safety in the air, excepting perhaps the pilot. They talk to the pilots and make sure that all the planes around an airport are safe and that no planes collide. It is a high-stress job, because you are literally holding lives in your hand and total concentration is required at all times. Air traffic controllers work fairly long hours and have variable schedules to accomdate the always-changing flight times.

But with all the stress comes a well-paying job, without many education requirements:

A quick personal anecdote about air traffic controllers:

My high-school calculus teacher was an air traffic controller back in the 80's. During that time, the controllers decided to strike in order to get shorter hours and better pay. Well, since it is illegal to strike against the government, which is exactly what they were doing, Reagan, in a very unexpected move, simply fired all of them. My professor was still bitter about that, and the easiest way to get him off-topic was to bring up the strike, Reagan, or conservatives in general - then goodbye teaching, and hello long, off-topic rant.

-Matt Muhlenkamp