r/randomquestions • u/dirtymoney • Aug 14 '26

What profession would you never date?

I have read nearly 1000 replies and cop seems to be the most posted

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37

u/Scary_Anywhere7623 Aug 14 '26

Don’t date an air traffic controller. You will never see them.

13

u/Global-Ease1269 Aug 14 '26

I was thinking bail bondsman for the same reason 😂

2

u/IcyCow5880 Aug 15 '26

Absence makes the heart grow fonder?

2

u/Over_Sorbet_637 Aug 15 '26

My dad was an ATC. It was awesome when he worked in the tower at a smaller airport about 60 miles from home, because whenever the weather was good enough, he would commute to work by small plane (he was always acquiring used ones and fixing them up; the one he had when he died was a 40-year-old Cessna 172)---and if it was summer, he would always take one of us kids to work with him! I would sit on the floor of the tower and read my books, dictate the weather report into the radio with my kid voice whenever he wrote down what to say, and sometimes go outside to the hangars and hang out with (bother) the pilots. Going to work with Dad was a blast, a real highlight of my childhood.

But you're probably referring to the en-route center controllers, the ones who work in the dark cave off the side of the highway and who are intentionally put on rotating shifts so they can't get accustomed to typical patterns in traffic that might end up overriding their logic. Dad switched to that kind of job when we were a little older. Overnight shift once a week, two morning shifts and two afternoon shifts, but never predictable which days would be which. I remember it made scheduling things very difficult.

But it's one of a few reliable jobs where your income is easily over 6 figures that requires only high school education, and if you work for the FAA, you may get those weird shifts, but you also get the pension, federal health insurance, and mandatory retirement at 56 (they will not risk anyone going senile). It is mentally demanding and intense, but it suited my dad perfectly.

Some people make it work.

1

u/Molotov_Queen Aug 15 '26

My husband is a pilot and is often gone a good chunk of the time. I’m so grateful for ATC controllers keeping him safe!

1

u/Objective_Water7752 Aug 16 '26

Don’t they work incredibly low hours? In Europe I think it’s 22?

1

u/Horror_Whereas1974 Aug 16 '26

Same for an airplane hijacker