Why?

When the eventual time for an interview comes, one of the questions that will come up will be "Why do you want to be an air traffic controller?"

Those of you that read this...(nobody...heh)...probably have wondered the same thing. So here goes:

When I was younger, I always loved, when flying, listening in on the air-to-ground communications. I never knew what the jargon meant, but I found it fascinating. I always thought that whatever it was would be kind of neat to do as a job. The whole suit and tie, 9-5 job really isn't for me; hence the previous job as a photographer for the news. Something most people don't think about, and the behind the scenes unsung hero of day to day life. Without a photog photoging you wouldn't have the news. Without the ATC talking to those pilots, you'd have a lot of planes crashing into one another.

It's something where not everyday is the same. You always have to be constantly thinking in a variety of spatial directions. Vertical distance between planes....horizontal distance between planes....speed up....slow down....ascend....descend....turn left.....turn right. Just frantic, nonstop work.

Sure it's stressful, but that's not really a problem for me. It's something technical, constantly changing, and something that most of all makes me want to go to work everyday, and come home being proud of what I do.

So something to that effect is what I'd say come interview time. I suppose it was kind of a fall-back, but hey who gives a fuck right? Plus the fact that it pays extremely well and mandatory early retirement + good pension is a bonus. Well and that it's a very steady job in an unsteady job market and economy.