Question About Bonds

[Old fella]

To those complaining about bonds, honouring contracts, the companies that require them, and how horrible every employer is: -- one thought:

(I'm not talking about the unsafe operators. Do your homework -- no one forces anyone to accept work in the first place with such (minority of) employers).

Start - your - own - company! --- and see how easy it is on the other side.

No, won't do it?


Sorry, but the sheer entitlement attitude out there -- in every industry I might add -- is troubling for the remnant of free enterprise society left.

Back to the NFL game....

Jetsgo anybody.................

[complexintentions]

I just thought of another scenario to turn this issue on its head and take it away from the divisive aviation/bond context.

Say you're renovating your house and come across a box with $10,000 in it which isn't yours. It could have been the previous owners or the owners before that; there's no way to tell. (Yes, there's dates on the money but for this case say the house was bought and sold several times over a short period of time so it could be any one of the several recent owners' money).

Do you contact the previous owners who might then take it as theirs even though it might have been someone else's, or do you look at it as a lucky windfall and keep quiet, hoping the previous owner(s) don't come calling one day asking about a box of money?

Oh, you just thought of the exact scenario as in the novel "Capital" by John Lanchester? As noted this example has zero parallel to the one in question.

To these people saying "honour your effing contract, pay your bills", etc...did the contract stipulate that it was the responsibility of the bonded to provide the administration of said bond? I doubt it.

Set the money aside, move on. If one day the issue arises again, deal with it: pay it if still legally bound, don't if not. The legal time provisions for a company to collect on a bond are more than generous.

If a company isn't going to be professional enough to have some clear, timely communication, they get what they deserve.

[Old fella]

My motto from years back and combined experiences. Complex nailed it well.


http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=loo ... ORM=VDFSRV

[Meatservo]

"Looking out for number one" also includes protecting your honour, which includes going through with agreements you signed even when they don't work out perfectly for you.

However, I do not give money away until I receive a bill or an invoice. I too agree with those who advocate putting the money aside, or at least to start saving it up. You will be gambling that they don't send you the bill, but you are gambling with house money. Worst case scenario: you will be compelled to live up to your obligations. Best case: the debt will be forgotten about and you will have some money saved, that will be all the sweeter if you aren't counting on it for anything. But it's not yours and you don't deserve it. You may however get to keep it anyway. Those are good odds, and not too dishonourable. But planning on keeping it right from the start: that's dishonourable.

[crazyaviator]

So a roofer comes to your house and you enter into a contract with his company to shingle your roof. He does his job to your satisfaction and he presents an invoice. Two years go by and you have not received a call from his secretary or him,,,,,,, do you 1) keep quiet, (Like the entitlement idiots are doing here on avcanada) 2) Send the asked for $$$ in the mail 3) call him or his secretary up and hope he/she has either forgotten or has forgiven you of your debts?

Complex--- Give your head a shake !!!

An agreement is an agreement its not rocket science You agree to stay X amount of time and the company agrees to train you on their aircraft. If the company doesnt train you ,,, you get your $$$ back. If the Pilot jumps ship for greener pastures, the pilot is to pay ( prorated or in full ) the amount in the agreement.

[goingnowherefast]

So a roofer comes to your house and you enter into a contract with his company to shingle your roof. He does his job to your satisfaction and he presents an invoice. Two years go by and you have not received a call from his secretary or him,,,,,,, do you 1) keep quiet, (Like the entitlement idiots are doing here on avcanada) 2) Send the asked for $$$ in the mail 3) call him or his secretary up and hope he/she has either forgotten or has forgiven you of your debts?

What if they didn't ask for it?

With your medical, do you wait for the bill? Or just send the $55 the same day the doctor stamps the booklet?
If I were in the described situation, I'd be happy to pay the bill. I would just need to see the the bill first!

Put the money in a savings account, leave it there until the company doesn't exist anymore. If they collect, then great. If they don't, use it towards retirement.

[Old fella]

Are new hires at Jazz, WJ encore, Porter, AC Express required to sign bonds as a prerequisite for employment. How about charter airlines like AT, Sunwing etc. Ditto Northern ops CDN North, First Air, I would assume bonds are in place for small time ops like Keystone and the like.

[complexintentions]

So a roofer comes to your house and you enter into a contract with his company to shingle your roof. He does his job to your satisfaction and he presents an invoice. Two years go by and you have not received a call from his secretary or him,,,,,,, do you 1) keep quiet, (Like the entitlement idiots are doing here on avcanada) 2) Send the asked for $$$ in the mail 3) call him or his secretary up and hope he/she has either forgotten or has forgiven you of your debts?

Complex--- Give your head a shake !!!

An agreement is an agreement its not rocket science You agree to stay X amount of time and the company agrees to train you on their aircraft. If the company doesnt train you ,,, you get your $$$ back. If the Pilot jumps ship for greener pastures, the pilot is to pay ( prorated or in full ) the amount in the agreement.

Again, an incorrect parallel. According to the poster, the whole point is the company in question has not "presented an invoice" for the training bond. I'm not advocating "waiting and hoping the company will forget". I'm saying the onus is NOT on a customer to harangue a business into billing them. The company needs to get it's sh$t together. Sorry, but as a departing employee that's not my problem. I'd earmark the funds and pay in full promptly if they send the bill. But in the meantime I've got other things to worry about rather than my previous company's accounting ineptitude. That's just how I see it. You do your job, I'll do mine. I'm not doing yours for you.

I have always honoured every contract and agreement I have entered into - whether they were formal legal contracts or handshake deals. But those agreements presumed a basic level of professionalism and responsibility on both sides. There is a limit to which I will chase a company to get them to take my money. This is not "entitlement", it's called common sense.

Meatservo expressed it well.

Incidentally, the one way your example anecdote does resemble the Canadian aviation industry is that the roofer has probably not billed you because it's some dodgy fly-by-night operation that's long since gone out of business. In that regard, the analogy fits.

[crazyaviator]

I have always honoured every contract and agreement I have entered into - whether they were formal legal contracts or handshake deals.

Then why are you advocating to them not to honour their contract or agreement. Sounds hypocritical !

[crazyaviator]

The replies on here remind me of the COMMON saying " If I get my ass down safely, my passengers will also survive" What kind of a selfish, unloving, uncaring twit would say that ? Ah yes, I forgot,,,MOST pilots!! Same ones who would try to WEASEL out of a bond when the other party lived up to their expectation and you didn't !!! IF you were so desperate to sign/agree to a bond, are you likely as selfish and unprincipled to weasel away from it ???

[crazyaviator]

If you steal from your neighbour and the neighbour doesn't come to you to demand the stolen items back, do the items then become your possession eternally? When you enter an agreement (bond) and the other party gives you the goods ( like a toy from canadian tire) and you walk out the door without paying ,,,that is called THEFT !

[crazyaviator]

And, they don't want to contact the company because if they honestly did fall through the cracks, they don't want to remind the company that there are outstanding bonds that can be collected.

The REASON WHY bonds were instituted was because assholes like your buddies, in the past, jumped ship shortly after being given free training..... Now your buddies agreed to a bond and have shown that they are not integral and are the very reason bonds were instituted!!!
Instead of a lawyer's advice, I would suggest the advice of a SHRINK to get their heads screwed back on the right way !!!

[mmm..bacon]

The replies on here remind me of the COMMON saying " If I get my ass down safely, my passengers will also survive" What kind of a selfish, unloving, uncaring twit would say that ? Ah yes, I forgot,,,MOST pilots!!

??How is that selfish, unloving, uncaring?? You've said this same thing a coupla times in other threds, and I don't get where your coming from?

[complexintentions]

crazyaviator,

I suppose it fits the name, but perhaps check your meds...we can practically hear you screaming at the keyboard even without the caps lock.

It doesn't matter how many inapplicable analogies you offer - it's still incumbent on the company payroll people to Do Their Damn Job and serve the remaining bond amount to the departing employee. If you find yourself in this scenario and want to spend your time chasing your former employer to give them money that they've shown no interest in collecting, feel free. Moi, not so much.

Out.

[photofly]

If you find yourself in this scenario and want to spend your time chasing your former employer to give them money that they've shown no interest in collecting, feel free. Moi, not so much.

For as long as you're a rich dude and can drop a $20k cheque any day you like there's no point in "chasing" your former employee. Pay whenever they ask and until then forget it.

But the OP has this apparently insurmountable problem of a pot of someone else's money sitting in his bank that he wants to spend on himself.

[iflyroads]

In the past pilots skipping out on hand shake agreements have cause some employers to create training bonds.

Now pilots skipping out on paying their bonds have also cause some employers to ask for money upfront.

Honour your agreement, pay your bills.

[mbav8r]

If you leave a job and they owe you money, they tell you it will be mailed to your home. After a while you realize they haven't sent you anything. Do you call them and ask for the money or wait and hope they live up to their word that they will send it? Who's fault is it that the debt is still outstanding?
Let's be clear about something, we're not talking about a product that they received, we're talking about a business expense that should be borne by the company but they've decided to put the onus on the employee. Did the company write off the training as a business expense, can your friends write it off on their income tax if they do pay it?
They have it in writing(email stating they will send an invoice), the onus is NOT on these pilots and in my opinion, the two year clock started with the email saying they will be in touch with the amount owing. If they do eventually send an invoice, pay it and call the CRA and let them know, maybe an audit will reveal some shady accounting has been going on.
Also, spend the money and worry about it later:)-

[crazyaviator]

??How is that selfish, unloving, uncaring?? You've said this same thing a coupla times in other threds, and I don't get where your coming from?

Its ALL about ME ME ME,,, Ever heard the term self loading freight? If you have never had a child or wife and never put their best interests and safety ahead of yourself,, then you will never understand !

[Meatservo]

??How is that selfish, unloving, uncaring?? You've said this same thing a coupla times in other threds, and I don't get where your coming from?

Its ALL about ME ME ME,,, Ever heard the term self loading freight? If you have never had a child or wife and never put their best interests and safety ahead of yourself,, then you will never understand !

It's necessary to have reproduced or at least mated before you can understand selfless or honourable behaviour? Give me a break. You breeders think you're in touch with some spiritual truth that is outside the grasp of anyone who hasn't reproduced. Just because it was necessary for you to have bred before you arrived at your current philosophical state doesn't mean that's true for everyone else. In fact some people are able to understand honour, loyalty and selflessness without having it instinctively mandated through fulfillment of their biological imperative.

[crazyaviator]

In fact some people are able to understand honour, loyalty and selflessness

JUST NOT those on avcanada

I was 48 years without a wife or child,,, I can speak about selfishness!

The average pilot, despite the sometimes swaggering exterior, is very much capable of such feelings as love, affection, intimacy and caring. These feelings just don't involve anyone else.

On average, I have found more IDIOTS and ASSholes in the cockpit than anywhere else on the airport or airplane !

[crazyaviator]

But it's not yours and you don't deserve it. You may however get to keep it anyway. Those are good odds, and not too dishonourable.

In fact some people are able to understand honour, loyalty and selflessness

WHAT A HYPOCRITE!-- Some people just no YOU !

[mmm..bacon]

??How is that selfish, unloving, uncaring?? You've said this same thing a coupla times in other threds, and I don't get where your coming from?

Its ALL about ME ME ME,,, Ever heard the term self loading freight? If you have never had a child or wife and never put their best interests and safety ahead of yourself,, then you will never understand !

I'm sure that, in the moment, Sullenberger, Haynes, Burkill, and dozens of others were more concerned with getting their own asses on the ground safely, knowing that that was the best chance that their passengers had. Once they were on the ground safely, then it was time to worry about everyone else..

What do my wife or kids have to do with it? In actual fact, if I were to put their interests ahead of mine, that bumps my passengers down to #3 on the list of priorities in an emergency.

It's an interesting thought experiment, though - would you, by a conscious decision, save 100% of your passengers, but by doing so, widow your wife, and orphan your kids? Would you accept a passenger broken wrist/arm/leg/neck/fatality in return for your own safety?

[Meatservo]

Crazyaviator, I can only assume you're actually an "aviator", but you sure are doing a good job at "crazy". I've actually noticed the opposite: most pilots I know are decent and intelligent people. I would have trouble finding a higher class of human being than some if not all of the pilots I work with. I wish you had been able to have my experience. But then, you've got your kids. That's something, I guess.

[Rookie50]

we're talking about a business expense that should be borne by the company but they've decided to put the onus on the employee. -

That's why bonds exist. So the company can garner a return from the training dollars invested. Its unfair to believe its fine for a company to drop 20K or whatever, for the employee then to simply jump when convenient to them. Its not like another job where training is an inconsequential expense.

JMO --

[mbav8r]

Rookie50,
Your opinion is in line with the thinking of shoddy operators who refuse to admit they are the problem!
There will always be pilots who will move on regardless, if they see an opportunity. Aviation being cyclical, there is a mentality of "grabbing the seat you want for the inevitable down turn", so why not be that company. Training is not unique to certain companies, it applies to all, therefore a level field so to speak.
I have had the opportunity to be management and at one of those companies, we were losing pilots on a constant basis to the point the owner wanted to implement a bond. The problem was partly location but mostly a salary issue. I talked him into upping the salary to more than the competition, that with some other changes like less owner interference and better schedule, guess what we stopped losing pilots and had a better pool of applications to choose from when we did. No one left with less than two years service and no bond required.
A bond is a companies way of not fixing the problem, just force pilots to stay in a indebted servitude situation.