599 Instructor Reviews

"In the meantime, the already overworked Instructors are required to pick up the now increased workload. If a new Instructor is hired they will require training. This training is provided by the current Instructors in the new-hires assigned department. This leads to what is known as the Double-Whammy-Effect (DWE) suffered by all the Instructors. DWE occurs because the client training workload is not reduced for any Instructors tasked to train the new-hire Instructor, it becomes an additional burden heaped upon their already increased workload. The DWE continues until the new Instructor is fully qualified which can take months to years. Lying management: Most managers are honest, however, I’ve intentionally been lied to by more than one manager on more than one occasion, every time with a smile on their face. I know of new-hires who were misinformed about the yearly work requirements and expected schedules during their interview. This seems to be an acceptable practice at FSI as I never saw those managers disciplined in any way. If anything, some were ultimately rewarded with promotions. Ineffective/incompetent management: Management seems to spend the majority of their time putting out fires due to their poor policy and management decisions. They are also not above pointing fingers and placing blame for their ineptness on subordinates. Some management candidates are selected because they are most like the in-place management. Like inbreeding, it’s not good for the gene pool. Not all the management team are ineffective and/or incompetent, but there are enough of them that life for the Instructor eventually becomes unbearable. Top heavy management: A classic example of too many chiefs and not enough indians. I’ve often thought FSI managements goal was not to effectively manage but rather to self-propagate and protect their existence at any cost and by any means. (Word count limit.)"

"Both the unqualified clients receiving less than wonderful scores and middle management at the company react negatively. If you receive any negative feedback from clients- and because they are largely unscreened you will, this equates to an automatically forwarded email to your superiors as your punishment. In such an environment there is no way to safely do your job with this constant reprisal as threat. But this is an obvious conflict of interest with the primary instructor duty to call it like they see it and train as necessary to insure flight standards are met, not just to do what pays more. If you’re under the threat of losing your job, are under the threat of company retribution for bad feedback, and under the threat of being fired you are “not” going to call it like you see it and you are "going" to pass any marginal pilot. By the actual Flight safety way is to bend standards to fit the money picture, risking the safety of everyone for what, to make the stock more attractive. It’s wrong. The problem isn’t feedback as a business tool, it’s the low quality of clients being accepted and the greedy emphasis on revenue stream. As for quality of life or lack thereof, and because of the over-emphasis on revenue, you tend to get burdensome, hastily-crafted work schedules that are drawn hours before being implemented. 6 day work-weeks are typical. 57 hours a week is a common workweek. Graveyard shifts for weeks at a time is common. Long work days are the norm. I was told the target for instructor-client contact for me, the metric used for maximizing revenue, was 113 hours per month, a full 40 hours over Flight safety’s own normal figure. When you tally what it takes in order to support this much client contact you arrive at a number of about 220 total work hours per month, or about 55 hours a week. They intend to overwork you. Good quality of life is an outright, deliberate falsehood used only to recruit more people."

"Class control yet class "path" uses the Official Cisco curriculum. The "certificate" has the academy students do A+, CCNA R & S, CCNA Security for the program. CCNP is coming soon!"

"I like the environment and the school, I love teaching, I love helping people gain new skills, I wish I had a full time job with benefits. It would also be nice if you could afford to live near the college, right now it is way too expensive."