I don't know if you have pets or a wife or a family. I have a boyfriend and a dog. I never want to leave this place, where I live, the Bay Area. Northern California. Doesn't do well for a pilot.
Pets, wife, and family, but I'm on a 100 day contract presently. No days off, no duty or time limits. Wrench turning when not flying, and busy. And...just found a whopping spider covered in little tiny spiders in the hangar area...right where I was sleeping for three weeks. Never a dull moment (or spider).
There are jobs in Northern California, just as everywhere else.
I have a soon to be wife (in one week), 2 dogs, a house in the bay area and there are plenty of aviation jobs in the bay area.
Congratulations on the impending marriage. From your posts, it appears that you're former military, and quite possibly in your first civil job. You probably haven't experienced multiple job losses, moves and changes yet (TDY in the military doesn't count). You probably will if you make it an extended career.
I know pilots who have been out of work for a long time (over a year), and have a hard time finding work. "Plenty of jobs" may be a rather rosy outlook, even in the good times.
Not to mention there is a large percentage of aviation jobs that you can easily commute to from anywhere.
Airline and some fractional jobs, yes, but most other jobs, no. Commuting is great is someone is paying for your ticket or if you have jumpseat privileges...otherwise it gets expensive very quickly.
As opposed to oil rig work or high wire electrical maintenance, pilot is considered "neat-o" when juxtaposed to the seeming drudgery of office work, be it IT or engineering et al ad nauseam (though I consider the purgatory of commuting or reserve schedules a bigger misery than sitting at a CATIA scope all day...). As such, aviation junkies run the going asking price. They like to utilize the euphemisms "gotta do it for the love" or "pay your dues", but in essence such is the asking price of a religion, not a job....and a religion certainly falls within the spectrum of an avocation in terms of the relationship between commitment and financial solvency. I don't think jobs should have religion attached to them as asking prices.
Aviation isn't religion. It's a job. It's a profession. It's an industry.
As aviation professionals, it's somewhat demeaning to be classed as "aviation junkies." Simply because we enjoy what we do for a living doesn't diminish our professional nature.
Most certainly one must "pay one's dues" when trying to gain the experience to marketable, every bit as much as one must intern in the medical profession.
Aviation doesn't have religion attached to it, nor an "asking price." Aviation does live on a razor-thin profit margin, and it's tenuous at best. It always has been.
No matter how you spin it, lack of lateral income portability is one of the more fundamental shortcomings of the pilot profession. It is derived out of the seniority system and the fact most people attracted to the idea of working in a moving cubicle with a view attempt to pursue a flying job with a sense of avocation, which while seemingly admirable, turns quite toxic and counter-productive when it comes time to juggle that pesky Maslow Hierarchy of Needs Pyramid.
Maslow wasn't an aviator.
The "seniority system" applies to airline pilots, and certainly not to much of the aviation industry. There is still much of the industry in which one is hired because one is the best one for the job, seniority not withstanding.
I don't work in a moving cubicle with a view. Today I got slammed around the sky, dealt with turbulence and windshear, had a cockpit full of smoke, flew between pine trees and rocks, hit one of the biggest bugs I've ever encountered in flight, landed at some unique airports, and caught a really interesting spider.
I bed Maslow never caught any spiders.
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