Throughout history, work has been characterized as a central activity for human sociability and of course, for most, it was highly considered an essential part of life.
Therefore, for a lot of people, work culture has changed tremendously throughout the course of the worldwide pandemic. The jobs market is now flooded with people that have been made redundant and are looking for new jobs to settle in.
Roman Savin is a 23-year-old Russian airline pilot who currently lives in Lithuania, and unfortunately is no different from most of the people who were forced to look for another job.
Roman has shared two of his photos on a Russian social media platform called Pikabu, which made him go viral
Image credits: rmnsvn
One photo was taken in 2019, the other in 2020. Through them, Savin wanted to show and compare how his life changed before and after the start of the pandemic.
The first photo shows a very happy Roman posing in front of a mirror in an elevator, dressed in his pilot's uniform
Image credits: rmnsvn
While this photo shows him in another elevator, now with a completely different profession too
Image credits: rmnsvn
Of course, having seen the post, it was self-explanatory that the coronavirus pandemic made it impossible for him to work as a pilot, and that was the main cause of him having to change his job temporarily. But... well, not quite, as Roman explained to Bored Panda what was happening in his life.
"I’m a 23-year-old guy, and I worked as a pilot for the past 3 years. As you probably know, the pandemic has brought the aviation industry to historic minimums"
Image credits: rmnsvn
"Last year, I used to fly 90-100 hours a month during the high summer seasons and this year, I have a total of 140 hours for the whole year. I keep working as an airline pilot, as my company still has some flights, mostly charters, actually, and I average about 1 flight a month, meaning I have 30 more days to spare."
Becoming a pilot at only 20 years old seems bizarre to some people, but Roman has already proven that one can achieve his dreams at a very young age by putting a lot of work into it.
“To become a pilot, I had 2–3 years of training. Actually, that was all that’s required. I started at the age of 17, finished training when I was 19, and got my first job at the age of 20.”
Roman assured us that not all was bad, even if he was forced to temporarily work different jobs
Image credits: rmnsvn
"I started to work in the aviation spare parts shop as a sales agent (I work from home) and on weekends, I work as a food-delivery guy. Frankly, I quite like it.
After a week of work in front of your computer, you get to go around the city, see people, and listen to your favorite music while delivering food."
According to Roman, his decision to start working as a delivery driver was mainly because the job had no set schedule like your usual full-time job.
“Being a courier doesn’t bring you any obligations. You don’t sign a contract, you don’t have a schedule. If you have time, you grab your bag and go work. Did you get tired? You just go home and chill. That was the main part for me when it came to choosing it, it required no schedule, and given that I’m still flying from time to time, it was perfect as my schedule is very unpredictable these days.”
Image credits: rmnsvn
Even if Roman doesn’t work much as a pilot nowadays, he still finds himself missing some things that were taken out of his usual work routine.
“I miss some of the things, of course. If I had to name it, the most important one would probably be traveling. But there were other things too, such as living in the hotels, seeing the world, and having fun with my colleagues!”
We asked him what was his favorite thing about his job as a pilot.
“I’m passionate about flying, so my favorite part about my job is actually my job itself. Until we closed for quarantine, I used to fly frequently on the full flight simulators as an instructor for people coming for a joy ride, and on my free days, I was going to the airfield to fly a small airplane just for fun.”