Examiner Shortage? Bah humbug!

I'm sure I'm going to get hate mail over this but hear me out.

Some flight schools, CFI and students are hard to deal with. Applicants aren't qualified. Aircraft that aren't legal or in poor maintenance condition. Missing paperwork. Frequent cancelations, delays and/or No shows. Instructors that don't care and students that consistently perform poorly. Why should an examiner put up with this? A lot of DPEs simply won't return phone calls, texts or emails from people they don't regularly work with because of this.

Now we all know that all examiners talk with each other. They share experiences. Like Santa, they know who's been naughty and who's been nice. Why not enjoy a nice checkride experience at a good school and not deal with the dumpster fire at the other?  I like to watch a good dumpster fire every now and then but then I'd rather sip my tea from a safe distance and not get involved.

I travel for some of my rides.  I've quickly discovered there's a reason why some schools are adding perks and cash incentives to do rides at their location, the local examiners simply don't want to deal with them. This hasn't been just my experience. One examiner friend had a dozen rides he couldn't do in one month due to the stuff listed above. Another examiner friend traveled 300 miles to do 8 rides over 4 days at one school. Only 3 were accomplished for a variety of reasons (non weather related). These schools are very vocal about there being an examiner shortage. They complain to everyone. Kind of like a 2 year old throwing a fit.  "Call the FSDO", "Contact your Senator" you see the post on a variety of social media. In reality, they'd get more help if they got their act together and provided a trouble free checkride experience for the examiner.