A few years ago we had FOs sitting reserve for 3 or more years with occasional furloughs between reserve months. We currently have 16+ year captains sitting reserve in MDT. It perturbs me that folks don't know how good they have it right now. On that note, nobody should have to sit reserve for long here in the upcoming future, we're hurting and badly for FOs. Things are so fluid at this and every airline that a base that is junior could suddenly jam up and the junior guys get to be reserve guys for a while, especially if you have luck like doug_or. Of course he lived in the basement too, of all the bad luck. Regarding HR telling you that you bid every month... they either meant you bid every month for a schedule, or they meant that you can change your base bid every month. You can change your base bid (permanent bid) every other minute if you choose, but you can only change bases when they publish and award a base bid by either vacancies or realignments. Look for a lot of those coming soon as we bleed pilots.