You'd be on your own to get to ORD, or whatever base. Just gotta make the drive if you want to keep living there. But, at the end of your trip, you have the option to be flown someone else if it is cheaper than flying you to your base. A lot of people are asking for more bases (netjets has over 100 or something I think), but not sure if it is likely or which bases it would be.

QOL is ok. not awesome. Better than FLOPS (no offense), but probably not as good as netjets. Hard to say for anyone who has not worked at both. Improvements are slow to be enacted, but they do make changes. Pay could be better. We definitely have the most flexible schedule options.

EDIT: And let me clarify in case I didn't understand your question. Lets say you are based in ORD. 90% of the time the company will buy you an airline ticket from ORD to wherever the airplane is. So on your first day you drive over to ORD, park your car, get on the airline and go meet your plane. Fly around for a few days, then they buy you an airline ticket back to ORD. On some occasional, based purely on luck, there will be an airplane there in ORD (or MDW, UGN...) and you'll "pick up" the airplane in your base.

And I'm sure a 45 type will help, although then again they are hiring into the 300 so it might not have much of an impact.