First off people always say being a new hire is a horrible life. It's been great for me. I'm on reserve and live 10 minutes from the airport. I go running or swimming during the day and if the phone rings I go in. I tell the schedulers the days I'd like to have off and I've always gotten them. IE my family throws a big 4th of July party every year so I asked to have my days off moved around and sure enough I have the 4th-7th off.

All I ever had were people in training who had worked a little before and telling me things like "you say that now but wait till you get there I promise you you'll hate it and change your mind". They were full of crap about it all.

My company is Chautauqua which is part of the Republic Holdings Group. Money is kinda tight but not as bad as everyone makes it out to be. I did manage to cut my spending by just getting rid of my vehicle ect. Once I move back to my home area I'll just pick up one then. I still managed to put about $1200 in savings. I don't know if I'll be able to do that this next month or any of the followings so I advise that if you find yourself with a few bucks left over to go ahead and put them away. One rainy day it will be nice to fall back on

As far as days on/off go I'm 5 on with 2 off then every other week I have 3-4 days off. My reserve times are from 3am-3pm. I've never been called at 3am. usually the earliest is 4:30 for a 6am show. I'll go back to sleep for another 45min or so then get up and drive in. Not a bad deal really.