There are some issues with what he says. 13 days off. Before open time. Lives in base.

In other words, if you live in base, want to work your butt off to less than 13 days off, have no life (unmarried, no kids) other than work, and no need to worry about commuting, life is good.

OTOH, if you weren't willing to uproot your family from one of the 5 closed bases, get trips that you can't commute from (April scheds across the board in ORD all have a non-commutable sequences, some lines have all sequences with a non-commutable start or finish) you lose those 13-14 days off to commuting on your day off. Get a line full of those trips and maybe you get 8-10 days free of work related activity.

Vastly different perspectives due to personal circumstance and tolerance to working all the time.

JMO, live in base if you consider going to ENY. Otherwise the current schedule environment is punishing.