Well there is some buffoonery---Flight Operations.

IAH 787 FO has been overmanned since Bid 14-02D which was a Flight Ops creation. Bid 14-02D pilots bid into there after SLI. There should have been a displacement then. Manning decided to first get the IAH 737 manning correct, was met with a flood of Flight Ops tears and backtracked. Manning being gunshy after that episode elected to let IAH 787 FO stay bloated after IAH 737 CA's bumped to the fleet. It got so bad at one point the FO to CA ratio was 4.0. With manning so out of whack instead of bumping 787 FO's some inefficient flying was manufactured for the IAH 787 to have a 787 CA bid to lower the FO to CA ratio.

So the company has been paying a couple dozen pilots 200K/year for two and a half years to sit at home rather than nipping the problem in the bud in the first place.

Rest easy though IAH 787 FO's on reserve. You can continue your extracurricular activities (well one can't), Flight Operations is too whimpy to try to bump you.

Dogg