Originally Posted by
sailingfun
Nobody is talking about guys on legit deployments or getting his job done at his unit. Others have discussed long term abuse but some often not even in a pay billet will strategically drop days on reserve or trips to enhance days off and greenslips. It was not uncommon in a category I was in where the shortest trip was 3 days to see a small minority bid reserve lines with 5 days on call and drop a mil day in the middle of every reserve block. Quite strangely however they were available on every single off day for greenslips.
that right there is bs. That is clear abuse and those guys get a talking to from CPs. It is tough to meet the trigger as a line holder and doing MLOA. Maybe not as a reserve.
A guy getting hired and taking long term MLOA in the first year is not. You ( the plural, not sailing) have no idea what the unit needed, whether or not it was school orders, etc. A guy that does 15 years AD, gets hired by DAL, finishes the first year then goes out on 5 years of orders isn’t abusing it either. Again, you don’t know the situation. However, if the individual is bragging about about skipping the crappy years, then he’s probably a d-bag.
in ‘08, Delta was begging guys to take MLOA. In ‘10, that all changed (in fact, that’s when they decided to start counting USERRA time). In ‘20, they were begging again. In ‘21, it changed again. Delta has used it to their advantage. Mil guys can use it to their advantage without abusing the system.
for the record, I’ve been here 12 years and I can count the amount of times I’ve dropped MLOA during a bid month on one hand. When actively flying for DAL, I bid PBS around my mil duty and family obligations. I do not prepost MLOA. Then I fly that schedule. Otherwise, I drop long term orders if the unit needs me. I did it while a junior NB commuter and while having decent seniority as a WB commuter.