Originally Posted by
DryClutch
Yea this. I guess im still relatively new to the ins and outs of all the potential ways to flex ones schedule here, but with a spouse who works in the emergency room in ATL and two school age kids, I don't know how these guys can do all the continual sliding/moving/cascading/rearranging of their schedules and still have a life to plan around. Sooo, anybody here with a spouse in the medical field, with two kids, who lives in base, lemme know what your secrets are!!......
It takes flexibility at home to be able to do even some of the easier reserve schedule manipulation. If the worst possible outcome of an X day move leaves you high and dry on child care and makes your family miserable then don’t do that X day move. I am routinely able to bury myself 8-10 deep on the 4 day list for a few days at a time this month, but there are events that I’m just not willing to roll the bones on. Those are the days they’ll staff the whole system by slapping deadheads on all the trips and sending them to your list or there’s a snow storm and 11 people get put on short call.
So if you can chew a few days away from the end of the month to have a nice break or pick up a GS, great, but after getting the hang of the system on a well staffed NB category, I’ve concluded that gaming the game when able is good, but doing it for it’s own sake or for low payoff schedule improvement just isn’t worth it.