If it is that bad, either be senior and get a good schedule from the outset, then fly greenslips on your days off as you see fit (if at all). Or...bid reserve and fly greenslips on your X days. Payback days change the narrative dramatically. If you have lots of flexibility with days off/on, then "Rolling Thunder" might be a thing--but manning has to be such that you *know* that you will get multiple greenslips, not *hope* that you might get one, if any. But we might be at that point in some categories right now, much less this summer.

One thing I want to emphasize is that there are lots of tools available to us to improve our monthly schedules. Some of these tools may only be used occasionally (IVDs) and some quite often (Swap Board, swap with the pot). Some guys just get a schedule, look at their trips and the reserve numbers and immediately proclaim "woe is me and the world." Yes at some point you are going to have to eat some crap, but that doesn't mean that your original PBS schedule is your destiny. Lots of opportunities to make things better--even if there is a finite limit to that.