Originally Posted by
iLikeMoose
Newbie question: I hear a lot of people talk up the first PCS run, but what is the significance of it? There really isn’t much open time or stuff on the swap board for my category (if I’m looking at it right) so it doesn’t seem like there’s much I could even try to do if I wanted to. I guess it may be different in other bases, or am I missing something important about this event?
Also, it's analogous to vacancy bids. Just because what you want on a vacancy bid is not published, doesn't mean you won't get it because it may open up on the bid run.
Assume someone senior to you drops that primo trip that is exactly what you want. If you have submitted a PU/SWAP for that specific rotation(not posted) you may get it. If you don't have the PU/SWAP slip in, there is no way you will get it. Additionally, you can put in a *4/15NOV if you will take any four day trip on 15 Nov. These are known as blind swap with the pot. Sometimes you can get some really cool trips that are "blind" . I once got a military charter to Sofia Bulgaria and the Middle East. 6 day trip with international DH front and back end. With a *6 blind swap/PU I got it. Scheduling may have dropped it into the pot 3 minutes prior to a PCS run hence nobody really even had time to see it. With the blind slip in, I got the slot machine to ring up three 7's. Of course, it could always give you a pile of "Crap, who knew they could build a trip that bad"
9 times out of 10(or more) I was extremely happy with my blind swaps/pick-ups.