I hate to say it, but, Where is LK when you need him?

 

I can't believe you said that even in jest!!!

 

Who you gonna call? Ghostbusters.

 

Asking, "What's in it for me?" and not liking the answer...

 

I guess I am confused. What is wrong with dropping the trips you have? Have you ever dropped your entire line for the chance for something better? Willing to risk a $0 paycheck. I have. I got a wonderful vto last jan and got nothing I asked for but a guy 40 vto's junior got exactly what I asked for. So, I dropped my entire month and did the 0700 sick call uncle pervy stare at open time every day. A 12 day trip dropped and I was fortunate to get it. It was something way out of my seniority. Gotta be able to risk it to get it, I guess. I have flown with J.S. Curious how many times a day you check open time? I bet he has over 200 a day. Not for everyone, but if he wants to, who cares. If his line is clean, there aren't mixed banks, trip conflicts and trade submissions that require 10 trips typed in. A single m/u request of one trip takes about 5 secs.

I do agree that the system is broken. There are some that are doing some things that are questionable. Management has spoken to what I call the fab 5 and a number of others and no discipline was passed out. Under our current regime, I find it hard to believe they would pass up a chance to thump anyone that they thought was dirty.

I suggest trying his method for a month. Drop all your trips right out of the chute and spend every waking moment on PFC. IF you don't want to, cool, but don't give him grief for it, unless there is some other way which he is getting the trips(i.e. insider info, bot program, or getting the scheduler to process the trades out of order). With him, I don't believe to be the case. I do know that this is being very closely looked at still and if one is willing to risk their future on it, roll the bones!

 

Does the most senior guy get to pick through the catering and pick out the best the best flavored yogurt too? What about the room on the highest floor of the hotel? Like it or not, there are limits to what seniority gets you and for the most part it's spelled out in the contract. Your seniority allows you to bid before the guy/gal right behind you. It does not guarantee you will fly a better schedule.

What we are talking about (recycled OTP) is not spelled out so perhaps it needs to be addressed by US as a union, not as lone wolves attacking fellow crewmembers. Didn't someone get fired for that last year? The company does not care as long as the trips are getting flown, so it will be us that fixes any glitches.

That said, if a guy wants to stay attached to his IPhone/PDA/Laptop/etc. hours at a time, eating coffee beans to work his/her schedule then more power to him/her. With the exception of OTP recycling, which someone most likely got a bad deal to even get OTP, we should not be *****ing about something a fellow union member is doing, that you could be doing also, but are too lazy or not willing to work for.

 

So Pakagechek, based on your experience, what do you think the odds are of dropping your entire line and scoring month after month after month of nothing but good deal trips that add up to more than your original BLG? And after scoring your honestly gained 12 day trip, did you feel compelled to block your calendar?
Keep in mind, many of the people reading this thread have more than a decade of experience trying to work within the rules of our trip trading and open time system. A bunch of type A, moderately intelligent guys who really like to avoid pain and pursue good deals on the job. And out of more than 4000 of those kind of guys, a single digit few have figured out how to work within the rules to build consistently awesome months full of nothing but charters. That's really what you want me to believe?
I don't believe it.

 

If there was nothing to hide, then why block your schedule. There is no way month after month the same people can get all the charters. Get a charter, be dropped, then get another one. Come on! Charters are frozen for couple of hours to a whole day. Then when the chosen ones are available, they are released. Or is it that you are all lucky, every month.

 

When I click on someone's schedule that I'm flying with and it comes up blocked, I instantly think "Oh crap". More than likely I'm flying with a non-member, buddy-f'er or strange ranger. It's one of those things that makes the hair on the back of your neck rise. I do not give them the benefit of the doubt.

 

Paycheck I drop my entire schedule every month. I hawk open time in a fair manner. Sometimes I get good deals sometimes I don’t. I have been beat by JS numerous times. I have no clue how. I can watch a trip unfreeze and I put it in and it’s already assigned like 3 seconds after it’s unfrozen. I’ve had it unfreeze I put it in then an error will occur then it freezes back up. The arrogance that JS and others display is a character trait of a scum bag, so I do not give him or others like him the benefit of doubt. Additionally, I personally know numerous other crew members that I’m in contact with throughout the month that do the exact thing I do. They too get beat by JS and the same handful of others. I’m fairly young, know how to use a computer, I workout, have good eyesight, and I know my reflexes and fast twitch muscles should win a few of these draws but they don’t.