Well, the last thing I ever want to do is agree with TSquare, BUT....

A buddy of mine's dad was a DAL guy and he took the early retirement.

He was on the 777, doing just a couple of trips a month. After he retired, he told me he liked it so much he'd go back and do the job for free. In the end, it was the fear of losing the pension that made him take the early out.

There a definately those types out there. Maybe if we started chapters of OFAPA, we could get them to see that there is life after the airlines, and 12 short steps could get them to recovery.

Nu

 

Thanks for your help. Yours too ACL. I wasn't looking at it as an extra block of days off originally, but March 1 doesn't count due to previous bid period. I understand it now. It still sucks though.

 

Thanks for sharing! I know a guy that lives near me that took the early out also and he said with the way things stood had he stayed he'd basically be breaking even and there wasnt any chance he'd work for free so he bailed. He seems to be enjoying himself alot now! Again congrats on retirement

 

Yep, those pesky mas blocks of days normally nail ppl. It is there in an attempt to make sure there are no reserve pilots that put on three off one, on two off two, etc. In effect it makes the reserve pilot more useful.

Bitten me more than a few times.

 

My father took an early retirement from his profession. We all figured he would be back consulting with a team of industry leaders in six months. Nope, a year and a half later, he likes the schedule he has created.

1) Out of bed before noon

2) Shower before dark.

3) Read the paper sometime during the day before it is used in the fire.


It is amazing how some love the slower pace and others cannot deal with it.

 

I haven't been on reserve for a while, but I do remember wanting to punch my fist through the screen everytime I heard the little "rrrrringggg" that announced my attempt was foiled again. Sometimes you couldn't shift a block of four days off one day earlier, but it would let you take the last day, and move it just before the first day. Sometimes, the reverse was true. Sometimes you wanted to, say, move your first two blocks of days off a little earlier in the month. You would try to ask for both blocks to be moved simultaneously, but "rrrrrinngggg", you couldn't. So you had to move the second block of days off first, so as not to have seven days on in a row, and THEN you could move the first block back.

Here is my suggestion: think in steps. I think the program is poorly designed, and as a result it often prevents you from making a perfectly legal schedule. But if you list four or five choices that get you close, then you can move things around for the next PCS run. I had great luck with the system, but only when I thought in steps. It's pretty easy. All you have to do is live on the computer, trying for four or five hours to force choices into the computer that it could recognize, then bite your nails through the PCS run. You'd get your fourth choice, and a single day would move. And you'd plot your strategy again.

Rinse, lather, repeat.

By the 29th of the preceding month, I usually had my perfect schedule. I had, of course, become a sunlight-averse, vitamin defficient wreck. My skin was pale, my gums bled, and I trembled violently as I tried in vain to drag my myself up the stairs for a shower and a meal. But, hey, I lost 75 pounds that way once! True, there was a little marital tension, but my sixth wife finally installed a computer in the basement, near the furnace, and she would kindly send the pool-boy to uncuff me and give me leftovers once in a while.

Oh, I miss reserve so!

 

Anyone been to Tonopah know what the ground terrain is like, ie sand, rocky dirt, or what? It's for a fellow modeler's diorama.

 

I've done a lot of modeling. I have my recent underwear photo shoot if you want to see it. I can post pictures. But not sure what a diorama is or Tonopah.

 

For the record, taking mil leave over a holiday is not abuse. If Uncle Sugar needs you, he needs you. The calendar day is irrelevant.

 

Girls of Auburn, mother and daughter edition!