It was a recommendation to avoid drawing attention to employees in first class. Many mileage program customers buy coach tickets expecting to get an upgrade and they get angry seeing us in “their seat”. Unless deadheading to a flying leg, I’ve always boarded in uniform with the crew and then changed my shirt before passengers boarded. If you are an actual deadhead and not in uniform you just board in group 1.

Even the guy who was number sixty on the upgrade list expects it, the Smisek stink is still lingering.

It might be worth considering that Boarding ahead of paying pax is not a zero-sum maneuver. You’re taking bin space away and although this might seem trivial… Ironically it’s the reason I like to board early as well. So I can understand why this would be a concern.

One of a gate agent’s job is actually to follow policy put forth, so asking them to make an exception for you would be like another employee asking us to bend the FOM to help them. I want to help my fellow employees and show them I care, but I don’t expect them to break rules for my benefit.

Like Hoss said, if it’s important to us, wrote your union rep for codification. Otherwise, ask nicely and accept defeat graciously

Commuting is a choice. More so than being on reserve, but that's also a choice... reserve is part and parcel to the industry, you're nuts if you think you'll avoid it entirely. Once off new-hire reserve, you might get lucky and never get forced back down by pandemic, war, recession, etc. After that you can judiciously delay fleet transitions and upgrade to avoid reserve if desired. Don't take the first available upgrade and then complain about commuting to reserve.

i just follow the contract. I board when I want to.

Yea, me too. As most of this post is discussing, I was speaking about the gray areas, or situations where we do not have contractual privileges, like positive space travel and boarding group 3