Reserve Life: Getting Paid to Sit Around?

September was a weird month on reserve. My airline increased the number of flight attendants on reserve, which resulted in a lot of us working very little.

As I reviewed here, being “on reserve” means being on-call for the airline. 18 days a month they can call me and make me work. They will pay me as if I worked 90 hours regardless of whether I do or not. My first two months I (by my own choice) went over those 90 hours. These past two months, I’ve been trying to self-assign good trips if any are available, but not trying to work just for the sake of working. Unfortunately, this month, it’s been really hard to self assign any trips.

I worked a total of 10 days in September. Two days were airport standby (meaning I sat at the airport for 5 hours in case they needed me last minute). Two days were turns (meaning I flew somewhere and back in the same day), and 6 days were 2-day trips.

Y’all. I LIKE trips. I like going places and seeing new things.

I realize that probably most people would think that it’s cool to sit at home and get paid to not work. Unfortunately, I don’t love it. I LOOOOOOVE not working when I can camp, hike, or travel. Unfortunately, while on reserve, I have to be able to report to the airport in uniform and ready to work within 2 hours. This leaves me a bit trapped. I can’t even go on a long run when I’m on call! I run these bizarre loops throughout the neighborhood, never straying more than 15 minutes from my house.

Wow.

What a whiner I am.

Don’t get me wrong.

I am happy! This is the best, most fun job in the world!

I just need to tweak how I spend my days when I’m on-call.

I need to do better at packing my bag and being ready to report to work whilst going out and having fun. I don’t have a strategy worked out yet, but I’ve moved from pre-contemplation to contemplation here, so I’m making progress. (That was a psychology joke. I’m still a licensed psychologist; my jokes are as close as I’m planning to get to clinical work).

It IS pretty cool to have a job that’s so fun that I’m actually whining about not getting to work enough. What a privilege!