Reversing My Reservations About Reserve

Every 7 months, every cabin crew is given a month off. Sort of. What I mean is, they aren't given a roster. Instead, they're expected to call The Powers That Be every night at 6pm to be told if / what / when they are working the following day. The results can be as follows (in order of preference):

1. Rostered for a flight. Hooray! Check the weather, pack your bags, organise sleep times and things to do on the layover. Earn money. Ticks all the boxes.

2. Day off. Yay! Roster stalk friends, find out who's in town, make lunch / dinner / drinking / tanning / shopping plans. Relax.

3. Home standby. Throw a variety of things into a suitcase - one side for warm weather, the other side for cold, because realistically you could end up anywhere. The important thing here is to keep them separate though, so you can pull out the things you don't need at the last minute and throw in more junk that you may (but still probably wont) need instead. Prepare DVD collection. Get settled because you are unable to leave your house during this 6 hour time slot. Listen carefully for the phone - if you miss a call you will be marked as absent. It's also handy to avoid curry or too much fibre beforehand (you don't want to listen helplessly to the phone ringing out from an awkward position in the bathroom).

4. Airport standby. Pack suitcase for anywhere, for any kind of weather and for anywhere between a day and a week. Don't forget anything important - this is the most important thing not to forget. Glam up in uniform, proper hair and make-up, and drag your behind to the airport to sit in a small room with 15-20 other people for 4 hours, just in case someone else calls sick or doesn't show. Bring food - you'll get hungry, but you can't leave.

As you might guess, without a roster, the whole month is a lottery. You might do a hundred flying hours. Or you might do zero. So far, it's the 20th of the month and I've done one flight, which I'm going to be really upset about when it comes to next month's payday. My last reserve (in February) wasn't much different - and I hated it. I've been dreading this month since then.

But I've been determined to be positive this time. Make the most of it; see what I can get out of a quiet month. After all, there are so many people that complain that they don't have enough time off, or time for themselves in between sleeping, flying, and sleeping. I'm going to use this month to do those things that I miss out on other times.

I had the time to go to the US Consulate in Dubai and organise an operating visa for US flights, something I've wanted to do for ages. It's difficult to organise because you need a couple of days off to do it, as they hold your passport while they finalise the visa. Reserve for me means plenty of days off. Now I have a pretty blue and red visa in my passport that is going to allow me to get back to New York - and get paid for it.

I had a friend from home come visit on her way back from Europe. I had the opportunity to hang out with her for a couple of days, bum around on the couch (hey, she's been backpacking for 5 months - a couch is a simple luxury and yeah, ok, I'm just lazy and happy to bum on the couch), take her out for dinner. We even had a nice extended (7 hour) lunch the day before she left. Unfortunately I got called out from a home standby for my flight on her last day here (after the big lunch - ouch), but we had a couple of great days which made me really happy to have been here while she was - something that may have been more difficult to organise if I had been flying.

I've seen more of my friends in Dubai than I have for months. It's generally difficult to catch up when everybody is flying at different times, but this month I've been here on everybody's off days. After my New York adventures, my purse strings are a little tighter than normal, so it hasn't been a crazy party month (with the exception of a 7 hour lunch which was a little out of spending control), but boy am I working up one heck of a tan. Pool dates, beach dates, I'm happy as a pig in, errr, 'mud' with any. Summer is definitely over in Dubai, thank god, and the weather is still hot and sweaty but not so unbearable as it was 3 weeks ago. So tanning is right back up on that priority list. The things I love most about tanning are a) it's free, and b) it requires no effort for you to see results (unlike the gym - blurrgh).

I'm learning a language. Ok so I actually haven't gotten around to this part yet, because I tend to sleep through most of my home standbys (right next to the phone, of course), and this was when I was planning to do my lessons. But I bought one of those CD's that teaches you a language and I plan to get onto that in the next couple of days. Spanish, for those who might be interested. Because I'm going to Spain in 2 weeks and I don't know a single word. Neither does the Boofhead that I'm going with.

I've even managed to improve my domesticity skills - I have used my kitchen TWICE this month (which is I think twice more than I've ever used it before) and cooked meals for myself that have actually been edible. And, thankfully, salmonella-free. My apartment is cleaner than normal, and my laundry basket is empty. The extra days off from flying are allowing me to build some semblance of 'normalcy' in my life.

So I still don't love reserve. I don't think anybody ever will, just for the fact that it's so uncertain and it's literally impossible to make plans more than a few hours in advance. I don't love it because it's quiet for my entire fleet, and I rarely get called out for flights, which means less money on pay day next month. But I'm trying to focus on those few positives that I'm finding, like being able to hang out with my friends and work on this tan so I'm not the most pale person in Spain 2 weeks from now. I think I'm going to try and refer to it as The Month of Spontaneity, instead of Reserve Month. It's so much more positive, and a lot more fun. Three cheers for spontaneous living!


... Now give me a flight.