Best RDOs for 2020

i don’t think it’s the government making us work this schedule. The members like more time off some natca asks for it.
Yeah it's some select senior fucks that are cool with dying 5 years after they retire so they can have a 72 hour weekend instead of a 60 hour. Here's to hoping the next accident happens on a mid so Congress can legislate new rest requirements like they did for pilots after the Colgan crash.
 
i don’t think it’s the government making us work this schedule. The members like more time off some natca asks for it.
Gotcha. It just seemed strange to me as it's a common topic when I read threads about the bad side of the job. Ppl are adaptable tho
 
I love the schedule. But I don’t have kids to worry about. I’m off at 6 am on my Friday and don’t work until 3 pm on my Monday. You only need an alarm for two, maybe three days of your week. That’s pretty cool! Most controller shifts miss the peak traffic times as well which is nice.
 
Gotcha. It just seemed strange to me as it's a common topic when I read threads about the bad side of the job. Ppl are adaptable tho

Yeah, a lot of it is just that controllers just like to complain. The rattler is a common schedule and goes afternoon, afternoon, morning, morning, mid, which means you get off work at 6am on your Friday and don't have to be back until 2pm on your Monday - basically turning every weekend into the equivalent of a 3+ day weekend. But the tradeoff is that between Tues-Wed and Thurs-Fri you only have 9-10 hours between shifts, so the controller working your plane at the end of his week has probably only slept around 20 hours total that entire week. But most controllers would raise hell if anyone tried to shorten their weekend in the interest of an extra few hours of sleep.
 
The rattler is a common schedule and goes afternoon, afternoon, morning, morning, mid, which means you get off work at 6am on your Friday and don't have to be back until 2pm on your Monday - basically turning every weekend into the equivalent of a 3+ day weekend. But the tradeoff is that between Tues-Wed and Thurs-Fri you only have 9-10 hours between shifts, so the controller working your plane at the end of his week has probably only slept around 20 hours total that entire week
Or you could work the suicide like we do here, night night night day mid, and get 8 hours of sleep over your last 3 shifts lmao
 
Or you could work the suicide like we do here, night night night day mid, and get 8 hours of sleep over your last 3 shifts lmao

It's cool, it's just a mid! Oh wait, there's weather and now you're working 40 airplanes by yourself at 1 am! Safety never compromised.

Mids wreck me, but night, day, mid does such an insane number. I started banging in on the 3rd day evening shifts if I had a mid a few years back because I was getting like 4-5 hours of sleep total between the 3 shifts. I didn't state that I was fatigued when I called in so I got counseled for it.
 
It's cool, it's just a mid! Oh wait, there's weather and now you're working 40 airplanes by yourself at 1 am! Safety never compromised.

Mids wreck me, but night, day, mid does such an insane number. I started banging in on the 3rd day evening shifts if I had a mid a few years back because I was getting like 4-5 hours of sleep total between the 3 shifts. I didn't state that I was fatigued when I called in so I got counseled for it.
Yeah, week of days week of nights week of mids would literally solve 50% of my issues. The other 50% would be solved by am AWS. I mean, if you're forced to have shitty days off for the whole year, the least they could fuckin do is give you Tue/Wed/Thu and let you bang out your 40 in 4 days. But nah, let me get that mid on my Friday aka Tuesday morning so I get that extra 10 hours of weekend time to do all the exciting things Wednesday and Thursday have to offer.
 
i don’t think it’s the government making us work this schedule. The members like more time off some natca asks for it.

Yup...I'm pretty sure someone in a cubicle has suggested that we do the exact opposite for recuperation....as in day/day/eve/eve/mid. What RDO would you like...I mean, what day do you want your evening OT to be on?
 
Yup...I'm pretty sure someone in a cubicle has suggested that we do the exact opposite for recuperation....as in day/day/eve/eve/mid. What RDO would you like...I mean, what day do you want your evening OT to be on?

This is the best answer for getting adequate sleep, aside from straight weeks of day/night/mid, but it would never fly because of the shorter weekend. Not just because controllers mostly wouldn't buy in, but it seems it would eliminate the agency's ability to call in OT for a six day work week many facilites need to operate with current staffing levels. the agency will continue to tacitly endorse the rattler so long as it allows them to staff facilites during this decade long staffing crunch they refuse to fix.

Our options are

1) effectively no weekend with d/d/s/s/m
2) going weeks at a time without quality time for little Timmy's baseball games, nights out with the significant other etc with a weekly rotation.
3) the rattler, which a lot of us don't like but will deal with because it doesn't cause the problems the above do.

Pick your poison. I'll stick with the rattler, as much as I dislike it. Find the guy at your facility thay likes the shifts you don't and line up Rdos accordingly so you can make shady drug deal shift swaps. The best Rdos are the ones that allow you to manipulate the schedule to your liking

/thread
 
Or, FAA allows us to work 36 hours, get paid for 40 though. 3 12s. 7p-7a and 7a-7p.

Seems to work great for the medical field.
Most places with shifts like police and hospitals do 3 on, 3 off 4 on 4 off kinda deal so the hours add up. But i thought i read somewhere that we controllers werent supposed to work more than X amount of hours in a week. These shifts though would be all day or all night or all swing with permanent RDO which would make the most sense. My confusion lies in the fact that they have you work all 3 shifts in a week vs making bids that are all am/ all pm/ all mid. That would be the most logical imo but im just a dumb civilian
 
Most places with shifts like police and hospitals do 3 on, 3 off 4 on 4 off kinda deal so the hours add up. But i thought i read somewhere that we controllers werent supposed to work more than X amount of hours in a week. These shifts though would be all day or all night or all swing with permanent RDO which would make the most sense. My confusion lies in the fact that they have you work all 3 shifts in a week vs making bids that are all am/ all pm/ all mid. That would be the most logical imo but im just a dumb civilian
Full time controllers get scheduled 80 hours per pay period. No more than 10 hours a day and can only work 6 consecutive days in a row. So the most you are allowed to work is 120 hours per pay period.

I would be totally OK working more time in one day especially if we would only work 36 hours per week.
 
Most places with shifts like police and hospitals do 3 on, 3 off 4 on 4 off kinda deal so the hours add up. But i thought i read somewhere that we controllers werent supposed to work more than X amount of hours in a week. These shifts though would be all day or all night or all swing with permanent RDO which would make the most sense. My confusion lies in the fact that they have you work all 3 shifts in a week vs making bids that are all am/ all pm/ all mid. That would be the most logical imo but im just a dumb civilian

The rule is not more than 10 hrs a day and not more than 6 days in a row.

They'd have to change the 10 hr day rule to do this, which they'd never do. Honestly I'd buy that schedule with the 3 day/4 day week rotation as it would allow everyone to see a real piece of the weekend every now and again. Basically just bid the crew you want to work with and run with it, which makes for a better work day IMHO as well. It would also give you at least 2 or 3 days off even with an OT shift.
The high seniority guys at many facilites wouldn't bite on losing the prime lines with regular fri/Sat sat/sun rdos, even if it meant more time off though.
 
The rule is not more than 10 hrs a day and not more than 6 days in a row.

They'd have to change the 10 hr day rule to do this, which they'd never do. Honestly I'd buy that schedule with the 3 day/4 day week rotation as it would allow everyone to see a real piece of the weekend every now and again. Basically just bid the crew you want to work with and run with it, which makes for a better work day IMHO as well. It would also give you at least 2 or 3 days off even with an OT shift.
The high seniority guys at many facilites wouldn't bite on losing the prime lines with regular fri/Sat sat/sun rdos, even if it meant more time off though.
its doable. I have a lot of friends that are cops and ive seen depts do all kinds of shifts. One dept does 5 8hr shifts, another does 4 10hr, or that 3/4 rotation with 12s. FAA could easily make it work with the 10hr or 8 hrs and ppl just bid the shift they want then rdos would basically be split up amongst those shifts, but thats just thinking out loud lol
 
Yup...I'm pretty sure someone in a cubicle has suggested that we do the exact opposite for recuperation....as in day/day/eve/eve/mid.
This.
Who the fuck decided night/night/night/day/mid was an ok thing to do? Probably the same group of assholes who helped design the STARS "ABC" keyboard, some NATCA-sponsored senior citizens who are a few years away from retirement and get cherry-picked for CWGs by their buddies so they can dodge traffic and ride off into the sunset on their CSRS retirement?

I would absolutely prefer (and I'm pretty sure research would prove it to be safer) to work day/day/night and then finish my fucking week on a double...sign in at 3pm and sign out at 6am.
 
My first base in the AF had really good Manning for a while we had a 3 day weekend every other round. It would be DDDSSOO then DDSSOOO. It was glorious until I PCSd..
 
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