What I actually do on a day off: the honest version, not the Instagram version
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#1 The public version of a crew member's day off is a beach or a brunch. The real version, at least mine, after a four sector day the day before and a 4am the day after, is this. Let us be honest.
Day off, type one: the recovery day
Wake at 10, which is 6 hours later than normal and feels like a holiday. Coffee in bed. Laundry, because the uniform shirts do not iron themselves. A walk to the shop, which is the outdoor portion of the day. A nap at 2, which is not planned and happens anyway. An early dinner, a series, bed by 9:30 because tomorrow is 3:30. That is the day. It is not sad. It is maintenance.
Day off, type two: the real day off
The second of two, or the middle of three, when the body has caught up. This is the one with the friends, the gym, the parents, the thing you booked. It is one day in every four or five off. The rest are type one.
Day off, type three: the standby that was not called
Technically a work day. Emotionally a gift. You cannot go far and you cannot commit to anything and so you clean the flat, and the flat has never been cleaner than it is in a standby month.
What non crew do not understand
That the day off after a long day is not free time, it is repair time. That 'you get ten days off a month' is true and that four of them are recovery. That the roster does not put the days off where the friends are. And that the crew member who cancels the dinner is not flaky, she is asleep.
What I have learned
Protect the type two days. Book the friends on those. Tell the friends which type of day it is. And stop apologising for the type one days, because they are the reason you can do the job.
Your honest day off?
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#2 Type one is 80 percent of my days off and I have stopped feeling guilty about it. The 2pm nap is a law of physics after a four sector.
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#3 Reserve, so my days off are the type three, permanently, and the flat is spotless, and my friends have stopped asking, and I am at peace with two of those three things.
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#4 Long haul, and the day off after a Tel Aviv is type one with jet lag on top, so it is a type one where you are awake at 4am and asleep at 2pm. The friends have learned. Slowly.
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#5 @jetlagjim the type one with jet lag is a type zero and it deserves its own category.
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#6 Three weeks in and I have already had the type one day and did not understand why I was so tired on a day off and this thread has explained it. Repair time. Right.
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#7 Cabin manager with a child, and my type one days are type one until 3pm and then school pick up, and the nap is a memory. Protect the type two days is the only advice that has survived parenthood.