It seems to suit more than it annoys from my limited viewpoint. I feel the trick to the 5 earlies is to be ruthless about going to bed early, I mean before 10, and then I am OK. Any later than that and I feel awful and have to sleep in the afternoon which I personally hate...
However, I flew with a guy today who had opted out. I for one, do not care about my days off in december for example, and I get some random rostering anyway 3 weeks worth in the reserve period. His point was that he lets ops know when he wants a particular day off, say for his sons graduation, and if enough notice is given they can roster around him. Under the fixed system, if you have used your GDO's 'tough titty mate' is the usual response which is really very imposing on peoples lives, and why I should imagine, shock horror to the easJet management, sickness is going up and less people are asking for a day off or do a deal.
What I think is the bitter taste in most peoples mouths is the fact we simply cannot bargain with OPS. I go 2 hours into discretion, or do a duty I dont have to, thanks are given at the time (or often not!) but they are unable and un-empowered it seems to give you anything in return, such as days off or trade a contactable you have for a day you want off..My only reason for doing it is in the hope one day my helpfullness will be remembered when I really need it and to be fair to them there are a few in crewing that will actually help if they can and there is not a French ATC strike on at the time!!
There seems to be no one person accountable for some of the horrific crewing cockups we see quite often at easy, but then I doubt it is any different in any airline due to the nature of the beast but the fact that there seems to be no log kept of the help you have given the company over the years says volumes for an airline that is supposed to value it's staff so highly a la the Southwest model and the 'orange' culture. They expect us to be so flexible yet the same is not reciprocated when it comes to our lives...sometimes the job becomes our lives and that really isn't what life is about.