Depending on how many freshly minted ensigns are available in the waiting pools at API, the powers that be end up giving you various "jobs", which are referred to as stash jobs, ie a place to park you while you await the next segment of training. I can't speak as to what they are doing right now in the pool, that is 3+ years in the past for me, but I saw everything from phone musters (of course until some tool tried to phone muster from New Orleans and was asked to come in, gee..) to actually mustering in the morning, to a lets get you ensigns fit and have PT in the morning along with muster, etc. Most of the time it was just roll call, and then for some job they would take volunteers, reinventory pubs, be a guinea pig for a new CBT test, or something else that may just take the rest of the day. Or as others have mentioned, they actually seek people out for 9-5 jobs, send you to the museum and a couple other places that are looking for manpower on base. Some can be good, but I lucked out and did not get any of them. Then you just end up with a lot of free time to yourself.
The only difference in the pool down in Corpus is that there was kind of a hierarchy (RHIP), you had 3 types of people in the pool, those fresh out of API waiting for Primary, those waiting to go to Advanced, and then those that have been Winged. Well, when any **** detail came up, those that got picked were the new guys waiting to go to Primary, and if there weren't enough bodies there, they would go to the Advanced pool. A good system, pay your dues early, and not worry about it later.
The big thing is, ENJOY all that free time off!! Your brethren up at Vance are mustering for a full day of class room sessons, while you get to go golf, go to the beach, or just be a bum. It is also a good time to snake some pubs if you can, go down to Wings and get those T34 flash cards and study some EPs. It helped me reading the material during the break, at my own pace, and then when the classes and firehose effect started, you at least maybe had a partial clue and a leg up! So take advantage of all that time off you are going to have from OCS graduation on through the FRS, because I tell you, when you get to your Fleet Squadron, woohoo, here come the ground jobs and collateral duties! Sure you have JO walkouts, aloha friday, and AOMs at the Oclub, but you also have more duty to stand, out turning planes or helping maintenance, and just the pure fun of doing PQS and more PQS as you try to upgrade.... Oh well, I (and my family) certainly enjoyed all that extra time off, hope you do too...
I also stood static display a couple of times, an easy job, school kids come out and look at the plane, and you get to answer questions. Though when little billy is going spastic in the cockpit and flipping every switch in sight and making airplane noises while yanking on the controls, well, you do your best not to throttle the little bastard...
Hope that helps.
