Daily life as a OS?

OS on land - standing watch in a CG command center. These are usually 12 hours long and depending on your qual, you listen to radios, answer distress calls, communicate with CG boats/aircraft, coordinate search and rescue cases with boats/planes and the command, answer phones, track the weather, create search patterns, deal with law enforcement stuff, etc. You will work both day and night shifts. A typical schedule is 11-15 watches a month in a rotation like 2 days on-2 or 3 days off. By off I mean you aren't at work at all, it's liberty.

OS afloat is a fairly small number of OSes and their job is a lot different than ashore. They still stand watch as their job though. Radio/radar/etc watch.

There is no set sea/ashore rotation in the CG. I have known OSes who have done 20 years and retired as an E6, never going to a boat. However, it's pretty unlikely. Eventually the detailer will probably send you to one whether you wanna go or not. Like others have said, OS is mostly ashore billets (75-80%), so most people spend a lot of time at land units.

/r/uscg Thread