Airlines Need New Blood

Airlines, like vampires, need new blood. My airline didn’t hire anyone new for many years. I mean ALOT of years. In that time even our youngest flight attendants grew up. Every day someone else got married, had a kid, or just matured from the hedonistic thrill-seeker and spontaneous lover of life. The fun faction was waning and we became stagnant. That sucked for those of us who still wanted to live it up on the layovers, but it also sucked for the customers.

A fun-loving flight attendant might see that they’re flying with a great crew to somewhere exciting, but when they get to the plane and see their long lost partner-in-crime, she’s showing off her baby bump and ultrasound pictures and you know that another one has bit the dust, rarely to return. You’re happy for them but at the same time in an incredibly selfish way, you’re bummed that their life choices are making your own existence a little more drab.

Luckily for me, I’ve chilled out as the years have gone on as well. When I got hired at 22 I was up for anything, and nothing bothered me on or off the plane. Going out on a 10-hour layover in Omaha with my equally young and new crew wasn’t even debated. We were ALWAYS doing something, even if that just meant going down to the hotel bar for a bit. We found adventure wherever we could, or at least sniffed out the potential for trouble. We were brand new to life outside our parents shadow and were just gagging for new experiences.

We had to wait six agonizing months before we got our flight benefits that allowed us to jump on a plane on our days off and take off to see the world. I think I waited five days after I got my benefits before I took off to cash in on the main benefit of serving drinks and nagging people about tray tables in the air for a living, for very little pay. My old roommate from college had a job that let him take off for a week in late January so we spun the globe and looked at the possibilities. It was overwhelming. Our options were cut down significantly when he told me he didn’t have a passport. Jamaica it was then!

Jamaica is Jamaica, but that didn’t matter. I was on a holiday that I paid for all by myself and I could do it again whenever I wanted. I really thought I’d stumbled into the best career in the world and didn’t understand why more people didn’t look into jobs with the airlines. Of course this was before I tried to have a serious relationship or even considered having a family. Oh, and then there was the money thing too. You don’t worry about such things when you’re in your early 20s, nor do you mind living in a 750 square foot 3 bedroom/2 bath apartment with five other people. That changes. Earning $22,000 a year seemed like all the money in the world back then.

For the next couple of years, every American-based airline was hiring in droves. Every time I showed up in Operations at the airport, I saw new eager faces with brand new Travel Pro luggage. I thought it would just go on like this forever. Then 9-11 happened and everything stopped, though experts said the airlines were starting to struggle before that anyways, the attacks just expedited the slowdown. After that, every major airline had layoffs and furloughs. That was the beginning of the end for the party at my airline. It took us nearly 12 years before we got all our furloughed flight attendants back and started hiring again.

I think when the first new hire crossed the graduation platform in early 2013, the youngest of us “older ones” was 33. So on New Year’s Day in 2013 the youngest flight attendant we had was 33 and the oldest was too old to imagine. During those twelve years everything changed. Like I said, every day someone else grew up. Every day someone else got serious with someone they were dating, or got married, or started a family, or figured out that being a flight attendant forever is a tough thing to do so they’d just quit and start a new career or at least go back to school. The popular stereotype of a wild and free flight attendant adventurer was quickly becoming extinct as far as our passengers could see.

I was bummed about that on a personal level because I was still a free agent. I remembered that the main reason I took this job was to see the world and have adventures. I never married nor do i have any kids. I don’t mind the shit pay so as far as I’m concerned, I’m not one of the bad guys making my airline a tad sad. The only thing that really separates me from me 16 years ago is that I did get fed up of living in a dirty, cramped NYC apartment so I bought a house in the suburbs of Austin, though every now and then I really think of going back for just one more year. I didn’t really mind the mice at all. The winters however…

But more importantly than what the hiring freeze did to me and my lifestyle, is what it did to my airline. It almost ruined it. We started getting the worse ratings from passengers. We weren’t young, naive, and doing anything to make the customer happy anymore. We were old and jaded and thought we needed to teach the world how to behave on an airplane. Granted, the world needs that lesson, but that doesn’t matter when you’re working in Customer Service. I mean the customer is always right even when the customer is an ignorant asshole. No amount of passive aggressive lessons is going to change that. I used to be so nice to people on the plane but after awhile even the sweetest kids turn into jerks. It’s just not natural to be that nice to people who don’t deserve it every day of your life. I’ve held up better than most of the people I work with, but I’m still a far cry away from how I was in the late 90s.

To be honest the worst flight attendants we have are the ones that feel stuck, liked a caged tiger. They don’t really have any other options for employment. Perhaps they didn’t learn a trade or go to school. Maybe they thought they’d be married and taken care of by now. It was a fun job that turned into a long career. I know many people who would love to go back to school but who can afford to do that when we have very little wiggle room in our finances? Those people grow to hate the everything about the job and their lives and I totally get it. It’s still no reason to take it out on the people that pay your salary though. Just as flight attendants are the face of everything bad that happens to a customer from the time they book their ticket until they land at their destination, the customers are the faces of all the frustrations those flight attendants feel about their existence.

Airlines need that infusion of new blood to keep fresh. Not only are the new ones nice and accommodating, they also remind old flight attendants like me what it was like when we were young. Watching some of these ridiculously young new hires interact with the passengers and putting them above all is just what I needed to put it all in perspective. Listening to them get excited about layovers in places I turn my nose up at was refreshing and humbling. Listening to them talk about all the places they want to fly to on their own time was sentimental. Watching all the youngens getting crazy and making bad decisions was invigorating. Maybe the idea of the wild and free flight attendant isn’t quite dead yet. Maybe I have some potential partners-in-crime out there still.

I honestly think some of those foreign carriers have it right when they make you quit at a certain age. I would hate it now if tonight my airline said that I have to quit when I hit 40 but if I knew before i got hired that I had a shelf life, I would be fine with it. In fact it would probably do me a world of good. It was force me to think about the future and prepare for life after the airlines. I’m totally not prepared for that right now. If I lost my job tomorrow I don’t know what I’d do next, even though I have a degree. I think I’d also be happier at work if I knew the job had an expiration date. It is what it is and there’s no debate about it. When it’s open ended it can seem like a prison sentence. What makes you pull the cord and escape? I think it’s a great idea to keep the work force fresh. People would make the most of every trip and passengers would get flight attendants are their best. Of course that’s all dependent on flight attendants knowing that’s the situation from the get-go, it’s just not fair to implement an age cut-off after they’ve settled in and built a life surrounding the job.

One thing I noticed about flight attendants who do finally retire is that they are so damn happy about their decision. They say that suicidal people are often “doing much better” in their final days. That’s usually because they’ve made up their mind to end it and that’s comforting. Same with retiring flight attendants. I’ve flown with several people in their last few months and they have been absolute delights to work with. Some were pricks last year, but wonderful on their last trips, probably for the same reasons.

I’m very happy that my airline isn’t forcing any of us out, but I totally get why they’d want us out in exchange for younger, prettier, happier, more patient people who would be paid less money and need less money to live. We’ve had our new hires on the line for just over a year now and I can already tell a huge difference in the morale of everyone. The passengers seem to like my airline more as well. Our ratings have gone up that’s for sure. Plus it’s alot of fun to watch some of the older pilots try it on with the 21 year olds at the hotel bar.

Interview with a New Hire

Time will tell if it’s a good or bad thing if people out there in the real world listen to my words and use them to help make life altering decisions. One of my young readers, Jaysen, tells me that I helped him make up his mind to pursue a job in the airlines. I’m not sure if he’s stroking my ego or being sincere, but nonetheless, he got hired as a flight attendant and as luck would have it, he now works for my airline!

I haven’t had the honor of flying with him just yet but I have introduced him around the JFK base and also to some of my friends back home in Austin when he had a long layover there a couple of months ago. He just completed his required 6-month probationary period and now he’s officially a stewardess like me, but younger with fewer laugh lines and more hair. Here is what an ordinary guy has to say about the flight attendant position/lifestyle after six months on the job… 

How old are you and why did this profession appeal to you in the first place? I doubt a high school guidance counselor suggested it to you, right?

I’m twenty-eight years old and a musician. That’s what has put money in the bank some way or another up to this point. One day I was doing some stock trading (a hobby) and came across a news article that said our airline was hiring. I love to travel and was in between music gigs at the time, so I thought, “Why not?” I applied for the job on a whim, never thinking it would actually happen.

I got a notification that I was selected for a phone interview and then after the phone interview was chosen to go to headquarters to interview in person. That went extremely well, but I still wasn’t sure if the job really fit with my music career. I got online and started doing more research about the job and that’s when I came across your blog. The blog led me to buy your book and after reading it, I knew that this was something I had to try. It’s such a flexible job that I’m able to work on my music just as much as before, and now I have great travel and health benefits.

I’m curious to see how you use this job in your music career. There are many possibilities for you.

To be honest, when I started this blog and wrote the book, I never dreamed that a stranger would be interested in what I had to say. I really thought I was just doing something to make my friends laugh. God bless the internets. Which of the clichés about passengers, pilots, flight attendants have stood up?

Passengers – It seems that anytime anything goes wrong, most of the passengers assume that we have much more control over the situation than we actually do.

“They made me check my bag before I came through security.”

“I didn’t book my ticket a month ago to sit here with mechanical problems.”

“This weather isn’t that bad. Can’t we get out of here before the really bad stuff hits?”

It’s funny that sometimes when we have delays, some of the passengers get notified on their smartphones before the crew even finds out. That being said, there really is very little we can do in most of these situations besides lend a listening ear and agree that the situation is less than ideal. As you say in your book, nothing defuses a bad situation faster than agreeing with the person. (Nice plug, thanks)

It’s frequent that I have people complaining to me as they are boarding, saying that someone along the way was “extremely rude to them.” I always look them in the eye, smile, and say, “I am so sorry that you were treated that way. But now you’re with me, and I’ll be kind to you!” That usually gets some sort of smile out of them and gets the flight started on the right foot.

Pilots – Ego.

Flight attendants – I would have to say the gossip. There’s an old saying about spreading information: “Tel-e-phone, tell a flight attendant.” And it really is so true. Something small happens before you leave on a trip — say someone has a small fender bender in the airport parking lot. By the time you return three days later, the whole base knows about it and “some guy drove his car through the side of the airport and three people were killed.” And since flight attendants are constantly traveling, you’ll even start to hear the blown up story at other bases as well!

Very true about the gossip mill and our propensity for exaggeration. We’re a dramatic bunch for sure. I’m not sure if Ego is a bad thing for pilots, but it’s definitely true. What was the most surprising thing you’ve encountered on the job?

It’s astonishing how many passengers play Candy Crush! We’re talking like 1 in every 5 people is busting chocolate bars at some point during the flight (this sometimes includes flight attendants). This goes for just about any trend out there. The plane is an amazing place to see what is trending and what trends are fading out.

Also, I’ve been surprised at what makes people applaud after we land. There have been flights where everyone is laughing and happy and some great interactions have taken place between the crew and the passengers inflight but it is dead silent when we land. On other flights, people are mad and complaining about the temperature, we run out of the most popular drink options, the plane comes down hard and bumpy on the landing, and people start cheering! Am I missing something here?

I love the Dominican passengers for that reason. Things can get heated and voices raised, but it’s still all good at the end of the day. Love me the DR flights. And yeah, you always know the hippest new games and books because you’ll see them all over the place. What is your least favorite part of being a flight attendant? 

Honestly, my least favorite part of the job is having to see people at their worst. I like to think of the plane as a magical, giant tube that shows peoples’ true colors. Some people manage to be so incredibly gracious and kind, even when we have delays or things go wrong. One day we had two mechanical delays on the same flight and a couple missed their flight to South Korea AND their wedding the next day! Yet, they were the two kindest and most understanding people on the plane. Others, though, fall apart over the smallest things and lash out — sometimes for seemingly no reason at all. One first class passenger flipped out on us once, because there was a bag in the overhead bin above her seat. Mind you there was still plenty of room for her luggage — the issue was that there was any bag other than hers in the 6 foot long overhead bin. I don’t know what it is about being on the plane that drives people to that sort of behavior. Maybe it’s the music that plays during boarding that sounds like a Japanese funeral. Or maybe they are on their way to a funeral themselves. I try to take a step back when people are rude or hateful and give them the benefit of the doubt. Many will come around when you treat them with kindness. Others don’t, but at least I’ve tried.

Wow. Those people missing the wedding deserve sainthood. That’s amazing. I find people on domestic flights seem to get more bent out of shape about stupid things than international passengers. Not sure why. What were you not prepared for when you started this profession?

I didn’t realize how hard flying is on your body! One or two flights won’t do much, but when you spend 80-120 hours in the sky a month, it’s very easy to get dehydrated and fatigued. Once you get dehydrated, being on the plane is miserable! I honestly think that staying hydrated is honestly the hardest part of the job. That being the case, I drink 1-2 liters of coconut water between trips and several liters of water a day on the plane. Even that sometimes is not enough.

Also, it’s a very physical job. They told us this in training, but I think several of us were thinking, “Yeah, yeah, yeah…what’s so physical about serving people drinks?” Boy, did I ever have a shock when I got “on the line” and started pushing the 300 pound drink cart up the incline of the aisle!

True. And being a nice guy I’m sure you help weak and elderly people with their overhead bin items, even though you’re not supposed to. I do that all the time, it’s really the only exercise I get. It’s also surprising how much walking you do during a flight. It doesn’t seem like you do that much but I know some people who have worn pedometers and it was shocking. Do you think you’ll be doing this in a year? 5 years? 20 years?

In a year? Definitely.

5 years? Probably.

20 years? Never say never.

I think I would’ve said “Probably not” when I first started and thought about the 5-year mark. Twenty years would be a resounding “Hell NO” but I guess I should rethink that since I’m in year 16 now. What in my book was dead wrong or dead right?

“Straight Guy in the Queer Skies” is pure literary gold! So much so that I think it should replace our in-flight manual that the FAA requires us to carry. Everything in the book is dead-on (and no, Brian is not paying me to say this)! There are a couple of things that have really resonated, though.

First of all, nobody tells you how they want their coffee!

They just say, “Coffee.”

And then you say, “How do you take your coffee?”

And they say, “Regular.”

And you say, “What does regular mean?”

And they say, “You know, regular!”

And you say, “Do you like milk and sugar?”

And they say, “Milk, no sugar.”

And you make the coffee and hand it to the person and they say, “Where’s the sugar?”

This sort of interaction takes place multiple times each flight.

Another point that consistently rings true is how each route you fly has its own unique set of passengers that come with their standard sets of preferences and behaviors. This is true to the extent that on most routes one can predict which drinks and food items will be the most popular before the people even board the plane. Most flights touching Dallas will have some Dr. Pepper drinkers, whereas on flights going to New York, you get several people asking for “seltzah.” It becomes predictable and even funny after awhile. Besides, Miami. If flights were Uno cards, the route between New York and Miami would be the wild card. Anything can happen on those flights. Anything!

Case-in-point: One evening, I had a family board a Miami flight and sit in first class. There was a mother, a father, and two young girls. I noticed during boarding that one of the girls didn’t look like she was feeling well. Her dad said that her stomach had been bothering her, so I got her some cool ginger ale to try and help settle her queasiness. (Spoiler Alert: she had the stomach flu.) We take off and are about 10 minutes into the flight when the other little girl begins projectile vomiting EVERYWHERE — onto her seat, her mom’s seat, the back of the seat in front of her, and all over the floor around them. It was honestly fascinating that such a small girl could have so much vomit stored in her body! (Spoiler Alert: she had the stomach flu, also.) We were still ascending, so the vomit began running under the girl’s seat right into one of our highest priority passengers’ brand new Coach hand bag. While I’m down on my hands and knees wearing vomit-covered gloves, cleaning up the mess, one of the other first class passengers taps me on the shoulder and demands to know why he has not been served his dinner yet! That’s the sort of behavior that’s typical of those flights.

Oh yeah, not just Wild but Wild Draw Four on Miami-NYC flights. Strangely enough I have not had a projectile vomiter on a flight yet (knocking wood.) Was there a time in your probationary period when you wanted to go off on a passenger or coworker but didn’t because you could get fired? And thanks again for the unsolicited plug- Straight Guy in the Queer Skies can be purchased here.

In the grand scheme of things, difficult passengers have been easy to handle because if they throw hate your way, you never have to see them again. That being the case, it’s not that hard to be diplomatic and “kill em’ with kindness.” It’s the occasional “difficult” flight attendant that can be challenging, because you might have to work with the person for several days. You just have to take a deep breath and keep on keepin’ on.

On one particular flight, I walked up to my gate to get on the plane and was quickly greeted by another flight attendant on my crew. The first words out of her mouth were “Hi, I’m (insert name) and you must be Jaysen. I see that you’re new and that being the case, you probably haven’t ever worked this position before so there are two options: I can switch positions with you and you can work in the back (I was working first class), or I can come up and work on the other side of the meal cart with you and teach you how to do it. I had been working for several months already and had done this position before, so I remember thinking, “Or option three: You can do your job and I can do mine.” Maybe this lady was really trying to be helpful, but my gut said that she was unhappy with her position and really just wanted to switch. But I’m always up for learning something new, so I told her that I had worked the position before, but if she liked, she could come up and work the meal cart with me and maybe give me some pointers along the way since she had been doing it quite awhile longer than I. Long story short, this translated into us working the meal cart together while she loudly criticized my serving techniques in front of the passengers. And it was all trivial things that she criticized that didn’t affect the service one bit. It got to the point that customers were concerned and were asking me quietly later if that harsh lady was my supervisor. I don’t know if people felt sorry for me or if the contrast in customer service techniques worked in my favor, but I had multiple customers that day ask for my name and say that they wanted to write a good letter to the company about me. That was also the day I realized how much sitcom potential this job has.

Yeah, it’s rare that a coworker will selflessly offer to help you by changing positions. Nine times out of ten they want to have your position and are masking their intentions under the guise of helping you out. Good for you for standing your ground. I’ve seen more bullying on the plane than I did in Junior High School. I’m also shocked that an intelligent show hasn’t been created about the flight attendant lifestyle or even about a crash pad in itself. Someone needs to get on that. Vince Gilligan? I’m looking in your direction! How has the job affected your relationship with your girlfriend?

Being based 2,000 miles away with a random schedule has not been easy, but being able to see each other for pennies on the dollar helps a lot. She has been very supportive of me taking this job, even though it means we don’t get to see each other as much as we would like to. Our company allows employees to register one person as a flying companion that has the same travel benefits that we do. I registered her, but kept it a secret for awhile. She’s working toward a pHD and recently graduated with her Master’s degree. As her graduation gift, I surprised her with the news that she was registered as my travel companion. Now I can go see her when I’m off and she has the ability to come see me or meet me someplace when she’s got down time. Win-win.

It’s totally do-able to sustain a long distance relationship in this biz, the biggest obstacle is trust I think. Do your coworkers believe you when you tell them you’re straight? Do any of them think that in a years time you won’t be? I still have a few friends that think year 16 is the one when I come out.

Most of my coworkers seem to believe that I’m straight — at least to my face. I’ve only had one lady say that she assumed I was gay until I told her otherwise, but she said she assumes that about every guy she works with (nice save). I usually make some comment about my girlfriend during the trip and most of the old timers’ ears perk up at that and start asking me questions about my relationship. Some of them even ask for relationship advice. Most of the senior male flight attendants I’ve flown with have been gay, but I’ve been shocked by the number of straight new hires I’ve come across — some that even have wives and kids and like to talk football! Either I’ve come across a good amount of the rare exceptions in the past six months or quite a few straight guys are starting to figure out what a hidden gem this job is.

Yeah that’s going to continue. Six days ago a lady said the same thing to me about assuming I was gay because of the uniform. It’s fun to mess with people. When she asked if I was gay, I said, “Only on layovers.” That confused her and delighted my Purser. Does your dad admit that he has a son that’s a flight attendant?

You know, it’s awesome how supportive my dad has been of this whole choice. I think at the end of the day, he’s just glad that I am doing something I enjoy. He’s always concerned that I’m not making enough money as a new hire to support myself in New York, so he checks up on me from time to time  to make sure I’m doing alright. When I graduated from flight attendant training, my parents drove in to celebrate with me. My dad picked me up from my hotel to take me to the ceremony and when I walked out in my uniform, he got this big smile on his face. He told me how proud of me he was and said he didn’t really care what kind of uniform I wore — it was just really cool to see me in a uniform. Given my dad’s military background, that meant a great deal to me.

Since they have amazing flight benefits too, you should take them somewhere. Paris or Rome or Tokyo maybe. Have you taken advantage of your flight benefits yet?

I’ve used them some, but I was cautious of doing much traveling on probation, because if for some reason I hadn’t been able to get on the flight back to work in time, I could have been fired. I have used my benefits to commute home quite a few times, though, and my girlfriend and I flew to London for a week last summer. Now that I’m off probation, watch out world — here I come!

Where are the best and lamest places you’ve had a layover in?

My best layovers have been in San Francisco and Austin. My lamest…any layover where we’ve stayed a few feet from the airport.

When you get old like me you’ll sometimes cherish those boring layovers where you’re forced to stay in and relax. SOMEtimes. Have you witnessed any cheating wives or husbands? 

Yes, but not so much flight attendants / pilots, as passengers. There have been a few times when I’ve seen passengers “with a ring on it” getting a bit too friendly with the person sitting next to them. You know it’s not the person’s spouse because you have a front row seat to the whole show — the “let me help you lift your bag”, the introduction of names and what each person does, and then the hours of jovial conversation that follow. The worst case of this I’ve seen was on a transcon flight to LA awhile back. This guy and lady end up seated next to each other in business class, both wearing wedding rings. The quality of their conversation was growing friendlier in direct correlation to the number of drinks they were consuming, and we noticed they were beginning to get a bit touchy/feely with each other. Long story short, another passenger comes up to the purser of the flight saying that he has just witnessed two people sneak into the lavatory together. The purser banged on the door, telling them she knew they were in there and that they needed to come out. The door slowly opened, the “couple” quietly slinked back to their seats, and we didn’t hear much from them the rest of the flight.

Someone recorded their shame on their smart phone right? Is it on YouTube? Classy. Have you had any medical situations or emergency landings?

Since I started the job, things have been pretty low-key in the emergency department (knock on something — there’s not much wood inside an airplane). However, in training we’re required to assist on some flights to get a feel for the job, before we’re on the plane working the positions by ourselves. Around the time I did my first assistance trip, the movie “Flight” had just come out, with Denzel Washington playing an inebriated pilot. That day, a passenger told one of the flight attendants during boarding that she suspected she smelled alcohol on the Captain’s breath when she talked to him in the terminal. The flight attendant had to call in the report and the flight was delayed for an hour while management came down to the plane and breathalyzed the pilot in question. Luckily, it was a good natured Captain who passed with flying colors and laughed it off. In fact, he kept calling back jokingly, asking if we could get him something to drink. After we finally took off and got up to cruising altitude, a passenger stood up and passed out in the aisle. Once she had regained consciousness and we had helped her be seated again, we hit some pretty turbulent air and the majority of the last pick-up service was collecting used sick bags. Welcome to the glamorous world of flying!

Gross. You deal with much more puking than I do, thank God. Do you like the general public more or less after these six months as a flight attendant? 

My view of the general public hasn’t really changed. I guess if anything it’s just been more reinforced. I gave up hope in humanity as a whole, a long time ago. But I still hold out hope for people at an individual level and I think anyone can affect change around them. For example: A few months ago, I was working a flight that started as the flight from hell. There had been weather that day, so many flights were delayed or cancelled. As people were filtering onto the plane, everyone was mad and complaining about their connection situations and how late we were. One group of nine people were absolutely livid because they were connecting from an international flight and two people in their group didn’t clear customs in time to make it on our flight. The other flight attendant and I made up our minds from the get-go to just smile and have fun. One by one, we talked to people, smiling, laughing and joking, and one person at a time, the lightheartedness began to spread (a few comped drinks to those most inconvenienced didn’t hurt, either). We were genuinely kind to people, but then I sat back and watched as the people we were kind to started being kind to the people around them, and then those people were kind to the people around them. It was a chain reaction from the front of the plane to the back. By the end of the flight, passengers were mingling with people sitting in rows other than their own, and one could periodically hear outbursts of laughter all throughout the cabin. When we landed, the entire plane applauded. It took very little effort to turn that flight around — once we started it, the people did it on their own. Anyone can do that anywhere — the issue is that most people don’t take the time to try.

So what happens on the plane should be implemented into society to save all of mankind? You might be on to something. What is the best part of the job? 

They say that this job is not just a job, but a lifestyle, and it is so true. For some new hires, that is a deterrent, but honestly, it’s my favorite part of the job. If you’re resourceful with the travel benefits and scheduling flexibility, this job allows you to live in a way that would be nearly impossible otherwise. There are flight attendants that live all over the world, doing incredible things. They commute into their base when it’s time for work, and after they’re finished, they commute back to wherever it was they came from. It’s such a flexible job that for the most part, it allows you to be where you want to be, when you want to be there, doing whatever it is you want to be doing.

Very true. For me it’s a very easy means to a fantastic end. Have you had to sell out even a little bit for your airline job? 

There have been some tradeoffs for sure. I’m most comfortable barefoot, in a t-shirt and cut-offs, doing something outdoors. Now I have a job in which I wear a suit and tie everyday inside a giant metal container. Also, I’m a big supporter of local economy and small businesses, and most airlines are obviously large corporations. I work for “the man,” but it truly is one of the coolest jobs I ever could have asked for.

We most certainly work for a big heartless corporation. We, like most flight attendants, are nothing more than employee numbers and very replaceable  Some people hate feeling so insignificant but I kinda like it. There are advantages of being a part of a massive operation and being able to fly namelessly under the radar. The travel and health benefits are fantastic for starters. Do the senior flight attendants treat you well or are they annoyed at how new and inexperienced you are?

98% of the senior flight attendants I’ve flown with have treated me with nothing but kindness and respect and have been more than helpful in teaching me the ropes of my new job. The other 2%…well, maybe they were just having an off day.

Those 2% have off days every day. They’re just called “days” after awhile. We all have a mental list of coworkers we never want to work in the same cabin in. Are your new hire friends more professional or the seasoned veterans? 

I’ve seen the good, the bad, and the ugly on both sides of the coin. The new hires are fresh out of several weeks of intense training, so most of them are pretty by-the-book and they do a great job with the people. It’s just that we’re still learning and a bit unsure about how to handle some of the irregular situations that come up from time to time. Some new hires handle this uncertainty with cockiness which doesn’t get them very far. Others handle it with humility and respect for the senior flight attendants, and they are well accepted and very effective.

A great deal of the veterans are very professional, and while not always by the book or adhering to uniform regulation, they have amazing experiences over the years that have taught them how to give the passengers what they want and deal with the crazy situations that crop up sometimes. This job can be strenuous and it seems like it’s easy to get burnt out being on the go so much. Also, since 9/11, things have gotten far less glamorous for travelers and flight attendants alike. That being said, I have a high respect for the senior flight attendants that still do their job well after so many years of flying. The ones who are burnt out and don’t want to be there crop up from time to time, but I’ve come across far more senior flight attendants who do a fantastic job than those who don’t.

For me, the new people have been very VERY strong when it comes to looking the part. You guys are put together and look immaculate. The rest of us are shabby and more comfortable. However when dealing with the passengers I think there’s only so much you can teach people in a classroom. The new hires seem very robotic when dealing with passengers’ concerns. They do the right thing but don’t always sound sincere. They may also use 1000 words to address a concern but a seasoned veteran will deal with the same problem, getting a better result, in 50 words. I guess it just comes from seeing it all and dealing with it many times over. Some of the new hires tend to freak out about little things. I had one the other day that wasted fifteen minutes running around the plane looking for a Coke when we all knew we only had Pepsi left. When the search ended in predicted vain, the girl put on her “devastated” face and apologized for not being able to give the guy a Coke. She tearfully asked if Pepsi would be ok and prepared to get slapped across the face. He said “Of course it’s ok” and that was that, not a problem at all. So rather than nip it in the bud and fess up about the lack of Coke and ask if Pepsi was alright, she ran around, bothered every cabin, and made her cart partner work much harder. Being scared to death of giving a passenger any kind of bad news is definitely a new hire thing. I was like that 16 years ago.

I guess that’s it for now. I really hope Jaysen enjoys his career at our airline. It seems like he is so far. I will feel slightly responsible if he ends up hating the job and wasting the best years of his life. If you have any questions for Jaysen that we didn’t address, send me an email and we’ll answer them post haste.  easley.brian@gmail.com

Prepping for The Amazing Race

It’s always been a dream of mine to be on The Amazing Race. Out of all the reality shows I think that’s the one I could do the best on, and would enjoy the most. I would do it without the million dollar prize. I really could not care less about the money, I just want the experience.

Survivor would be an epic failure as far as reality shows go. Fear Factor just seems pointless. Big Brother even more so, but at least you have a chance to hook up with someone. Plus no one is watching that show in case you have to do something embarrassing. Actually American Gladiators would be alot of fun, if it were still on.

I’m a great armchair quarterback when watching The Amazing Race at home and of course I always make all the right decisions. Just like watching Wheel of Fortune at home where it’s always your turn and there are never Bankrupts, you have that same luxury with watching Race. You never get the cabbie who needs to stop for gas or ask for directions. You never get on the flight that has to divert to Botswana.

Even when the less-than-ideal situations arise, I think I’d still do alright. I can cope on the fly pretty well and my experience as a flight attendant would certainly help navigating through airports and running around in weird cities.

I would help my cause beforehand for sure. I would do everything possible from the moment I found out I was on the show until we took off to meet Phil. I’m starting a list of just what those things would be.

Let’s say I get 6 weeks to prep before the race starts. Let’s also say that I don’t have to go through the audition process of picking a partner. I’ve been doing that for years. I have a few people who are potentials. Some of the ones I would perform the best with aren’t necessarily the ones I’d want to be with 24/7 for however long the race lasts.

Some of the ones I know I would love spending every second racing alongside aren’t necessarily the ones I’d succeed with in the competition. It’s a fine line and very few people would satisfy the criteria to make the race both fun and lucrative. Selecting your sweetie can be a brilliant or horrible idea.

Ultimately I would pick a partner based on my weaknesses, mainly eating anything gross or in large quantities. Partner must also speak at least one other language fluently. Not German though, I know enough of that to get by. Partner must also have to be able to tolerate me thinking I always know the right way to go. Partner must also hold their tongue when I’m wrong and we end up in a Turkish prison.

TO-DO List

1)  Clear things up with work so it’s not a situation of me having to quit to be on the show. I think that’ll be easy, my airline has had flight attendants on the show before. They didn’t fare too well, but we were proud of them all the same. Redemption!

2)  Start running and getting into as good of shape as possible. Take up yoga. Maybe a dance class as well. If I can’t learn rhythm, learn to fake it.

3)  Learn to drive stick. I have only done it once and that was for five minutes in driver’s ed. It was in a straight line in the high school football stadium parking lot. Stalling occurred.

4)  Get Rosetta Stone for two languages not known by my partner, one being an Asian language. Have partner get the basics of one or two new languages as well, maybe sign language too. This will mainly be done while on the treadmill or on days when I’m too sore to exercise more.  Multitasking will be the key to my training.

5)  Watch every season of The Amazing Race thus far and take meticulous notes on everything imaginable, including: which legs usually have U-turns, Non-eliminations, etc etc. Note, it’s always a good thing if Phil seems extremely sad if he tells a team they’re the last to check in. Nine times out of ten it means you’re still racing, you’re not really the last team, or it’s a non-elimination. Watching all 20+ seasons can also be done while running on treadmill or stationary exercise equipment.

6)  Memorize passport number. Get global entry for when landing back in the USA.

7)  Get into the habit of always having a large backpack with me and get to where I can run short and long distances with it on my back. Also get to where I consider the bag as an extension of myself to where I would never leave it on a funicular, gondola, in a taxi, or on the wing of a plane.

8)  Try to learn to eat new foods. Find hypnotist to help in that. Or maybe take one of those sexy classes where they teach you how to really relax your throat muscles and allow things to go in without gagging. There’s always a bingeing challenge.

9)  Get to where I can swim long distances

10) Brush up on rock climbing, scuba diving, and canoeing skills. Maybe get somewhat proficient in synchronized swimming and basic gymnastics.

11) Get to where I can run a mile comfortably in snow, sand, and whilst carrying/dragging heavy, cumbersome objects.

12) Learn to communicate with animals, especially notoriously stubborn ones

13) Get full physical and tune-up from my doctor. Find the line of legal supplements/illegal steroids and don’t cross it.

14) Pick out wardrobe. Be prepared for all climates and possible meteorological phenomenon. Shop around for advertising deals from local stores. Let everyone know I can be bought. My team can look like a Nascar vehicle if necessary. I don’t mind having Coke on one sleeve and Pepsi on the other.

15) Last but not least is going to couples therapy with my partner. Even if I go with my mom or childhood friend, it wouldn’t hurt to have some sessions with a professional. Maybe we could learn some tricks of the trade to bypass potential fights.

That’s a pretty good start I think. Six weeks of working on those 15 things and I bet I’d be as ready as possible to take on the race of a lifetime. My passport has been needing some new stamps. It’s feeling neglected. Now I just need to get on the damn show and everything will be perfect in my world.

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November 28, 2011- Manchester, UK

I didn’t really celebrate the fact that Frank and I were going to make our soccer game in Liverpool until we started our descent into Manchester, which happened to be when our plane was right above Liverpool. True, some things could happen that might prevent us from making it in, but all the major hurdles had been cleared.

I made it to the airport on time (left an hour earlier than usual). Our plane made it into JFK. Our plane was all patched up. We had a full complement of crew members. There was no inclement weather. Those are the most likely things to screw up a trip.

Of course the most definite way to assure a cancellation or diversion is to actually vocalize the fact that you have plans in whatever city you’re going to. Then you’re screwed. You tell the crew you have dinner plans in Vegas that night, you’re going to end up in Sacramento.

Once we got up in the air I felt pretty good, but once we landed I felt fantastic. We got to the Arora Hotel at around 8am and my alarm was set for 12:45pm in order to meet in the lobby at 1pm. I figured we’d get to Piccadilly Station at around 1:20pm, jump on a train at 1:30pm, arrive in Liverpool at 2:30pm, get to Anfield by cab at 3pm, and have plenty of time to shop at the club store before kick off at 4pm against the undefeated league leaders Manchester City, the New York Yankees of the Premiership with all the money they spend. I’m only slightly worried about the crowd on our train from Manchester to Liverpool. Don’t want any incidents with the away fans!

I tried to sleep, but I’m just too excited. I’m like a kid at Christmas. Or it could be that I’m not as tired as I should be because I didn’t have to work at all on the flight over and spent most of the time sitting in a First Class seat sleeping, editing photos, or trying to kill the baby roach that insisted on hanging around seat 1F.

When I heard the church bells chime at 10am, I knew sleep wasn’t going to happen. I killed a few minutes by putting in all the UK numbers I had into my new UK phone. Putting those two numbers in took about four minutes. I tested both out and immediately got responses from the recipients. Ok, now what to do with myself?

I got dressed and decided to take a walk since the early morning gloom had given way to bright blue skies. I proudly put on my Liverpool jersey and wisely covered it up with my puffy winter jacket. I grabbed my camera, the nice one, and took off towards Salford, not knowing exactly how far it was. I wanted to see the iconic Salford Lads Club from The Smiths lore.

When I came to my first Starbucks I jumped in and utilized their free internet. I got a white chocolate something-or-other to ensure I kept up the energy, though it made my stomach hurt from sweetness. I caught up on all my games of Words with Friends and sent WhatsApp messages to friends in Texas, Australia, and London. I looked up how far away Salford was and decided to just go to the Manchester Cathedral instead. I hear the bells chime eleven times en route. It’s a beautiful day and not a cloud in the sky. The red brick buildings were glowing like blood in the sun.

After a quick spin around the grounds, I started heading in whichever direction looked most interesting. I never really got to anything of note, but it was fun to explore. I stumbled across a random little vintage clothing store and went in. As much as I would’ve loved to have purchased something just so I could say, “Oh I got this at a hole-in-the-wall thrift store in Manchester,” there really wasn’t anything I wanted, at least not for those prices. Fail.

I came across the Hard Rock Cafe which normally wouldn’t even catch my attention, but the Manchester one might have some decent stuff inside. Maybe they have memorabilia from The Smiths, Stone Roses, Charlatans, Happy Mondays, Joy Division, Oasis, James, or any of the other iconic Mancunian bands. I don’t go in though.

I got some good pics of the Christmas market and of random buildings, but nothing to get super excited about. My photo shoot two days ago in South Kensington London was much more productive. While I’m trying to figure out which way my hotel is, I hear the bells chime twelve times. I pass by China Town and by the Monkey Bar. I’ve never been there but I know it’s very close to the hotel. Within five minutes I’m back in my room. Fifty minutes before I meet Frank in the lobby. I’m killing time now going between the two music video channels, both of which are having Top Christmas songs countdowns. Wham is on now.

The plan is to catch the last train from Liverpool back to Piccadilly at 11pm but more realistically I think we’ll be getting the first train in the morning, the 3am, especially if we win. Last time Chuck and his mates took us out after a game we ended up break dancing on a lighted disco floor at 3am.

Well…. we made it to Liverpool with no problem, even though we had to stand the entire way on the train. Thankfully most of the riders were wearing Liverpool red rather than City blue. When we got off the train Frank noticed Elvis Costello sitting at the Costa coffee cafe in the station. He looked exactly how you’d expect him to look. I took that as a good sign for today’s game. Not sure why.

We go out and join the queue for the cabs and did our customary thing of looking for other people in Liverpool jerseys and asking them if they wanted to share a cab to Anfield Stadium. Elvis was our first choice. We found a couple of Kuwaiti guys instead. I’d never met anyone from Kuwait but they were really friendly and hated Manchester City and their owner, billionaire Sheikh Mansour bin Zaved Al Nahvan of the UAE. They paid for our cab and wouldn’t let us chip in, very nice indeed.

We did a little shopping before the game, I bought a bootleg shirt from the hole in the wall place for six pounds, as is my custom. Frank buys stuff from the official club store which is way more expensive but the money does go to the club, so he’s doing his part funding the purchases of thirty-five million pound gangly, clumsy strikers that look like soft-core porn stars you see on Cinemax. (see above)

Our seats were in the famous Kop end of the stadium. The name comes from the German “Kopf,” meaning “Head.” Back in the day there were no seats, it was standing room only and it got very tight in there. And rowdy. And loud. And sometimes dangerous. This is what The Kop was like during the Beatles heyday, before the game even started. The Kop can be very intimidating to visiting teams and the Kopites are what the Oakland Raider fans in the Black Hole or the Bleacher Creatures in New York strive to be. They don’t come close.

Nowadays it’s a little more civil but we relished the chance to take our place in history as official Kopites. Once they played “You’ll Never Walk Alone” and we had a sing along with 45,000 other fans in red, Frank finally admitted that we’d made it.

The game was good, bad, and ugly. Manchester dominated the first half and scored first. The boisterous crowd fell deathly silent in the 30th minute, except for a tumultuous roar coming from the far corner where everyone was wearing a girly shade of blue. Somehow Manchester scored off of a corner kick, I think it got redirected off of a shoulder but no one could argue that they deserved to be up. It looked as if we’d never even get a shot off, much less score a goal, but somehow a horrible shot got deflected in the net by a Manchester defender and we went into halftime tied. At that point I would’ve been thrilled for the draw against the undefeated Blues.

The second half was a completely different story. We dominated possession and finally started getting some chances. The best part about that was that Liverpool was shooting at the goal we were sitting directly behind. We had the best seats in the house. Manchester couldn’t stop our midfielders but we never quite finished our attacks. Manchester brought on their highly controversial Italian striker Balotelli, who’s as famous for his wonder-goals as he is for his bizarre haircuts, temper tantrums, and setting his house on fire by shooting off fireworks from inside.

He’s only twenty-one and has enormous potential but his temper is legendary and now opposing players know how to push his buttons. He came on halfway through the second half and eighteen minutes later he got his second yellow card and was sent to the showers. I’m not sure how much he got paid for those 18 minutes but I’m sure it’s too much. He broke down a door in the dressing room out of frustration, another fine is coming his way I’m sure.

Even with a man advantage for the last ten minutes, Liverpool couldn’t quite get one in the net. That was mainly because the Manchester goalie, who is also the England keeper, played out of his mind and pulled some amazing saves out of his ass. When the final whistle blew both teams were somewhat pleased with the draw. It was a fantastic game to watch nonetheless.

That should’ve been the end of a long day but it was just the start. We met my friend Chuck and Frank’s twizzler-loving friend Aaron after the game by the famous Shankly statue, and made our way back in town, stripping down every minute of the game and what we should’ve done differently. I thought they should have brought on Craig Bellamy but it turns out that he told the coach that he was too upset to play because his dear friend Gary Speed committed suicide that day. Understandable.

Aaron had to catch a train down to London so we had a couple of quick pints at the White Star pub in Lime Street Station. We checked, but Elvis had left the building. Chuck’s mate Doug showed up and then another guy Steve. A night for the bulls. Frank and I suggested we find a cheaper place, maybe somewhere with food, but they only listened to half of our request.

We went to the student bar, The Flute, but it was not happening. Sunday night is not a good night for that place. We had our obligatory one drink while we watched Barcelona get shut out on television and then walked down to another pub.

More discussion of the squad followed as well as another break-down of how each and ever player performed and who the ultimate striking partner for Suarez should be. We all thought Lucas was simple brilliant as a defensive midfielder. The experts agreed and named him Man of the Match.

Frank and I begged for food and we finally got our wish, a dirty pizza slash kebab joint where you could get a regular pizza for just 3.50. Not a slice mind you, an entire small pizza. We super-sized to the large, which was only 5 quid. We inhaled it and then continued our journey down the road to Hannah’s pub. Hannah’s had a power outrage so everything was dark except for a single candle on each table and a few along the bar. It looked too much like a seance so we took off for a much livelier place, the Shipping Forecast, via the Swan, of course.

More drinks came and I was struggling to keep up. I’m always the slowest drinker with Chuck and his mates and I really should know better than getting into a round with them. I’m usually half way done with my pint when they’re ready for the next round so they’ll tease me until I chug what’s left. Next time I really need to do bottles rather than pints. It’s only slightly less beer, but that little bit might save my ass.

For some reason someone ordered Strawberry beer, so there were glasses of that in front of just Frank and I. I’m guessing the guys ordered those as a joke, but we drank them, like the well-trained monkeys that we are. I think at the end of the night I was trying to introduce Liverpool to Pickleback shots but no one was onboard. They were cool with the shot of Jameson, but skeptical of the pickle juice chaser. I felt like Marty McFly when he was trying to explain his guitar solo to the horrified kids at the 1955 Enchantment Under the Sea Dance.

The last train is at 11pm so we head back to the train station at the last second and they throw us on. The train was packed but we managed to find seats. The carriage was full of drunk Man City fans and they were having the time of their lives. They were still drinking, smoking pot, dancing around, and singing Manchester songs. I tried my best to sleep, but every time I closed my eyes, everything started spinning. I hate to think how bad I’d be if we didn’t have that pizza.

Frank wasn’t feeling well at all, he looked green and his eyes were glazing over. I couldn’t look at him without feeling more sick. That hour train ride seemed like seventeen.  I only have two good memories of the train ride. One was of one of the drunk Mancs trying to climb into the overhead storage rack and falling out onto the floor with a massive thud. The other was going by where the infamous Hacienda night club/live music venue used to be. I was excited to see that. Madchester.

I don’t remember us getting home but we must’ve stopped by Tesco Express because I have a bag from there in my room and some random half-eaten snacks. I think I fell right asleep and even though that 8am wake-up call came way too early, I don’t feel that bad. Out of all the nights I’ve spent with Chuck since I met him in 1999, this is BY FAR the best I’ve ever felt the morning after, only slightly nauseous and a headache on the side.

I took some trusty-rusty Advil gel caps and downed a bottle of water so I think the headache will be done by the time I shower, shave, and watch the highlights of the game on the telly. Having a freshly shaven face gives the illusion to the passengers that I was a good boy the night before and they’re getting me at my best.

It wasn’t the ideal result for the team yesterday, but the night was just fantastic. The best part was that I got to have it on a layover so I’m getting paid for all of it. It’s trips like this that really make me praise my job and wonder why I’d ever give it up to do anything else.

Straight Guy Lesson #20- Seat Back Pockets

For as long as there’s been air travel, passengers, flight attendants, and cleaning crews alike have been fascinated by the contents of the seat back pockets.

They always remind me of that game on The Price is Right when the contestant had to blindly stick their hand in the big bag and pull out a chip. Sometimes the chip would help them win a wonderful prize. Sometimes the chip would get them closer to the booby prize. Sometimes the chip would be a strike and they were one step closer to leaving the show with only whatever shitty thing they had won to get them out of Contestants’ Row and on to the stage.

Almost everyone I talk to has a story of leaving something behind on the plane, usually in the seat back pocket. I myself left my little Canon digital camera in seat 19C on JetStar flight 912 from Sydney to Townsville on Saturday February 21, 2004, not that I really remember or am incredibly bitter. No, it’s not like I had the entire Australian/New Zealand holiday on that camera or anything! Grrrr! Seriously, let me know if you come across it people! You can have the camera, I just want the memory card! But I digress…

Every flight attendant I know has a story of finding a wedding ring, iPod, or wallet in there. They say they get returned to the rightful owner but I’m really not sure. This never happens to me in any case. I only find chewed-up gum and wet tissues.

Still though, we all think that there’s something magical in there, like there is in the cartoons when someone sticks their hand into a kangaroo’s pouch. You can’t just go in with your guns blazing, though, there could be a million things in there and only 5 are good: iPod, iPad, camera, PSP, or wallet. You need to treat that seat back pocket with the utmost respect and with a poet’s tenderness. Pretend the entire thing is a Faberge egg. I know someone who got stuck by a needle! Off they go for a series of tests.

Other than the unknown surprises, there are some things you know will be in the seat back pocket: the inflight magazine, online shopping catalogue, and that staple of the ages, the barf bag. Yes they’re still there and yes people still use them often. Which reminds me, be careful when you handle yours, sometimes people like to use them and just put them back in the seat back pocket. Neither the flight attendants nor the aircraft cleaners will notice this so it will remain in there, stewing, festering, and morphing into something quite alien.

My dear friend and fellow blogger Sara (pictured above) was asking me about barf bags just the other day and that’s what got me thinking about them and about the seat back pockets in general. We decided to both write about the subject.  Here is what she had to say…

“On my flight home from St. Louis I was bored, tired, restless, and probably still a little bit drunk from the night before. (see picture above for what I think Sara meant by that). I began exploring the seat back pocket in front of me. I thumbed through the Sky Mall magazine, the American Airlines magazine, the Spanish language magazine, and some new magazine that they are now wasting money on publishing. I was looking for one thing…. the barf bag.

I was really curious to see just how deep the airline cost-cutting had gone. Did they still provide barf bags to all passengers? In 31 years of flying, I do not recall ever having partaken usage of a barf bag. I also do not recall ever having seen a fellow passenger utilize this resource. It seems like people don’t really get air sick anymore? I would LOVE to know the annual cost of barf bag purchases by American Airlines. And…. success. They do still provide barf bags. They even now spend more money by printing messages on them!

After reading this article about all the crap people dump in seat back pockets, I can see the benefit of providing these and suggesting that they be used for diaper disposal. ew”

Well Sara, let me tell you what I’ve noticed about the barf bags. They do indeed get used, and sometimes even for vomiting into! Unfortunately they’re small and often times the sick person isn’t just throwing up once. That little baggie gets filled up pretty quickly and then we have a problem. They can either go to bag #2 or make a run for the bathroom. I try to stay away from bag #1.

Personally when I hear that someone is getting sick, I fetch one of the large “market bags” we use to collect rubbish. Those things are massive and don’t leak. An entire row could use it as a regurgitation trough and there’d still be plenty of room for more.

Surprisingly enough, we do use those barf bags for other purposes, really useful things. Sometimes passengers have medications that need to be kept cold so we’ll fill the bags with ice and put their meds on top, then return everything to the passenger. Sometimes people get injured or feel feverish so we can turn the bags into little ice packs (always checking to make sure they’re clean inside first, of course.)

Whenever we have a super cool and/or smoking hot passenger that the crew wants to bestow a gift to, those little bags are the perfect size to stash a handful of vodka minis. It’s kinda like we’re packing their lunch for them as they run out the door and off to school, except they’re running out of the plane and off to have a smoke.

Side note: I bet the airlines make money off all the publications in the seat back from the advertising. Just a guess though.

You’ll want to read what Sara has to say about running with the bulls in Pamplona.  SAngRiA Smiles 🙂 is the name of her blog.

Straight Guy Lesson #19- Duty Free

Duty Free shopping is a wonderful thing when you’re traveling abroad. You can find deals on everything from perfume to alcohol to local food specialties. Part of the fun of international travel is seeing what goods they have at the airport’s Duty Free Shop.

Duty Free shopping inflight, however, is a pointless pain in the ass, at least for the flight attendants. It’s a miniscule part for what you do as an international flight attendant but I’ll give you the rundown anyways.

It’s a two-man operation and usually selling Duty Free just means you make a quick lap of the cabin with a heavy cart and say things like “Duty Free purchases?”, “Duty Free today?” “Do me free?” “We have the same crap on the way back.” “You can get this stuff at the airport when you land.” “Duty Free?” “Cigarettes, alcohol, jewelry, fragrances?” “Something for your loved ones meeting you at the airport who will be expecting a gift?” Some of those we say louder than others.

No one really buys anything, though sometimes they’ll stop us and look at the merchandise for half an hour, trying on all the watches and sniffing all the fragrances. This is annoying because as soon as Duty Free is done, we can start our breaks and take a nap. When we get too impatient we’ll leave them with the catalogue and tell them that if they decide on something just to find one of us and we’ll make the sale, knowing full well that by the time they get back to us the Duty Free carts will be locked and sealed.

Flight Attendants hate selling Duty Free and the person in charge of it is always the most junior member of the crew. I don’t understand why we even do it inflight. The passengers could’ve bought the stuff in the airport before we left and in most cases, at the airport when we get in.

When you arrive in airports like London Heathrow, you can’t even exit the airport without going through a massive Duty Free store first. When you leave an airport like Rome Fiumicino, you can’t even get to your gate without going through Duty Free first.

We rarely sell anything inflight and if we do, it’s the cheapest crap imaginable, like the cartons of Benson and Hedges cigarettes, Tolberone chocolates, or an eye mask. The sales hardly make up for the cost of the fuel needed to carry the extra weight of the two heavy Duty Free carts. The airlines must get paid a lot of money to put the carts on the plane because we always have them onboard.

The only practical use of the Duty Free process is having access to electronic chargers. I can charge my phone and iPod on the plane without having to make much of an effort or lug around cords and chargers all over the world. When the cart is opened I can take out the necessary equipment, plug them into a seat power port, go about my business, and then a couple of hours later put the chargers back in the box for resale on a later flight.

There’s also a hangover remedy that we sell that some pilots swear by. I haven’t tried that one yet. I just stick to the oxygen in the cockpit for those fragile days.

There’s no incentive for us to try to sell the Duty Free crap. We get something like 3% of what we sell and they send us a check every few months. The largest check I ever received was for $24 and that was when I was flying Main Cabin a ton right around Christmas.

Sometimes flight attendants will try to market the items we have by placing them on top of the cart for all to see. Sounds like a good idea, but they always put the cheapest stuff on top, the stuff geared for the kids like jelly beans and a little teddy bear wearing a Captain’s hat. Even if they sold everything they had displayed, the money earned wouldn’t buy you a cup of coffee. They should at least promote the expensive jewelry, electronics, or watches. That makes sense to me.

Oh, another fun thing about Duty Free is watching the gentlemen check out each and every ladies’ watch and fragrance we have, and we have A LOT! The time and money he spends on Duty Free is a great gauge to how bad he fucked up on his business trip away from his wife and family.

Some female flight attendants are great at flirting with the men and talking the saps into buying them something expensive or good smelling. I’ve seen it happen time and time again.

The entire Duty Free process on the plane usually takes half an hour. We go through the plane, sell the goods, count the money, inventory the cart, fill out the paperwork, and then lock up the carts with seals and padlocks. Easy, but annoying.

On my last trip it took well over an hour just to finish selling the shit and collect the money because the lady I was working with was trying to sell everything in Euros, convert them into dollars out of her pocket so she’d have Euros for the layover in Rome, and then make all the numbers add up correctly.

By the time I counted everything and finished the rest of the work, we were nearly at the two-hour mark. Somehow all the numbers added up but I’m pretty sure I lost money out of my pocket trying to make change for all these people paying with $100 bills.  The lady insisted on letting them pay with them and I have no idea why.  I usually say “correct change or credit card only.”  We don’t get paid enough to deal with all that shit.

Theoretically, one way you can get ahead in life via the Duty Free cart is to take cash from the people purchasing things. We get a 15% employment discount on everything we buy as crew members. So if a passenger buys a $300 watch and gives you cash for it, you can just secretly claim the purchase as your own, use your card which will only be charged $255, and walk away with a $45 profit. It’s win-win since the passenger isn’t getting ripped off in the slightest, just the company. I don’t know anyone who’s actually tried this but I’m sure it’s just a matter of time.

 

August 12, 2011 GIG-JFK

Bored… Bored… Bored… I am so bored!

On the plane between Rio and New York, heading North.  I’m not sure where we are exactly but it’s about 3am NYC time.  About an hour ago we were over Venezuela.  I could tell by all the oil rigs.  We have about three hours left.  All my passengers are dead asleep.

I slept like a rock on my break, which was good because I’m not sure when my next good sleep will be.  It won’t be tonight because that’s now and we land at 6:30am.  I’ll sleep for a few hours during the day and then go out with Cindy, Diggy, Buffy, and Sport in the East Village.  Diggy and his DJ buddies are throwing a party on Houston and Orchard.  I’m sure that will be a late night.  I’m positive of that.  So that will be very little sleep because the next day I gotta get up at 10am to watch the Liverpool game on TV and then head straight over to Newark to stand by for the SAS flight to Stockholm.  So that night will be spent on a plane and not much sleeping will happen then I’m sure.

Once I get to Sweden I reckon I’ll be out partying all five nights.  I can only hope we sleep in during the day, but I’ll be way too excited to do that.  I’ll be up early and wanting to wander around and check out Stockholm with my camera and journal.  I think my best bet is to take a sleeping pill on the plane to Stockholm and sleep all the way there.  At least I’ll be hitting the ground fully rested.  I won’t be at my house again until the night of the 23rd.  I left it on July 29th so that’s nearly a month.  I’m glad I don’t have any pets.  My plants will be lucky to be alive.

I got the lowest maintenance plants known to man.  My mom once threw one away and six months later it was still alive.  That’s the perfect plant for me.  I like my friendships that are like that.  They can remain dormant yet preserved thru months of neglect.

It’s really like I don’t even have a house.  I’m not sure why I got one.  Obama’s $8000 First Time Home Buyers tax credit was too good to pass up.  I love being home more than anything, but I’m also perfectly happy staying in New York and running around with my friends there on my days off.  I also love to travel and could do that forever.  I always thought it was a good thing to be that adaptable, being able to live anywhere, but now I think it says something about my personality, and maybe that’s not necessarily a good thing.  Maybe that’s why I’m still single.

I’m getting even more bored.  This flight is dragging.  I’m eating Brazilian cheese balls by the handful and drinking vegetable broth just out of boredom.  I’ve also noticed that I’ve been staring at the ice cream for the last ten minutes. It’s as good as in my stomach.

I’m so damn bored that I’m now racing glasses of juice.  I had set out ten little glasses of OJ and apple juice in case someone woke up and wanted one.  They’re sitting on the counter and the vibration from the plane is causing them to very slowly move down the countertop.  At first I thought the lady I’m flying with kept moving them but then I noticed it happened again when she was in the back of the plane.  They don’t go very fast.  It takes several minutes to travel a few inches.  They’re moving at glacier speed.

That’s when I decided to race two of them.  I picked an orange and an apple and made sure they held the same exact amount of juice.  I moved them back ten inches and let them go.  It’s been about five minutes now and Apple has moved 3cm and Orange 1cm.  It’s like watching turtles race.  I decided it’s more fun if I don’t watch them and just check back every few minutes to see how they’re going.

All the other glasses of juice are lined up in the back, cheering them on.  There are seven orange juices and just one apple so I’m rooting for Apple.  He’s a loner, Dottie, a rebel.  Some of the OJ spectators aren’t staying where they’re supposed to on the sidelines.  They’re slowly vibrating their way on to the track.

Fuck it, I’m starting the ovens early.  It won’t get us into NYC any earlier but it makes me think that we are.  The next step in all the steps that need to happen to end this flight is to serve First Class breakfast.  That should be happening in an hour but I think I’ll do it now instead, even if it means just two of us serving the entire cabin while the other two First Class stews are still on break.  Then we can move on to the next step.  Let’s get these steps done as quickly as possible, no matter how sloppy and rushed.  I’d make a horrible twelve-stepper.

Dying in a Plane Crash

I get asked about Plane Crashes more than anything else when I tell people I’m a flight attendant…by FAR!  It’s not even close between that topic and all the rest (unruly passengers and the mile high club)

People are fascinated by it.  I’m guessing because there are very few things in this world that are more visually impressive than a plane crash.  Not impressive in a good way, but it certainly creates a lasting image doesn’t it?  Think of how people rubberneck to see a fender bender; what if you were creeping by a wrecked 747? Of course you would look and remember every detail of what you saw.

Honestly though, I don’t think about it that often.  I mean would you if you were flying half a million miles every year? If it does happen though, and I’ve already told my mom this, don’t feel like that’s the worst way a person could go. Here are worse ways to die in my opinion (in no particular order)

Eaten by piranhas

Burned to death

Buried alive (in either cold snow or hot sand or anything in between)

Dipped into boiling tar- who really cares if feathers are later added?

Locked-in syndrome-usually follows a stroke, very drawn out and painful

Eaten alive by fire ants, or any kind of ants.  In fact it’d suck just as much to be eaten alive by lady bugs

Wood Chipper (it was horrible enough watching Steve Buscemi in one in Fargo, and he was already dead!)

Tossed into the ocean with concrete blocks on your feet.  Most of the traditional mob deaths would be worse than a plane crash, though Joe Pesci’s death in Goodfellas might be alright.

Lost in the middle of the ocean.  That may just be my personal worst way to die. I don’t like to even think about it.

Being on the Titanic, nearly as bad as above but at least you’re not alone and hopefully you had some decent food and entertainment before the iceberg- maybe you even had the chance to draw a rich girl naked!

Starvation

Crucifixion

Falling into a pit of snakes

Falling into a cave, breaking a leg, and never being able to get help

Smoke Monster from Lost

Watching that video from The Ring

Saying “Candyman” three times in the mirror

Anything Freddy Krueger related

Any of the ways you learn about when you go to the Torture Museum in Amsterdam http://www.torturemuseum.com/

I’m sure in those few seconds when you realize your plane is going down you’re going to experience terror like no other, but luckily it doesn’t last for very long and death itself is very quick and painless.  I’m not saying that’s how I want to go, but at least it’s quick.  And as far as the conversation in Clerks about masturbating one last time before you die in a plane crash… could you really get an erection in that moment?

So those are my thoughts on plane crashes, now please never ask me about them if I meet you in a bar or especially if we meet on a plane.  Next blog will be much more upbeat I promise. This was probably the wrong thing to post just hours before I have to fly for thirteen days in a row.

July 19, 2011 Madrid, Spain

Just got back from the obligatory outing for food.  I was out of my hotel room for only half an hour, then right back in and I don’t feel bad about that.  I need to rest.  I need to recover.  I’m on Day 8 of 12 in a row of flying and I was very sick on Day 1.  I blame the Charlie Sheen/Amy Winehouse weekend we had on the Guadalupe as to why I was sick to begin with.  I’m not a teenager anymore and I really need days to recover from things like that, not working a stretch of 12 days starting the very next day.  It was the absolute worst time to be sick but there was nothing to do about it.  I need money.

I could’ve taken it easy on the layovers but I had plans for three of the four and they were set in stone.  This Madrid one is the only one I had free for R and R.  I have it highlighted on my calendar with a big smiley face and exclamation marks.

The first trip was to London the same night that I left Austin. That was when I was really hurting.  I ached all over with a fever and sore throat.  But I had a date to go to Ghost the Musical in the West End with two lovely co-workers followed by an after party with the cast and crew.  That day included way too much champagne before, during, and after the performance and not enough food, but it was fun talking with the actor that played Willy Lopez, the thug-life killer.

I don’t even remember what I did when I got back to New York but the night probably started and ended with NyQuil, again with no food. I can’t remember if I’m supposed to be starving or feeding this damn thing!

Next day was Paris and I was surprised to find that I was starting to feel a little better. I really thought the London layover would take its toll and send me back to Square One. We were a bit delayed getting to the hotel because of a flight attendant and an asshole passenger getting into a fight and having the police meet us at the gate, but I still got a decent nap in before meeting my Aussie friend and her mom at their hotel just off the Champs Elysees.

I blame the stew just as much as the passenger for that whole mess. The drunk girls in the row behind the PAX didn’t help matters at all.  Everyone even the least bit involved made it so much worse. I didn’t think it was worth it to get the police involved; nothing was going to happen to the guy. Sure enough, they scared him a bit and then let him go on his way like nothing ever happened.

I got to the Hotel Powers just after 2pm and at around 8pm we finally left the room, but only to go back to the liquor store because our three bottles of wine were gone. This time we got champagne and some random drink called Desperado that infused beer and tequila and red.  I think red may have been the healthiest thing in there. It’s the sort of purchase you make only after drinking three bottles of wine without any food.  We did think about food when we were getting reinforcements but it was all for show, God knew it didn’t matter at that point if I ate or not.  By the time I left the hotel after midnight I had only eaten 7 little pickles and about 30 crackers with hummus on it.

Again, I was hoping to finally get some rest but plans get in the way.  My Swedish friend is getting kicked out of our country in two weeks so I’m making sure I hang out with her and her boyfriend as much as possible when I’m in New York.  I got in from Paris, watched the World Cup final, and then headed straight out to the Brooklyn Bridge to meet my friends.  We walked across the bridge, took some pictures, stood in line at Grimaldi’s for an hour, ate a ton of pizza, and then called it a night. I resisted the urge to stay out and watch a movie.  I knew I needed the rest. I promised we could have a big night very soon, just not that night. I was proud of making the right decisions regarding my health.

So now I’m in Madrid and the weather is beautiful out there.  People are having amazing, memorable days in Spain and I could not care less.  I don’t feel bad at all about not doing anything.  I have a stack of Netflix I’ve been carrying around for three weeks and now more than ever I need to be good about getting those things watched and back to whence they came.  I think I’m going to cancel my membership.

An hour or so ago I washed the jeans I’ve been wearing everyday for the last week in the sink with shampoo. They needed it, though I’m not sure they’ll be dry by the time I need to leave in nine hours.  I didn’t think of that.

Tomorrow night in New York there are more plans to hang out with my soon to be Departed Friends and I’m hoping we can keep it substance free.  The big night out I promised will NOT be happening tomorrow night if I can help it.

My final trip of this ungodly stretch is back to London and there are more plans with my favorite people there. Even though I intend to sleep before going out, it doesn’t really happen there for some reason, too many distractions.  Then finally, FINALLY when I get back to New York from that London trip I can head over to Blue Jet and take the last flight out of New York back to Austin.  Just thinking about being in my own bed sounds heavenly.

The pillows here in Madrid are horrible, as they were in Paris.  I don’t get why they’d make pillows like that, all long and skinny and hard. In Paris they’re just way too fluffy.  When they sit on the bed they look so big and full but when you put your head on them they deflate so that your head is practically touching the mattress, no support at all. They look like tortillas when you microwave them.

I can sleep really well in the beds in London, when I’m given the time to sleep.

When I went out for food I forgot which city I was in until I saw a juggler in the middle of the intersection, working for tips from the people stopped at the red light.  I saw some very pretty girls with horrible bangs and ugly frames around their glasses, then it was obvious that I was in Spain. I think I’m going to see if the pant presser can do anything about drying these jeans.

Straight Guy Lesson #18- Plane Crash Dreams

When you think about how your life is going to change when you get a flight attendant job you think of the normal adjustments.  You know you’ll be more nomadic, always in transit, living out of a suitcase. You’ll travel more on your days off and develop friendships with people in many different cities/countries. You’ll learn a whole new vocabulary full of airline jargon. You’ll forget the days of the week and only know dates.  The term “weekend” will lose all meaning. You’ll be able to read military time as quickly as normal time and layovers will be in terms of hours, not days.  Even if your layover is exactly two days, you’ll say “forty-eight hours” and not “two days.”

I knew all of those things would happen.  I was ready for it. What I was not expecting or even warned about was all the plane crash dreams I’d have and they start almost immediately.  I think my first one came during the first week of flight attendant training.  When all you hear all day and all night for seven weeks is about mechanicals, crashes, evacuations, medical emergencies, emergency equipment locations, terrorists, hijackers, and general airplane safety, it really is no wonder your brain keeps it going even while you slumber.

I had several dreams a week during training and I prayed once I was on the line and had a life again, it’d calm down.  I thought getting out of the airline bubble and exposing myself to non-airline things would do me a world of good. The frequency of the dreams did calm down, but never went away.  For my first few years of flying I’d still have plane crash dreams once a week.  Then it slowed to once a month.  Thirteen years ago today I was in flight attendant training and I can say that now I still have these dreams once a month, at least once a month.  I have more dreams about planes crashing than about sex, which is a damn shame.  Can we at least mix the two?  Please?

It took me awhile to mention this to my other classmates during training but once the topic was on the table, we were all in agreement.  I wasn’t the only one suffering from this nocturnal hell. My classmates and I even noticed several prominent, repeating themes in these dreams.  One was this recurring thing where we’d be flying over water at a very low altitude, so low that the tops of waves would lick the bottom of the plane.  Eventually a big wave would come over and just drag the plane down into the murky depths.

Another universal theme was flying under things like power lines or bridges, sometimes through tunnels as well.  I’d say at least half of my plane crash dreams have to do with power lines or bridges.  We usually make it under but our wings clip something and we go down.

I wasn’t really that shocked when I learned that other flight attendants had plane crash dreams but I was fascinated by the fact that skimming the ocean and flying under things was something shared by most of my colleagues.  Even some flight attendants from airlines in other continents have said the same thing. I’d really like someone to explain that one to me!  Thoughts people?

I think the strangest part of these dreams is that I always survive. Sometimes we all do, but usually I’m the only one.  I think when it happens for real I won’t even panic.  I’ve seen it played out hundreds of times before and I know what to expect. I’ve kinda known from the day I started this job that I’m going to die in a plane crash. I’m not pessimistic or scared, it’s just a feeling I have.

On May 22, 2008 I had an interesting twist on the usual  ho-hum plane crash dream.   This is my journal entry from that day…

I had the most disturbing dream today.  It was a plane crash dream- which I’ve kinda gotten used to.  When I first wake up they disturb me just as much as ever but the staying power doesn’t last that long anymore, just a moment of terror then right back to sleep. 

Today though, for the very first time, I had one of these dreams while I was sleeping on the plane inflight. 

In my dream we had just taken off from LGA and after a couple of minutes the Captain made a frantic announcement as the plane started struggling and flying erratically.  Unfortunately the PA system was really bad and I couldn’t understand a word he said, it sounded like on the subway, or Charlie Brown’s teacher, or Kenny from South Park. 

I could tell we were going down but also turning around, trying to make it back to LGA.  I didn’t care.  I didn’t even look out the window to see what was going on; I just knew it wasn’t going to end well.  People were screaming and we kept going down and turning sharply.  I just stared forward and tried to go to sleep. 

Eventually I looked out the window right when we were about ten feet from the water, though we were also right by land.  You could tell the pilot was trying to go down in the water but close enough where you wouldn’t have to swim very far to get to shore.  That made a lot of sense to me.  He did a great job with the dying aircraft and splashed it down with minimal damage on the edge of the bay.  The top of the aircraft was blown off but that only made it easier to get out. 

When the plane settled, no one moved.  I didn’t understand why so I jumped up from my seat, climbed out the gaping hole, ran down the wing toward the shore, and jumped out into the shallow water.  I knew we weren’t supposed to bring anything with us but I also knew no one was going to run me down and stop me so I grabbed all my stuff. 

When I finally got off the plane and to safety, I looked back and saw that the wreck was actually worse than I thought.  There was a very good chance the people in the front may have been badly hurt or killed.  My photojournalism training kicked in and I started taking pictures of this “spot news.”  Funny how my need to help the other people didn’t really enter into it.

I woke up right about then, right when our plane started it’s descent for landing at LGA.  I woke up in a fright, I mean it really fucked with me.  Was it just one of those things or was this some kind of premonition?  I can’t explain how different it was having a plane crash dream while flying, but it definitely added an extra layer of terror.  I guess because the best part of a nightmare is that you wake up and realize you’re safe at home and so far removed from whatever you were experiencing, but this time I woke up and I was in the exact situation as in my nightmare.

St. Patrick’s Day 2011 Tokyo

We’re about three hours away from landing at Tokyo Haneda, not too shabby. We’re flying right along the International Date Line.  I have no idea which side we’re on.  I have no idea what day it is.  I slept during my entire three-hour break.  It was fantastic.  My one and only passenger is still asleep.  I haven’t had to do anything for the entire flight.

There are three meal services to do up here in First Class between New York and Tokyo but I didn’t have to do a thing or cook a single meal other than the needy cockpit.  Well 3/4ths of them were needy, one was really nice and low maintenance. I just move the carts around in preparation for maybe working, but it never came to that. This is easy money.  Not only am I not having to do shit, we’re understaffed by two people so that will be an extra $270 in my pocket. Because of the earthquake and subsequent tsunami and subsequent nuclear power plant explosions, all the people who were supposed to work this trip didn’t show up.  They had to scramble to find minimum crew.  I didn’t care, I needed the hours.  What’s a little extra radiation? If I can’t be tan I may as well be green.

Now I have the last meal service ready to go along with the chocolate chip cookies which I baked to perfection.  Too bad no one will know anything about them because no one will eat them, not even I.  Unfortunately the strange blind man in 1J is coming back with us to New York the morning after tomorrow.  He only booked this flight to rack up some miles.  I guess he needs a few more long flights to retain his status of Executive Prick.

I liked him when he first got on, how could I not with him being the one and only First Class passenger? Me being overly nice was my eventual downfall.  When offering him the newspapers before take off I elaborated on each and every paper we had.  Usually I just say, “Paper today?”

No, I was going to make a point of providing excellent customer service so I did just that and said more about the papers we had than what was printed in the papers themselves.  I felt pretty good about how I presented them but the guy just glares in my general direction and says, “I’m blind!”  Oops.  I had no idea.  It looked like he had a lazy eye but it also looked like the other one was okay.  I apologized and he said it was fine but things would never be the same between he and I.  The worst part was while he was eating his meal (from coach), I was sitting in the empty seat/pod in front of him working on my bids.  I was facing backwards so that I could keep an eye on my cabin.  The man calls the Pursor over and complains that I’m staring at him while he’s eating and it makes him feel uncomfortable.  So I give up, is he blind or not?  I guess only when convenient.

The sun was down when we took off and has been down ever since.  It’ll never come up on this thirteen-hour flight.  It’s nearly 7pm in Tokyo and so the sun has set there as well.  I love it.  The other straight male flight attendant was bitching about it being dark the entire flight but I couldn’t be happier.  A sleeping passenger is a happy passenger.

One hour away.  My passenger is still sleeping though I’m not sure if he’s still blind or not.  I caught him reading his menu earlier.  We’re right above Sapporo and took a turn so that we’re now going straight south.  I’m looking forward to seeing a new hotel.  That’s always fun, especially in Japan where they usually have random things.  I’m also excited about being in a new city.  Tokyo and Narita are not the same thing at all.  That’s like saying Yonkers is the same as Manhattan. I already told my crew that my room is open for nightcaps when we get in.  One guy and one girl have already given me their RSVP.

NEXT DAY-  I’m trying to decide if I want to try to figure out the subway and go into downtown Tokyo.  I know I do but I’m really dragging my feet here.  Some of it is getting over a hangover from my room party last night.  It wasn’t a party so much as just having Kylie and Max over for drinks, music, and Uno.  At 4am we were all wasted and falling asleep on the floor.  I blame the physical exhaustion rather than the vodka.  We called it a night and everyone stumbled back to their rooms.

When I woke up at 9:30am I was still drunk.  When I woke up at 3pm I was still drunk.  The room is still spinning and it’s 5pm.  There could be an earthquake and I’ll probably not even realize it because I’ve been feeling the floor move all day.  WOW, while I was typing that sentence we really did have an earthquake.  The blinds started moving as if the window was open and a breeze was coming in.  Everything else just kinda shifted and slided for about 10 seconds.  A quick check with the USGS website confirmed the quake.  Ok, I may need to get out of here. I don’t want to be found in my underwear in rubble.

Back from my excursion into downtown Tokyo.  It was a little dicey for a while but I made it.   It had nothing to do with natural elements, it was all my own stupidity.  I’m glad I went out today.  Just the subway ride alone was worth it.  The people watching was out of this world.

It’s incredibly easy getting to downtown from here in Yokohama, even though it takes a long time if you’re on a local train.  I only had 600 yen and 440 of it was used to buy my ticket into town.  I figured I could find an ATM or charge my return ticket.  I wasn’t worried.

I got off at the lost stop- Shibuya, that famous place where they have the massive intersection where hundreds of people cross the street every single time the Walk sign comes on.  The first thing I do is cross with the masses and it feels electric.  This is already way better than that boring ol’ Narita layover.  Tokyo is pretty stimulating.

After I cross the street I try to figure out the best way to take a picture of the insanity.  I see there’s an enclosed walking bridge connecting the train station to another building across the street.  It has large glass windows and is three floors above ground.  That should work.  I go up there and get my photo along with thirty outtakes.  From there I just wander around the streets.  I go down little side streets and I go down busy boulevards with huge buildings and big colorful signs.

Everything is photo worthy.  Anything written in Japanese looks like it needs its picture taken. I got pictures of some restaurants, strip clubs, internet/karaoke combo stores, and then a series of a group of firefighters surrounding a building looking intense.  There were at least twenty of them and five fire trucks but no one ever saw smoke or fire, though we were all staring at the same building for half an hour.

I realized it’s St. Patrick’s Day but I’m not sure if it’s appropriate to pinch people in Japan. I’m not even sure if they know to wear green today. A see a few kids wearing green jeans but I think they wear those any day of the week. I doubt it’s a celebration of Irish Pride. Should I educate them on the phenomenon? I think I’d be cute to see more teens wearing, “Kiss Me I’m Irish” pins. None of the firemen are wearing green but they look like they’d get mad if I pinched them.

Along the way I looked for currency exchange places and ATMs.  I found no exchange places but many ATMs.  Most ATMs weren’t in English and the ones that were, didn’t seem to like my cards.  Uh-oh!

Eventually I realized that I wasn’t going to be able to get out any money.  There’s just no way.  That’s when the search for loose yen began.  I looked on the ground, I looked around over fifty vending machines, I even looked for some kind of fountain where people might throw in coins for luck.  I saw a band playing for change outside a train station and thought about just borrowing a little from them.  I’m sure they wouldn’t have minded if I left them a twenty-dollar bill. It almost came to that.

I had a few yen, enough for a kids ticket or a very short ride, like maybe to the next station.  At least I could buy a ticket to get into the station and get on a train. You can’t get onto a train without some sort of ticket to put into the machine. I decided to just do that and then I’d figure it out when I got back to my stop.  I went to the self-serve machine and put in the rest of my coins.  I got a ticket that would only let me exit a stop or two down the line, but that’s alright, I’ll just keep going even though I know I’ll have major problems later.  At least I’d be near the hotel before someone confronts me on this.  I couldn’t decide if it’d be better to claim out-of-town ignorance or say that I lost my ticket.  I practiced both scenes.

I spend most of the time on the train worrying about this and taking photos of all the Japanese men and women in their little white masks.  Looks like I accidentally got on a train car that’s supposed to be just for women.  It’s all pink and says “women only” but I’m not the only guy on here so I don’t worry about it.

When I get to my station I see that I’m the only one to get off the train.  It’s at a big mall and conference center so after it closes for the night, the area is a ghost town.  That’s a good thing.  I see an exit turnstile and it’s wide open.  There are a couple random people standing around but I don’t think they’re cops or Metro employees.  I take a deep breath and just walk through quickly, but not suspiciously fast.  The once-opened doors start to close on me but I slide through them.  Some kind of bad beeping and red light flashing occur so I just keep going and look confused in case anyone is looking.

There are several exits for the station but I take the very first one I come to.  I run up the escalator and don’t look back until I’m above ground and out of the station.  Thank God.  That could have been a nasty situation, especially if no one spoke English.  I had a feeling it’d be ok but at the same time, it could’ve ended badly and I knew that.  I was very thankful that my exit was a relative non-event.  Next time, bring yen and lot’s of it.  Now I have six hours to kill before my 4:40am pick up.  Thank God for free internet and March Madness.

Straight Lesson #12- The Total Body Work Out

I was non-revving from New York City back home to Austin on a full flight.  I was lucky to get on as a stand-by.  I had a window seat but a girl was sitting next to me, reading a fitness magazine.  She read that thing for over four hours.  I  had no idea there was that much to actually read in a fitness magazine but apparently there is.  I read over her shoulder some of the time and I hoped that she could tell that I was reading over her shoulder and not looking down her blouse.  I hope her dad across the aisle just didn’t see anything at all.  One article was about a basic work out cycle for the week:

Day 1- Upper body

Day 2- Lower body

Day 3- Day of Rest

Day 4- Upper body

Day 5- Lower body

Day 6- Cardio

Day 7- Cardio

I’d love to be in better shape and maybe drop a few pounds but I just can’t get myself to join a gym or go out and play sports, mainly because no one will play with me.  I literally have a trunk full of sports gear that never gets used.  It’s always too hot or too cold or too this or too that or their kid needs to go to the frickin’ Emergency Room because their fever won’t break.  It’s always SOMETHING!

So I decided to come up with a workout routine that any flight attendant can follow.  On the days you’re supposed to work out your upper body, those are the days you work the galley.  You move heavy racks of food from the carts to the ovens.  You open a dozen of bottles of wine.  You carry inserts full of soda to the middle of the cabin and leave them there for use inflight.  You break the massive brick of melted and then re-frozen ice catering gives you into normal sized cubes.

Then you can just move things around for the fun of it.  You don’t really have to move all the other inserts of soda from the Supplement Cart to the cubbies in the galley but you can in the name of health.  During boarding, you can get out there and actually help the passengers with their heavy bags.  We’re not supposed to lift anything that’s not ours, but we’re going for a look here people, so it’s worth the risk of injuring your back and being out for a month, uncovered by insurance because we were doing things we aren’t supposed to.  When everyone is asleep you can do dips using the jumpseat to work your triceps.  In the hotel room we can do some push ups and sit ups to further the cause.  If you’re not ready for proper push ups, start by doing some 45 degree angle ones in the bathroom against the sink.  It’s a start.

On the Lower Body days we’re going to be in the aisle.  We’re going to pull those carts up and down the aisle all by ourselves.  If someone asks to help, we’re going to say “Get Away”, we’re working our calves!  To really feel the burn we’re going to pull the carts up right after take off, while the plane is still climbing at a steep incline.  Make sure you’re capable of this though, if you accidentally let go of the cart, someone will get a knee shattered when the cart hits them.

We’ll also help out with closing all the overhead bins right after boarding.   We’re going to step on the seat and concentrate on working our legs.  Often times that’s the only way for short people to close the middle overhead bins, to elevate on the aisle seat.  Most people recruit a tall man to get up and close the middle overhead bins but we’re working on our Adonis body so we’ll do it ourselves, up and down on every single row until all the bins are closed.

Once we get to the hotel we can take the stairs instead of the elevator.  We can go balls-out and do the stairs with our luggage in tow but that’s not recommended for beginners.  Word of advice:  don’t take the stairs too quickly, you can make yourself dizzy and nauseous going around in circles like that.

For the cardio days we can start by actually answering some of those call lights and doing our fifteen minute walk-arounds that we’re supposed to do.  If you answer every call light that goes off, right when it goes off, you’ll find that you’re up and moving around the entire flight.  So instead of rolling your eyes when the chime goes off and thinking, “I’m sure they meant to turn on their overhead light,” get out there and check it out!  Go the long way if you have to.  If the call light is right by you at 43J, go all the way up the A/B side to the front of the cabin then back down the H/J side until you get to the seat in need, whatever gets the heart pumping.  If you’re on a spacious plane you can do a variety of calisthenics in the coach galley.  There’s room for several people to run in place, do jumping jacks, or throw down some yoga mats.  On the layover you can take long walks or better yet, jog.  if you’re in a nice neighborhood, take a run and check out your beautiful surroundings.  If you’re in the hood, just pretend that someone’s chasing you.

The most obvious solution to getting a killer body without joining a gym is to go to the hotel gym whenever available.  Barring that, these everyday exercises on and off the plane can get you in shape and healthier without doing anything out of your normal work routine.  Of course having a healthy sex life never hurt anyone either.

Straight Guy Lesson #4-Probation

Every major airline has a probationary period that starts after you complete your training when you get “on the line.”  During this hellish time (usually a few months) you can be fired for absolutely anything without an explanation or apology.  One day you’ll be working, the next day you’ll be back wherever you came from.  During Probation you will be scared shitless anytime anything goes remotely wrong, no matter how ridiculous or insignificant.  Any time you have to tell a passenger that you’ve run out of their first meal choice or that they won’t make their connecting flight is told with such unspeakable dread.  Any disagreement with a fellow crew member is reason to toss and turn all night long.  You hold your tongue no matter what people say to you or how horribly they treat you.  Like a slave, you just turn the other cheek and take whatever is thrown at you. Thank you Sir may I have another?!  You’ll feel like you have no soul or backbone.  In your mind you have all your witty comebacks and how exactly you’re going to tell the passengers off, but just file those away for a while.  You’ll have plenty of time to be a jerk right back to the passengers later on, but for now, you have to play ball.

You may find yourself allowing three hours travel time to get to the airport when it normally takes forty-five minutes.  You cannot be too careful.  That day when you get off of probation is circled in red on your calendar. Your life will change that day, especially if you work for an airline that has a union.  Once the union covers you then it’s damn near impossible to get fired, no matter how hard you try.  Feel free to use all the witty retorts and give all the attitude you wish after you make it off of probation.

Just in case you think you may get fired though, here are some Must Dos that you need to accomplish ASAP. Once you’ve completed this list then you’ve pretty much done the best things you can do as a flight attendant and you can hold your head up high as you’re being fired for gross incompetence or whatever they say you did or did not do.  You’ll also have the staple photographs and scars that prove that you were at one time a flight attendant.

#1  Have your picture taken sitting in the Captain’s seat

#2  Have your picture taken standing in an engine

#3  Have your picture taken lying inside an overhead bin

#4  Join the Mile High Club

#5  Stay out all night on a layover and show up for pick up without sleep or shower

#6  Hook up on a layover with local

#7  Show up to the airport on your days off and just fly somewhere random, just because you can

#8  Sit in the cockpit for either take-off or landing

#9  Hook up on a layover with another crew member

#10  When you ferry a flight (no passengers, just crew) sit on a plastic tray at the front of the aircraft in the aisle and “aisle surf” during take off.  Hopefully you’ll be on a wide body aircraft with two aisles and you can race a friend.  Gambling will occur, not only on who wins the race but also on who bleeds the most.  Fun times for everyone.

#11 Upgrade someone just for the hell of it

#12 Get an oven rack burn/scar.  No one will believe you were a flight attendant until you have scar lines on your forearms.  In fact, burn off all your fingerprints as well, just like a real flight attendant.

The Modern Businessman

Two things that I learned right away, but was unaware of at the time of my hiring are this: 1) my airline caters to the business traveler and 2) the business traveler is a strange creature.

I did not know this when I signed up for this gig; I had never even met a businessman before.  Now I see the same cookie cutter middle-aged businessman a hundred times a day.  They have the same drab suit, same iPhone phone with a Blackberry chaser, same Jimmy Johnson haircut and Jimmy Johnson hair color.  They have the same tubby stomach that they rest their identical laptop computers on.  They drink the same single malt scotch, tell the same jokes, and read the same magazines.

As worthless as these guys are to me in my existence, they aren’t that bad as passengers.  Businessmen travel all the time and know what to expect on the plane as far as the service is concerned, which limits my ability to cut corners.  They know what we will and will not do for them.  Since I’m male they aren’t that nice to me, but at the same time I don’t have to deal with them hitting on me relentlessly.  They pretty much leave me alone and I’m ok with that.

The people who travel every five years are the worst; they want everything under the sun and expect the flight attendants to do everything for them, like we did in the 1970s.  They don’t understand you have 124 other people to serve and it’s not our job to provide their baby with a diaper or stow their overstuffed suitcases in the overhead bins.

Whenever I do see a young person, early twenties to early thirties, I leech onto them like white on rice.  It is so rare a passenger is my age and traveling alone.  They must talk to me whether they’d like to or not.  Most don’t want to chat too long to the hired help though; we cater to stuck-up, self-important brats along with the older businessman.  One is the larval stage of the other: the caterpillar to the butterfly, but in a less beautiful way.

Escape from Amman

It’s 1:07am right now. I’ve been at the Amman airport for six hours and the next flight I MAY can catch is in another 9:37 hours. It was an amazing ten days in the Middle East but now the pendulum has swung.

I never thought I’d be sitting in an employee cafeteria in an airport in Jordan, chilling with the baggage handlers and watching handball in Arabic, but here I am.  A young man has already offered me some of whatever he was eating.  I said No Thank You but I’m curious what it was.  I really am hungry.

I have a diet 7-up and paprika flavored Mr. Chips with me at my table.  I’m already starting to go a bit dizzy from sleep deprivation but I can’t think about that.  I have a long night ahead of me.  I just hope this place stays open all night.  They have departures all night so I may be in luck.  No way I’m spending another fucking $100 on a hotel after everything else I spent on this trip.  I can handle this.  It’ll build character.

At around 11:15pm I knew I wasn’t going to get on the Delta flight straight to New York.  No non-revenue passengers did.  They had seats open, but elected to take cargo rather than people and so the plane was too heavy for both.

All the Delta employees and pass riders had options.  They immediately listed for their partner Air France’s flight to Paris leaving at 1:45am.  Since I don’t work for Delta they weren’t able to help me.  They said the next flight would be in two days, maybe.

I didn’t have anything to do so I just hung out with this retired Delta wife and a family of five from North Carolina.  Their kids were about 8, 12, and 17 I imagine.  The father patiently explained that they may be at this for a couple of days before they got out of Amman.  Since I didn’t have anything to do, they were my entertainment and I told them so.  I was the comic relief in their nonrev misadventure.  I made jokes and told them that if they just filmed this whole ordeal and sent it to Amazing Race, they’d get on for sure.  They loved me.

For two hours I followed them around, living vicariously through them since I couldn’t get on that flight even if I wanted to, even if I bought a last second full fare ticket.  I asked the family how they were going to split the family up if they only had 3 seats available.  They hadn’t come up with an answer and I said they’d better do it now, in case it comes to that and they force an answer immediately.

The mom and the 17-year-old would go first, then who knows.  The retired lady didn’t seem bothered by any of it.  She didn’t care what happened and knew it wasn’t in her control.  None of us had any control.

If I had internet then I could come up with various plans and even buy a ticket if need be, but internet was not to be found.  That made us completely useless in all of this.  That was the most frustrating part.  It’s stressful enough when you have to scramble for exit strategies and you have a computer at your disposal, it’s quite another not having that, or a list of flights, or a departure board.  I’m trying not to think about it and neither was my retired friend, who was spending a week visiting the Holy Land.  She must have found peace.  I must’ve too.

At the last second the Air France people ran over and took away all my friends.  I should be happy because now they aren’t competition for the Royal Jordanian flight to New York tomorrow morning, but I liked their company.  We felt like we were in it together.  We were just starting to get to know each other and laugh at our predicament when they were whisked away and taken to Paris.

I never really considered Royal Jordanian as a heavy hitter in my airline’s global alliance.  We tolerated them but never took them seriously.  I mean what does Royal Jordanian really bring to the table? Today however, I don’t give a shit about any other airline in the world. It’s all about Royal Jordanian and I’ll sing their praises for all time if I get on that flight tomorrow.

I had nothing left to do in Terminal 2 except for say Bon Voyage and watch Turkish Airlines check-in so I came over to this local cafe nestled between the two terminals.  He said there was internet here but he lied.  I don’t even have a signal.  At least in the other terminal I had a signal that didn’t do anything.  I have a Vicadin and I’m debating on taking it.  I’d like to have an outlet so I can charge my computer.  At the very least I can watch movies or write in my journal some more.  I’m at 54% right now.

This airport is in the middle of nowhere.  It’s all barren land and bedouins for half an hour in any direction.

The employees hanging out in the airport employee cafeteria (all male) briefly put the tv on what I’m assuming is the closest they get to porn in Jordan.  A guy was laying in bed with a naked girl but the sheets were pulled up so you couldn’t see anything.  The men staring at the tv were giggling like school girls and kept looking over at me.  One raised his eyebrows and nodded up to the tv, making sure I saw what was on.  I nodded back and pretended to be into it. I raised my eyebrows and smiled like a pervert.

From there they moved on to American wrestling.  It’s in English but with Arabic subtitles.  I wonder if they can understand what they’re saying or if they’re just watching the action.  I’m getting a great peak at what happens with Muslim Jordanian men at 2am at a desolate airport in the middle of a desert.

There are now 14 men watching RAW and a couple more watching from the open window outside.  They are into this shit.  All eyes are glued to the screen.  Everyone is chain-smoking and laughing uncontrollably at the most exciting moments.  I’ve never enjoyed watching wrestling more than this moment.  This is unreal.  I feel so far removed from everything I know and I love it.

4:10am.  I’m halfway through the movie Highway.  I don’t want the sun to come up but I realize it’s a necessary step in getting to my 10:45am flight.  I have to pee but I don’t want to pack up all my stuff and drag it to the bathroom.  I left the cafe and am now in Terminal 1 arrivals.  No one is here, not a soul in the entire terminal.

I’m charging my computer at the World News cafe but sitting in the black seats that aren’t comfortable at all.  I could easily fall asleep and think that maybe I should.  I also think that maybe I should take the bus to the Tulip hotel to try to catch an internet signal.  I need to tell my mom not to pick me up at the airport in Dallas tomorrow.  I’ll be boarding a flight (hopefully) right when I should’ve been landing in New York.  This weekend is kinda fucked now but I’m not really that upset about it.  I’m completely alone in an empty terminal in an empty airport 30km away from Amman Jordan.  This may very well go down as one of the strangest nights of my life and I’m totally appreciating that fact.

5:10am.  People are starting to filter in.  The sky is still dark.  My movie is over and the battery is 94% charged.  I’m listening to the playlist I made specifically for the next time I’m in bed with someone and I need music on in the background.  My shirt smells and I need to change it.  I also still need to pee but still don’t want to pack up everything and move on.  I’m not sure what it’ll take for me to break down.  My breath smells pretty bad I think.  I don’t know how I’m going to talk to agents and explain my situation, especially if they don’t know that much English.  It’s going to be a fucking nightmare.  Even if I was awake and alert it’d be a nightmare.  Even if they spoke English as a first language it’d be a nightmare.  I don’t see how this will all play out with me getting a ticket and a seat on a Royal Jordanian flight to New York City.  It’s insane to think that it’s even an option for me.

Who does that?  One minute I’m on Delta but now I can just jump on a completely different airline and still get home, at no additional cost, just like that?  I don’t care.  I’m really trying to stay emotionally distant from all of it.  I hope I can glide through these hours like a dream and somehow end up in America, not really sure how or why it all happened.  It really is the only way it can happen at this point.  I’m so tired and disoriented, I might as well be tripping on acid.  I’m just going to go limp and let nature do its thing and put me where I need to be.

The alternative is to miss this flight and then miss the next one to London at noon.  If that happens I’m getting a hotel room and sleeping forever.  I’ll regroup and check things out online.  The only thing I feel I need to do is tell my mom not to bother going to Dallas at all but I think she’s already there.  I feel bad about that and I feel bad that I may not be able to tell her to forget about me and go on to Rochester, Texas where my family is having a reunion.  I mean how long will she wait before she goes?

My Bliss Playlist is now the soundtrack to my plight, and that’s a good thing.  I’m coming up with a great idea for a screenplay.  It’ll take place between 1am and 6am in a deserted Middle Eastern airport.  The story is only part about getting out of the Middle East.  It’s mainly about what’s going on through the guy’s head and the memories he entertains as the night drags on and on and on.  What those memories are going to be in the movie are still unclear, but I love having this airport as a backdrop.  I’ll also need to find a way to convey the levels of crazy the guy goes through as the ordeal continues.

People, real people, are starting to come in and order coffee.  They’re trying to wake up.  They’ve been asleep and are starting their day.  I’m not there.  I’m fighting to stay awake.  Joy Division, Surfer Blood, Raveonettes, MGMT, and Vampire Weekend are keeping it interesting.  I still don’t see any signs of the sky lightening.  Killing time alone in the airport or with the employees at the Twin Peaks-esque cafe was tolerable and inspiring but now normal people are going to be around and all over the place.  These last few hours and going to be fucking torture.

I should take my Vicadin but I already feel like I’m heavily fucked on opiates.  I have two Advil gel caps and one Vicadin in my right pant pocket and an Ambien in my left pant pocket.  I’ve gotten past the time for the painkiller.  The sleep deprivation will certainly cause a headache sooner or later, so I probably should go ahead and take the gel caps.  Once I have a seat on a plane, any plane, and we push back and take flight, I’ll take the Ambien.  I hope to God the flight is a long one and takes me most of the way to Texas.

I feel like a kid.  I feel like a wide-eyed twenty year old on his own in a foreign country for the first time.  It’s not really a great feeling when I catch a reflection and see that I’m not that kid anymore.

7:19am.  I’m now through security and waiting to talk to an agent.  This is where I was about 11 hours ago.  They said in thirty minutes New York will be open and I can try to check in.  I’m not that optimistic.  It doesn’t seem like anything good will come of this.  I think I’m destined to live in this airport for the rest of my life.

Terminal 1 looks identical to Terminal 2.  The layout is exactly the same and has all the same shops in precisely the same locations.  I had to triple check to make sure I didn’t go in a big circle and end up where I started.  Amman has a tendency to do that to a person.

I noticed one slight difference between the terminals though, One has a pharmacy.  That’s the only difference.  Now that I’m on the other side of the xray machines, I can see that the similarities still hold up, except that instead of 16 seats for nonrevs, over here they have 32.

I have no idea what’s beyond the big wall behind me.  I know Immigration is back there and then as escalator.  After that I have no clue.  I imagine the day when I can ascend that escalator.  I bet it will be like ascending to heaven.  I have no idea what’s on the other side but I’m sure it’s good.  I’m positive I want to be on that side.  I bet there’s food at least.

I was passing out in the lobby when the sun was starting to come out.  I kept nodding off in an embarrassing way.  I think I’ve caught my fourth wind because now I’m wide awake.  I’ve been in this airport for over twelve hours now.

9:46am  It’s just getting silly how tired and disoriented I am.  I feel like I’m in a college psych experiment.  When I got into line to check in the guy said “Good Morning” to me.  I thought he was very mistaken since it wasn’t even close to morning but upon reflection, it was 9:15am.  I have a seat so it looks like I’m on my way.  You can find me in 22F!!

I think this flight will get in at around 5pm so I guess it’s possible for me to make it all the way to Rochester by tonight.  Of course if I had internet I’d know exactly what time the flights leave JFK and LGA and when it lands in Dallas.  I could make a plan of attack.  I’d love to think that I have a shot at catching the JFK flight to Dallas but I have no idea when that leaves.  I’d also like to know when the last flight to Abilene is tonight.  There are so many productive things I could be doing right now but I can’t do any of them.

It’s going to be a major rush trying to ascertain all this information in the moments right when I land.  Maybe while I’m waiting for my luggage to come around I can list for a Dallas flight.  And an Abilene flight.  And get in touch with my mom.   I’m just glad to be one step closer.  I really don’t know how I’d react if I didn’t get on.  At first I’m sure I’d be okay because I’d just get a cheap hotel room and sleep for twelve hours but after I was rested and coherent again, I’d realize that I was still stuck in fucking Amman with no real way home.  No matter.  I’ll sleep for twelve hours in 22J.

Yeah, not so much!  I think my exhaustion ran full circle because I only slept for a couple of hours on the plane.  I even took my sleeping pill and couldn’t sleep properly.  Sitting in between two infants didn’t help.  A third one was behind me.  They didn’t cry much but I was constantly grabbed and kicked and it smelled like formula and dirty diapers.  The bulkhead and no leg room was in front of me.  It was a pretty miserable flight all around.  The entertainment system was sub par, it was just a single movie that everyone had to watch.  There was nothing royal about Royal Jordanian but they got me out of Amman and into New York, that’s all I can ask for.

I was too late for the Dallas flight so I had to cab it over to LGA and then jump on a Super 80 to Dallas.  I’m in DFW now.  I was going to rent a car and drive to Rochester but the knackeredness is all over me now.  There is no way in hell I should be trusted driving at night for over three hours on lonely highways.  I was even too tired to flirt with the very cute school teacher seated next to me on the flight here.  I didn’t even pretend to try, though I would’ve any other time.

It’s now 10pm and I’m listed for the first flight to Abilene, Texas which departs at 9:30am.  My uncle should be able to pick me up en route to Rochester and take me the rest of the way  so I can see all my loved ones.  It’s perfect, as long as I can find somewhere to crash in this massive airport.

If I can fall asleep at midnight and sleep until 8:30am, that’ll be perfect.  I can get to Abilene fully rested, but in a huge need of a shower.  I haven’t showered since the Dead Sea and now that I think about it, I don’t think I even showered then.  After we did our second dip into the Sea we went swimming, but I don’t think I’ve put soap to my body since three days ago.  I reek.

It wasn’t a big deal when I was in Jordan or on the plane because everyone else smelled the same but now I’m in America and people will notice.  I don’t even have any clean clothes to put on.  I didn’t think this through very well.

I found a quiet room reserved for flight crew though. I have a recliner to crash out in for a few hours.  At least I’m in the right country now.  When I wake up I’ll start piecing together the last twenty-four hours, deciding what really happened and what was just a mad hallucination.

That New Plane Smell

Worse than the passengers on this flight today, is the cockpit.  I’ve already been yelled at by the Captain for keeping my First Class galley too messy.

“I’m sorry.  Screw off Sir.  Why don’t you concentrate on driving and leave the kitchen to me?  It isn’t much, but it’s all I have!”  Later he yelled at me for making him spill his coffee all over the plane’s consoles and the First Officer’s arm.

“Brian, get in here!” he says from the cockpit as the First Officer cleans up his shirt.

“Yes Captain, my Captain.”

“Look at this mess, do you know how this happened?”

“Looks like you spilled your drink all over the controls of this multi-million dollar aircraft, sir.  Got the F.O. too.”

“Yes, there was an accident and it happened because my cup was filled to the rim with piping hot coffee.”

“Yeah, coffee shouldn’t be filled that full, especially in-flight.  Even if you’re on the ground and parked at the gate you can still spill so easily.  That’s why I don’t fill it past 2/3 capacity when people ask me for a piping hot drink.”

“Then why is Glen treating his arm for burns and why is this brand new plane covered in sticky coffee?”

“I have no idea sir, I didn’t pour that cup of coffee.  Someone else poured that for you, was I the one that handed you that cup?”

“Well, go find out who poured this cup, I want to have a word with them.”

Don’t worry Ch**, I won’t rat you out.  🙂

During one of the in-flight P.A.s the Captain mentioned to the passengers that this was a new plane, second trip ever.  During deplaning one of the passengers asked the Captain if he was serious about that.  The good and proud Captain beamed and said, “Absolutely.”  He said it even had that new car smell in the cockpit still.  Chuckle chuckle.  Everyone laughed as I rolled my eyes and said that actually it smells a bit like stale coffee.  I’m not sure when exactly I stopped caring.

New York to Sydney via Tokyo 2-1-2006

Right now we’re on a path to intersect the International Date Line between Alaska and Russia in the Bearing Sea.  We’re flying parallel to it, and almost on top of it, so we’ve been near it for about an hour now.  The International Date Line sounds something you’d find at a swingers’ club. The flight map says we have five and a half hours left to Tokyo, about the time from New York to Los Angeles.

This fourteen-hour flight hasn’t been too bad so far.  I have a row of four seats to myself and even when I’m sprawled out, I barely touch that fourth seat.  The older lady flight attendant even gave me a First Class pillow, which made a good thing even better.  I slept from take off until we got near Alaska, about half the flight.  I didn’t want to sleep too long and not be able to sleep on my flight down to Sydney.  That one gets in at 7am so I really should be asleep during that entire flight if I want to avoid jet lag.  It sucks that I have to go through Tokyo in the first place.

Qantas has an employee embargo from North America, so if you’re an airline employee you have to get out of North America before you can get on one of their flights to Sydney.  It’s such a hassle and a waste of time going all the way to Japan just to go back down to Australia.  My Dallas friends are a day ahead of me so they should just be getting to Sydney now.

I have my sleeping pills handy, the crazy French ones.  That’s for the flight from Tokyo to Sydney. We’re exactly 39,000 feet in the air going 530 mph and the outside temperature is minus 63 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the trusty-rusty Flight Map.

Our flight path and the International Date Line are converging into one line, so I really have no idea what day it is.  One of the flight attendants makes a joke about still wearing the same clothes from yesterday.  Thousands and thousands of years ago creatures walked across the frozen water that’s now below me and came to North America.

I get up and make the rounds, visiting the flight attendants and seeing if there are any interesting passengers.  None of the crew members really knew an employee was on board until well into the flight and they all apologized for not noticing and upgrading me.  I was hoping someone would notice and I would have jumped at the upgrade, but not after I got settled and established in row 42 seats C thru G.  That’s good enough.

I stick my head into the First Class galley to say Hello to the ladies. The Pursor is up there and again apologizes for not giving me an upgrade.  She gives me a bottle of the less-popular French red wine and a flute of champagne instead.  She offers me everything else under the sun, but I politely decline.  She keeps pushing champagne bottles on me, but lugging around those things all over Australia is the last thing I want to do.  If I were thinking I would have taken a bagful of minis.   Time for landing.

Seeing the baggage handlers in Tokyo was such a trip.  I’m used to seeing Asians in uniforms, but usually nice ones like flight attendants and customer service type things.  They look really put together and well-groomed in those kinds of uniforms.  Seeing them don the blue collared garb just looked funny.  It didn’t fit the stereotypical Asian image to have dirty, torn uniforms covered in blood and oil.  It made the job seem a little classier though.  The guys doing their job in The States, Europe or Caribbean look like they went straight from a playground brawl to the tarmac.

I was the only white guy on the airline connections bus, but that isn’t anything new.  I’m always the token white guy on the train to the JFK airport, be it either the E through Queens or the A through Brooklyn.  Sometimes I get mad if I’m not the token white guy.  I want to scream at the other Caucasians, like that guy on the subway in Ghost, “Get off my train!”

Checking into my Qantas flight was pretty painless.  True, I went to the wrong place at first but was quickly and politely redirected, with an apologetic bow as if they had done something wrong. No, I’m just a dumbass, no need to apologize.

My flight was wide open so they gave me a boarding pass right there on the spot instead of telling me I had to wait until the last second to see if I’d get on.  I hate when they do that.  You sit around completely bored for a few hours and then having to rush rush rush to make departure at the very last second.

Now I’m sitting on the ground between the Men’s and Women’s bathrooms, charging my Ipod.  Most of the outlets are the American ones, though I have an adapter just in case.  It’s 5:45pm and my flight boards in 90 minutes.  I killed 22 minutes by watching a South Park episode here on the ground by the bathrooms.  I’m not sure if this is acceptable in Japanese culture, but there’s no guarantee that I’ll have a seat with a power outlet on the plane so it’s absolutely necessary.  If I’m offending the nation, they’re definitely not letting on.

I think about doing some shopping in the stores, but there’s nothing I really need or want.  It looks like Sanrio just exploded everywhere.  I’ve never seen so much Hello Kitty, except maybe in Ivy’s bedroom.  That’s the Narita airport for you, sushi, Hello Kitty, and a few airplanes.

August 11, 2003 Sao Paulo-JFK

I’ve seen The Simpsons in Italian, German, French, Arabic, Spanish, and now we can add Portuguese to the list thanks to late night Brazilian television.  The version that most closely resembles the voices of the real Simpsons are the Portuguese voiceover people.  Homer could’ve been better, but Lisa and Marge were fantastic. That’s really what makes or breaks a dubbed Simpsons show in my opinion.  Of course they’re going to make the main characters sound right, but if they take the time to nail Ralph Wiggum, Otto the bus driver, or Hans Moleman, then they’ve really done a fantastic job, above and beyond. I believe they really gave a shit.

The episode I watched last night is the one where they go down to Australia to settle Bart’s collect-call charge he bestowed on some unsuspecting bogan family.  Even their rendition of an Australian accent was spot on.  Well done Brazilian television! I’m glad somebody finally put some effort into getting it as close to reality as possible.

When they showed the machine in the US Embassy that reversed the spiral of the water in the toilet and made it spiral the “correct” American way, I immediately went into my fancy Sao Paulo hotel bathroom and made sure the water really did go clockwise.  It did.

I’m now on the plane back to New York and a few minutes ago I noticed on the flight map that we were crossing the equator.  I ran into the lav and did some experiments with the water and the drain.  I filled up the sink and let the water drain out.  I wanted to see which way the water went or if it’d just go straight down the drain since we were directly on top of the equator.  I tried it several times in several different ways but I didn’t get any absolute conclusions.  It just kinda went straight down which is actually what it does anywhere in the world in our lavs. I think I was the only one out of the two hundred some odd people on the plane that even thought of checking.

It’s moments like these when I feel very blessed that one of the worst parts of the job is incredible amounts of boredom you face when everyone is asleep in the middle of the night. I have to find ways to entertain myself, or else just sit and stare. I can read. I can write. I can notice little things and let my mind wander. If I have some silly notion about water spiralling down the drain and want to do some experiments, I get to do it, while getting $40 an hour.

Other people, when they think of the worst parts of their job, think of much worse things. They may have to do something utterly disgusting or dangerous.  A coworker’s life may hang in the balance based solely on their decisions and actions. They may have to come home smelling like sewage, garbage, shit, body odor, fish guts, or a crime scene. They may have to confront criminals or charge into burning buildings.

They may have to get up at ridiculous hours every single day and not come home again until the sun’s gone down. They may have to get on a ship and be at sea for months at a time without contact with loved ones. They may have to struggle through five days of torture just to reach that Mecca of the weekend where they can finally relax and do whatever it is that they really want to do.

I know I’m blessed and I wish some of my coworkers realized how blessed we really are. Some of them bitch and complain about the dumbest shit and don’t even realize that on our worst days in the office, we still have it better than 90% of the American work force.  Honestly, what’s the worst thing I have to deal with? Some passenger goes off on me for not having their choice of meal? Someone refuses to buckle their seatbelt during turbulence and we have a battle of wills? A Business Class passenger thinks they’re better than me and speaks to me in a condescending tone?  Please, who the hell cares! In a few hours those guys are off the plane and I’ll never see them again for as long as I live. I wish for one week every year our airline would make us take a job in the real world just to keep everything in perspective. Maybe after scrubbing toilets for ten hours a day that “asshole” passenger in 28J who had the gall to order his coffee without telling us if he took milk or sugar won’t seem quite as bad.

It really is a joke how little we have to complain about but that’s just human nature. It’s the Unbearable Lightness of Being. When we first start, we realize what a great and easy job we have. After a while, however, great and easy becomes base level and humans are never satisfied with normal. That’s when we take things for granted and completely lose perspective.

If we had a week every year to remind ourselves how wonderful we have it, then every single one of us would be much happier, friendlier, more accommodating workers in the name Customer Service. I know some of my coworkers think that the worst part of the job is dealing with the very real terror threat in the skies. I get that, I really do. I just don’t let that affect my view of the job.

The job is still a joke, despite that. Some flight attendants like to think that we’re on the front line in the war against terror but every job has its perils. The ladies who cleaned bathrooms in the World Trade center thought they had safe jobs. The teachers in Columbine thought they had safe jobs. The band on the Titanic thought they had a sweet ass gig. Something can happen anywhere and 99% of flight crews won’t have to seriously deal with a terrorist threat.

I don’t block out that possibility or think that I’m immune. I’m vigilant on the plane, and I’ll be the first one to tackle a guy trying to light his shoe on fire, but at the same time I don’t let that threat turn my easy breezy job into a source of stress. You just can’t live like that. I’m just sick of flying with people who think our job is on par with working in an Emergency Room, being an Air Traffic Controller or a Corrections Officer. It’s NOT, pure and simple. Those people have reason to flip out every now and then.

Ok, I guess dealing with these Chicken Littles is the worst part of my job.

Typical Domestic Day

Three more legs until I’m home.  This will be a long day; every flight has been oversold for weeks.  That is one ugly word, OVERSOLD.  Cramped irritable people all over the place, it’s only a matter of time before the claustrophobic ones in the middle seats go insane and their heads explode.  I know I do when I have to sit there, especially in that torture devise window seat right in front of the window exits.  Not only do those seats not recline, they even sit more erect than any other seat on the plane.  I think it may even lean forward.  I’m not positive but that angle might be acute.  With a full boat we have no overhead bin space at all.  The last people on have to check their luggage.  Telling them that is like telling them their children will be tortured with chains and knitting needles.  The passengers in the back don’t get a choice of meal entrée, even if they get what they would have chosen, the fact that there was no choice is too nazi-istic for them.  Damn spoiled, ugly Americans.  You must have a separate, detached reality you can slip into when you are driven to the edge.  I’m looking down the barrel of a gun standing at the front of the plane looking back, twenty-two arrogant Baby Huey’s in First Class and one hundred sixty-six whining babies in coach, stuck like prisoners in a flying slave ship to hell.  There should be oars sticking out of the vessel and I should be yelling orders with the megaphone.  It’s not good for your sanity being on too many flights like this with passengers like these.  Every once in a while they say things that are so stupid, it almost makes it fun, like when they ask which way the plane’s going.  “Is the cockpit in the front or the back on this particular aircraft?”  Actually ma’am, this plane doesn’t have a cockpit, there’s just a guy on the ground with a remote control that’s controlling our flight path.  We found it’s cheaper this way to forgo the Captain’s salary as well as his first officer’s and just hire a model airplane expert to do the navigation.  They usually do it for minimum wage, but today we’re in luck because this guy’s just a trainee.  He’s doing this one for free!  Just remember that when you get a cheap ticket from the Internet, it’s because we cut out the high costs of pilots.  That and the fact that this is a solar-powered aircraft have made it possible for you to fly from Salt Lake City to Chicago for the low low price of whatever your cheap ass paid.  There are some trying passengers, but I try to be nice.  If they ask for multiple drinks, I give it to them without rolling my eyes like some other flight attendants do.  Without them we wouldn’t even have a job and I try not to lose sight of that.