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So I Became a Flight Attendant
Sunday - July 3 Flight
I recently became a flight attendant, for those of you who didn’t know that, I am one month in.
I just completed my first month.
This past weekend, I was on a 3 day trip in Dallas, ending on the Sunday before the July 4th holiday.
Our job for this 3 day trip was to fly people back and forth from Dallas to Cancun.
On the 3rd day, we were going to fly people to Vegas, and then home from Vegas. That was how the weekend was going to end, and then I was going into my off days, and I was excited to get home and connect with my family at the cabin. Our crew liked this schedule, because we were going to get to sleep in a bit. I had a whole plan, to get up and take a train into Grapevine to go to yoga, and then to come back and hang by the pool, and then shower and get ready. Most days you don’t have that much time, so we were really looking forward to it, and to do what we felt was going to be an ‘easy’ day, to finish our layover.
I was working with a junior crew. That includes me, we all graduated together Memorial weekend! And there was one senior crew member, with about 5 years’ experience. She was stuck with us…ha-ha, not sure why all of her people had bailed on this trip, and left her with a bunch of reserve flyers.
As our time together began, I felt a distance from her. I volunteered to work up front, happy to learn from her. By the end of our three days together, I would say we were at ease.
Something to know about a senior working with a bunch of juniors, is that she was forced into the seniority role of Lead Flight Attendant. A supervisor of sorts, which is mostly fine, except when something happens. And something always happens.
On the second day, when we were just getting into a groove, over the hump of the middle, and had our head wrapped around the 3rd day, Crew Scheduling (think Dark Lords that control our destiny) ‘notified’ us that they were changing our trip. Or that they wanted to anyway.
I found this out as I secured myself into my jump-seat next to our Lead, and she turned to me and said: “They’re trying to change our trip.”
I immediately had a little dread and disappointment in my belly. You know, we were in a groove, and it felt like the rug was being pulled out from under us.
But before indulging too deeply in my emotional response, I asked her:
“What are they trying to do? What does the trip look like?”
She informed me they were trying to make us start at 10am (instead of 3pm) and fly from Dallas to Cozumel, back to Dallas, and then fly home to MPLS, and work all three legs of flight. Now three legs instead of two. A longer day. But arriving home about an hour earlier.
This isn’t a particularly terrible day, it’s just that we were really set on the day we had. Expectation is the mother of disappointment.
As this was unfolding, it became clear that our Lead happened to be a rules person. This is not disparaging, she just really wanted to understand procedure. She pointed out that the Dark Lords hadn’t properly notified us, as they had tried to call our cell phones while we were boarding the plane, and clearly aren’t supposed to be on our phones. Further, as I am learning, there are all kinds of legalities that I am just getting used to. Things like when we walk off the plane, we are in “rest” until our next duty time, and so we also don’t have to check our schedule. She shared all of this to point out, or puzzle out, that she didn’t believe that the Dark Lords could effectively notify us of the change, and that we weren’t obligated to acknowledge it. Unless they called the pilots while we were in flight, and they never did that.
Now this is all a bit like knowing tax law, I’m never going to know all of the rules. I am just going to learn what I need to know. However, she was pretty invested in this information, and I was open minded about the whole situation. I admit, I liked that we might get our original day back. Still holding on, we were.
We went back and forth a few times, and into some conspiracy theory about how the Dark Lords just wanted to use us junior folk on July 4th, and that was why they moved us. Questions abounded. What happened to the crew that was supposed to fly that trip? Who was going to fly our trip?
We decided to lay low and not acknowledge the change, just in case it might magically revert. It felt like a wish, but things change all the time.
My senior colleague even did her due diligence, and contacted our union representative, who was pretty sure we needed to work the new schedule.
There were really a few different things going on here. We were invested in one version of the schedule, there was a quest for what the legalities of the situation were, and we were flummoxed about the intent. Sort of like door #1, #2, or #3, I think we all wanted to win the prize, and know we weren’t getting stuck with the lemon.
We discussed laying low, not acknowledging the change, and at some point, it seemed we might not even show up for the early report time.
I was personally all for laying low, up until that would become not showing for the duty time; that felt like a bridge too far.
I also have a thing. I might pout and cry a little, but if I am ultimately available, and it is good for someone else, I want to show up.
We were ‘available.’ We were just invested in our original schedule.
In so much of this talk, it didn’t really seem like we were thinking of all of the people involved. I held that in the back of my mind, and was much relieved when we parted for the day, and agreed we were most likely meeting for the 10am schedule.
So it went.
We showed up the next day, and reported for duty.
Almost immediately, the day just felt right. I think once you accept what is happening, you are able to just have the day you are having.
Throughout the day, many things unfolded. As it ultimately turned out….we did really ‘win the prize!’
Suffice it to say, we had the most seamless trip of the variables, and quickly learned of others, that weren’t so smooth. Prize. Won.
Being new at something is a trip. And I have been being new at things for quite some time now. I am becoming experienced at being new.
About one month in, as we were on this trip, a magical thing began to happen. When you get past all the fear and the anxiety, and the looking around you at everyone else to figure out what you are supposed to be doing, you get to start making it be the thing you actually want it to be. Our crew had really gelled on our three day trip. Even with the changes. And when we got to that last day, we were all just happy to be there, and ready to get through it. Again, I am not implying this was an extensively rigorous schedule, but just that you go through a process on these trips.
On the first flight of the day, we settled in.
When you are working you know you are going to be around people at all times, especially in this industry, being a flight attendant. On our airline, you are going to be around roughly 180 people at all times. And the more you make eye contact, and the more you talk to people, the more exhausted you are going to become, and the more they might need from you. So there is a natural way that people hide when they are working. And I can’t fault them for that. Put your own oxygen mask on first, as they say.
But I don’t actually like that. I am actually a people person. And this is the “making the thing what I want it to be” part. There is a reason that I am in primarily service work, in everything I do.
One of the things that I said in my interview is that I fundamentally believe that travel makes us better humans. And I believe that it does, if you let it.
This trip was nearing the July 4th holiday. The holiday of independence and rights and freedoms. At a time in the United States when Roe Vs. Wade has been overturned, and we are fighting over rights seemingly all the time, and the right we seem to be fighting for the most, is the right for all of us to exist.
Seemingly far from a discussion about rights or independence, on this one little vacation flight to Cozumel, on Sunday July 3rd, after we were in the air and it was safe for people to move about the cabin, I was standing by the forward door bathroom, by the entrance of the plane. People were lining up for the bathroom and we were waiting for everyone to return to their seats, so that we could do a beverage service. It can feel a little overwhelming as people crowd your space, and it is also an FAA regulation that peoples stay out of that space in the front of the plane, known as the forward galley. That space when you walk in, that is between the passengers and the flight deck. Safety, 9/11, you name it, pro tip: stay back on the carpeted area.
As a flight attendant, you are just standing there as people line up to use the bathroom, and you can either awkwardly ignore everyone, or you can engage.
I’m standing there and I’m deciding that I am going to talk to the people. This is part of fully integrating into my newness, and deciding to stop looking at the cues of what everybody else does, and to start to be me, and who I am going to be on the job.
We have been flying to Mexico a lot, and I find it super sad that so far I haven’t gotten to get off the plane in Cancun or Cozumel, because I love Mexico deeply. I have spent time in Mexico City, driven to the mountain silver town of Taxco, and spent time in and around Puerto Vallarta. It might be equatorial, I’m not sure, but every time I am in Mexico, I just feel like my full self.
At any rate, I am super curious, and I’m like well that’s easy, I’ll ask people all about Cozumel. Some day they’ll let me off the plane, right?!
“First trip? Repeat? What do you love about Cozumel?” Research! And inquiring minds want to know!
I began to talk to people, and it just opened them up. Asking questions opened up their stories and they began to sparkle and shine. It’s like instead of cardboard people they become wholly fleshed out people with personal stories. A little like the moment when Dorothy lands in in Oz.
I saw this one person in line. I had noticed her board as a couple. This couple was perhaps a little hip, a little off center, possibly in their later 30s or early 40s, kind of rock ‘n roll, but within the main stream enough. She was taller, with sandy curly longish hair, and I believe they were both wearing black music t-shirts and jeans…
“Hi, do you go to Cozumel a lot?” I inquired…
She spoke and she had a beautiful accent. Accents are beautiful to me. I immediately diverted and told her she had a beautiful accent. I said that I hoped that wasn’t a micro-aggression, and I asked her where she was from.
I wasn’t prepared for her answer….
She said: “Ukraine.”
I immediately choked up and thought that anything that I had to say going forward, was going to be trivial and worthless and meaningless, and I didn’t know what I could possibly say to this person of merit, who just told me she’s from Ukraine.
I paused.
“I’m so sorry. That makes me want to cry.” I offered, honestly.
“Me too.” She said.
Her eyes immediately swelled with tears, in a way where you could tell she’s accustomed to having her eyes swell with tears and then, either with practice or intent, or simply because there’s no more tears, the tears recede back from the forefront.
But for the remainder of the time that we were having this little exchange, her eyes were swoll and glossy.
And so, I continued to ask questions. We were no longer going to talk about Cozumel.
I was also acutely aware of the fact that we were in a bathroom line, and we were just kind of waiting for people to finish, the line. I didn’t want to irritate my colleague. I knew she was concerned with us getting out in time to complete our service, so that we could hand out the customs forms in a timely fashion. It wasn’t much more than a 2 hour flight.
I decided to just ask questions I thought might matter, or soothe or just not be offensive.
I asked her if she had family there and she said: “Yes, a lot.”
I asked if they were ok.
She said it took weeks for her to know her family was ok, and now she knows that they are ok. And she may have said they were in the South, and here’s how she described it:
She said they are living someplace where people only have to go underground some of the time, as opposed to the people who are living under ground right now, all of the time. (As opposed to the people who are right now, living under ground ALL OF THE TIME.)
And she added that she feels that her family in Ukraine is living the real life, and she is living the fake life.
She told me that for the first three months, it was like time didn’t exist. It was like one long dark night, and that she couldn’t even function. She said that it has only been recently that she has been able to function.
I can only imagine why she and her person were on their way to Cozumel, but whatever they were doing, it was obvious this pain, just below the surface of her skin, and her interaction with the outside world, that this pain was only contained by the thinnest and most fragile membrane. That didn’t take much to pierce.
And as someone came out of the bathroom, and I knew that it was time for me to end this moment, I just said, thank you, and I’m so sorry, and that my thoughts were with her.
I think I wanted her to know that I’m paying attention to this, and that I know that it is terrible. I felt incredibly inept, and that there was nothing I could possibly do or say to make it better.
But the more and more I take up space on the planet, the more I think all that we have is each other’s stories. And again, they make that cardboard person, a living, human breathing person. In these times of trials and tribulations, and living in the neighborhood of George Floyd Square, it feels emergent that the challenges we face don’t seem to be unique to me or my neighborhood, or Ukraine, but that we all seem to be at a high friction point. It seems that everyone wants to fight and scream about rightness. And about their version of justice.
I struggle with this, and my personal empirical belief, is that everything comes down to resources, and a version of tribalism. That is both nature and nurture. And is as old as time. However whenever I mention that, things get a little bit messy. And I need not be right about it, it is just my effort to understand.
On the other hand, the least messy thing that I can offer is this:
If you are speaking in terms of they, find a person to talk to that takes the they from a cardboard being that you created notions of, and fleshes them out into a whole human being. A whole human being who wants the same things that you want. Who wants to be free from suffering. At a minimum.
And as an alternate to that. You could always just try speaking to the person in front of you.