December 18-19 First Winter Storm

December 18, 2013

I walked to work yesterday for the first time in the snow! It was crazy, it was snowing pretty heavily.  Katie was on airport standby also, so we walked together and took videos of each other.  I’m glad I have my snow boots here.  It would stink to walk in regular shoes.

Around 9pm, I was trying to nap and I got my call from Scheduling.  The SDQ (Santo Domingo) redeye turn, leaving at 10:09.  UGH!  For real, SDQ?  There are certain flights that flight attendants dread doing and this is one of them.  Oh and I’m the number 1, awesome. 

I run up to gate 36, which is listed on the board as our departing gate.  The gate is empty - no crew, no gate agent, no passengers.  Uh, what?  I'm having a semi heart attack; I don't want to be in trouble for being late.  Call scheduling - gate has been changed to gate 34.  I run over.  There is a gate agent, whew, but no other crew members.  I'm still slightly panicking because - where is my crew???  No pilots.  No flight attendants.

After a half an hour, the crew shows up.  They'd all  been delayed from the storm.  The F1 (who I was replacing) was snowed into his house and had to call out for the trip.

Also from the storm, flights were cancelled last night and there were a lot of delays.  We were scheduled to leave on time, but the ticket counters were short staffed so people were delayed checking in.  Then, boarding took forever, because people on flights to SDQ bring a Ton of stuff with them. To my surprise and contrary to what I've heard, the passengers weren't horrible when we told them "you have to check your bag, it's too large".

Around 11pm (an hour late), the plane was fully boarded, we closed the doors and backed out of the gate way.  And then... we sat... for 2 hours until we finally took off at 1am.  The pilots didn’t communicate much, but 2 issues caused the delay - the plane was way over weight (too many passengers with too much luggage) and we had to wait in line for de-icing.  The flight went really well.  Passengers were nice and friendly, probably relieved to be getting out of Boston.

The hardest part about working a red eye flight like this is the trip back.  We landed in Santo Domingo at 5am, deplaned the passengers, grabbed coffees and immediately began boarding again.   The pilots change, but all of the flight attendants work the flight back.  FA's can work 16 hours and up to 18 hours during irregular operations (i.e. a snow storm).  By the end of the trip back, all 3 flight attendants were delirious.  Vanessa and I were jumping up and down in the back galley to stay awake.  I’m pretty sure I fell asleep while standing up.  My crew was really awesome.  I hope I get to work with them again it would’ve been awesome to have a layover together.

I took some amazing photo’s of sunrise from the jet bridge in SD when Vanessa and I went to get coffee.

By the end of the trip, I’d been working for 17 hours straight and had been awake for 23 hours.  It’s the craziest feeling, almost like being drunk.  We were all giddy, a little delirious, out of it, but still semi functional.  I called Scheduling to make sure I’m not on call the rest of today… and then they put me on home reserve at 3am tomorrow.  Geez, the schedule that flight attendants keep is insane.  I can’t believe it.  I’m the first person on the “call at home” list, so we’ll see what happens.  Can I please get a California turn or something??

9 Days Off

I had such a nice time off!  I spent a lot of time with Justin and our families.  It's been really tough being so far away from everyone.  Here are some of the things I did during my time off.

Went on a motorcycle ride with Justin and some good friends of ours.

 Saw little ponies

Went to Gainesville to visit my bestie for her birthday

Played games in Gainesville

Went to the neighborhood Christmas party and then went to Justin's office Christmas party

I guess I didn't get pictures with any of our families :( 

Having so much time at home made it Really Really hard to go back to Boston.  Think I was sadder leaving this time than when I first went to Boston.  I won't be able to come home again for a month, since I took so much time off at once.

December 7

I enjoyed working with my F3.  I sent Justin a picture of us and he's like "why are you sending me pictures with other dudes?"  lol

oh, I just thought it was a fun idea... like "hey!  here's us on the plane!" guess not lol

Did I mention that the F3 hiked Machu Picu last year??  He told me a lot about it and I think that'd be a great trip for me and Justin in 2014.  We fly into Lima, so I'll have to start looking into it.  I'm excited for fun trips in 2014!!

December 6 - Oops this is long

Another rough day in the sky.  I don’t even know where to begin when talking about today.  I guess I’m feeling a little disappointed about the reality of flying right now.  Working on the plane is a lot more work than I was expecting and it’s not as much fun as I thought it’d be.  I’ve had some flights I really enjoyed, but for the most part, passengers make it difficult to enjoy the job.  I thought we’d be out partying and seeing the world, but I’m so exhausted by the time I get off the flights that I just want some alone time and to crash at the hotel.  In addition, I’ve had some pretty crappy trips.  If I never fly from JFK to FLL again, I will be very happy about it.

Last night we stayed in West Palm.  I had such a nice time at dinner with my friends Greg and Michelle (love them).  It would’ve been great to walk around for the Christmas tree lighting, but my call time this morning was 5am and the flight left PBI at 6am, so I had to go to bed asap.  Where’s all the partying I see in movies about flight attendants???  No time to party when you’re exhausted, mentally and physically, after flights and then only have a few hours to rest.

We flew PBI to JFK with no problems.  Most of the customers were sleeping.  I’m pretty sure I should start waking up people as I go through the cabin though, because it’s Really annoying when I’m delivering drinks to row 16 and 2 passengers in row 13 want something because “I was sleeping when you went through.”  Know what that means?  If I now grab you drinks, no one else gets snacks until after I’ve delivered them and you better hope no one else wakes up on my way back to grab the snack basket.  Anyways, the flight wasn’t bad.

The trip from JFK to Ft. Lauderdale was freaking AWEFUL.  If I get stuck on this trip a few more times, I’m going to freaking quit.  All of the passengers bring too much stuff for the overhead bin.  As I mentioned before, it’s the #2’s job to help organize and load the OH bins.  I’m too short and I have to climb on people’s seats to move things in the bins.  On this flight, most of the passengers were really great helping me with loading.  They were all really nice.  During service, I wanted to punch someone.  Every passenger wanted a drink and a water.  Oh and Black Coffee means they wanted sugar?  Oh and Tea with no cream/sugar meant he wanted sugar?  And light cream in the coffee means she wants extra on the side… and I want ice for my water and my friend was sleeping, can she get a coffee with cream, but not too much cream?  Seriously???  I kept thinking to myself, “could someone just punch me in the freaking face and get it over with????”  As I’m bringing a lady in my last row a second bottle of water (because my Entire section wanted a drink + a water), she says “are we going to get snacks”.  So I responded “I can’t get you snacks until I’m done with drinks”… aka stop asking for shit!  Are you freaking kidding me?  Then people in the #3’s section kept snatching at me – trying to grab ice off my tray (which I’d gotten for my passengers) and asking for 500 things.  Hey!  You’re not in my section, I don’t care!  Three ladies in particular, started snatching at the waters on my tray (not in my section), I had to tell them Hold On and I proceeded going through my section handing out water before I came to them.  Like friggin be patient!  By the end of flight I was hiding in the back galley and refused to walk back through the cabin because people were so crazy and so snatchy.  I was so freaking over it by the end of that flight.  In addition to the people on the plane, the other flight attendants I’m working with are having some kind of disconnect.  One of them in particular, keeps going on and on about how they don’t like the other one.  I don’t like the negativity, I just want to like everyone and do my job.  One nice thing is that I saw Richard and Jennie on my plane!  Actually, we had 35 crew members on board the plane!  I really wish I’d been able to sit and chat with them, but the flight was so crazy I couldn’t believe it.  By the end of this flight, I wanted to run off the plane and never look back.

We had 30 minutes in FLL and had to head back up to Providence.  It was such a blessing that there were only 87 passengers on our flight.  They were all sweet, not demanding and NORMAL.  It was great.  I enjoyed it much more.  However, where on the last flight it took at least an hour to do drink and snack service, it took about 15 minutes to do it on this flight…. So we were insanely bored.  Can’t win lol.  My only bad situation was with helping a lady who only spoke Creole.  When I asked if she wanted a drink, she pointed at a beer that the girl next to her had.  I knew she didn’t speak good English, but I handed her the beer anyways.  I should’ve known better and shown her the seat back card that lists the price.  When I came back for payment, she didn’t understand.  It was a huge fiasco that ended up envolving at least 5 other passengers and 4 people exchanging money to get change.  I ended up feeling horrible for charging the lady for her drink.  

I wish I’d just comped it because of the misunderstanding.  Now back at the hotel, I had a nice dinner with the other FA’s and they seemed to get along better.  Sheesh, I’m friggen exhausted.  We have another super early day tomorrow, but it’s the last day of the trip.  There’s a major storm coming through, so I really hope our flight isn’t cancelled or delayed.  Fingers crossed.

I can’t wait to spend 9 days at home J

December 5

Wow today feels like I went through a marathon again.  We caught a 7:30 van from the hotel to the airport.  I needed more sleep.  We flew one leg from White Plains to West Palm.  All of the passengers were really nice and fun, but demanding.  They say any flights between New York and SoFlo are very though and now I understand why.  Sort of.  I'm not even sure what I was doing the whole flight, but I was running up and down the aisle the Entire 3 hour flight - 2 drinks per person, tons of snacks, refills and a full flight.

One passenger and his wife were especially awesome.  The husband was a CPA and spent years in the industry.  We chatted for a long time about accounting and how he got into the industry and how he became successful.  It’s very encouraging to me when I talk to successful business people who don’t think I've ruined my life by doing this. 

I didn't write anything else on this day, so I’m assuming the rest of the trips were pretty uneventful.

December 4

Today was probably the hardest day I’ve had so far on a flight.  The customers weren’t bad, just really demanding.  I flew Boston to Palm Beach and then back to White Plains, NY.  I think I was running and lifting for 6 hours straight.

I’ve decided I do not like the number 2 position on the A320.  In this position, I’m supposed to stand in the middle of the aircraft during boarding, help people put their bags up and organize the overhead bins so more things fit.  The people on both flights completely filled the overhead bins, it was Packed!  In addition, my area to “serve” during the flight is in the middle of the plane, which means service takes longer.  I swear I hit every single person I walk past each time I walk down the aisle of the aircraft, and I consider myself a pretty small person.

On the flight to Palm Beach, we had 22 wheel chairs.  Boarding took FOREVER!!  For the most part customers are really nice, but I can’t explain how difficult it is to help people with their bags when I can hardly reach the overhead bins.  I kept having to stand on chairs and climb up into the bins.  Next time, I def need to wear pants (not a skirt) when I’m the number 2.

We only had 2 wheelchairs on the way to White Plains, but a lot of the people were pretty irritated that we were delayed and that the terminal was in so much chaos.  One lady started yelling at me because there was no room for her bag in the overhead bin.  However, I’d built such a rapport with my other customers that they were all really supportive of me and gave reassuring looks.  Several commented how the lady was rude.  I think one of the keys to a successful flight is to get all of the customers to like you during boarding – say hello, be friendly, chit chat – so they feel a personal connection and really like you.  One customer liked me so much, he wanted to set me up with his son… however, I let him know I have a wonderful boyfriend, but I found it pretty flattering.  I also tried to win over grouchy customers by bringing 2 of whatever they asked for – want a water?  How about 2??  Bag of chips?  Here’s an extra one >>wink<<.

After these two flights, I am absolutely exhausted.  People asked for like 2-3 drinks each, wanted tons of snacks, needed help with their stuff, wanted to chat, etc… I feel emotionally and physically drained.  I def think I got my workout for the day.  I really enjoy being around so many people all the time though and I LOVE that customers appreciate that I genuinely care and am super nice.  In too many jobs, I feel like kindness and caring are viewed as weakness.  I hate that.  I don’t know that I can do this job for very long, but I need to find a career that meshes my love of people with analytics.  I’m not sure where to start looking.  Sometimes this job still feels like a dream.  Life is crazy sometimes.

November 30- December 2

So I got back from my 3 day trip yesterday and was "Home Reserve" again today from 3 to 3.  I'm good for another 3 days and got called at exactly 3:05am for a 1 day trip, 6am report time.  I worked with a guy who is pretty senior at the base - 12 years.  He was pretty nice.

The following day, I was sent on a 2 day trip.  We had a layover in West Palm Beach.  My cousins live down there so I was really excited to them!  I rented a car and then stopped by the hotel to have a drink with my F1 before heading to my cousins house.  Things were going well chit chatting, until he said "you can probably tell, but I'm into guys and girls".  Um, no.  I could not tell.  Wasn't really sure what to say to that. Awkward.

About then, I got in the car and headed up to see Joe and Jill.  This is a really nice perk of the job, getting to layover in cities where I know people.  Renting a car was a bad decision though, I'll try to get people to pick me up next time instead.  Could get expensive.

The following day, we were supposed to "Deadhead" back to Boston from Tampa, but our flight was delayed like 4 hours.  My F1 and I were stuck in the airport - so close to home but not close enough.  I thought about renting a car again but one way rentals were like $70.  Not worth it.  So we waited and eventually made it back.