Confessions of a Hostie 3 (4 page)

I love my little raincoat.

Over the years the flying has changed. I tend
to do more single destination trips than I once did, where we fly
to one city, have a layover, and then fly home. I have talked with
hosties from other airlines, and although rosters and flying vary
from airline to airline, it would seem a continuing trend. I still
do multi-sector trips, as well as shorter shuttles, often to and
from the overseas layover port we are staying, but more and more
trips are just to the one destination. It also means I am away for
less time than I was, however going to work more often. It is the
changing face of the airline industry. We crew adjust.

I am happier to do four or five day trips
than be away for a fortnight. It allows some resemblance of a life
at home. The jetlag becomes a continuing issue, yet these days I
have a better chance of remembering what the color of my bedcover
is. It is what it is, but my bedcover is pastel pink -
I think?

I pack for my Singapore trip. It doesn't take
long. My little raincoat is a permanent suitcase item, as too my
away
toiletries bag, my
away
medical supplies bag, a
universal travel adaptor, and a wine bottle opener. If my little
raincoat has fond memories, my bottle opener has more. I doubt
drinking wine will be on the agenda this trip... but you never
know?

Most of the crew on my Singapore trip are
older and more senior flying-wise than me. The oldest is a lady
named Kathy, with 40 years of flying experience. I cannot begin to
imagine being a hostie for 40 years. Funnily, in my 20 years I have
never met Kathy. She is obviously in her sixties and should look
like a typical grandmother or a long lost aunt, yet she doesn't.
She is vibrant, energetic, and simply lovely. I am instantly drawn
to her calmness and demeanor. When the work positions are allotted
I discover I'll be working down the back of the aircraft on a cart
with Kathy. I am really looking forward to it.

The flight to Singapore is about as relaxed
and as easy as it gets. There are plenty of spare seats and very
few passengers stand out as being potential problems. Both Kathy
and I have a rare commodity on an aircraft: time. We don't need to
rush, having time to enjoy the service and the passengers. Seldom
do we get that chance. Most times the crew are so frantically busy
we bark 'Chicken or beef?' to dispense the meal onto the
passenger's tray table with the speed of superman. It is not the
ideal way to do it, yet the necessary way.

With hundreds of impatient passengers to
serve, on most flights, it just isn't humanly possible to be chatty
and relaxed with everyone. I know from experience that if I were to
slow down, take my time, and serve five passengers deliberately and
efficiently, the sixth passenger would complain that the meal has
taken too long to get to them, the fourteenth would complain that
their meal wasn't hot enough, and the eighteenth that their meal
was cold. Then we would have to go through the 'I've been waiting
for 40 minutes for you to collect my tray' procedure when we
collected the dirty trays... or worse.

Some passengers dump their dirty trays
wherever they see fit - on door bustles, spare seats, crew seats,
and even on the floor. Could you imagine being in a restaurant and
someone places their dirty plate on the floor? I know aircrafts
aren't exactly five-star restaurants, yet the thought of dumping a
used tray and meal on the floor is beyond my comprehension. As far
as trays being placed on door bustles and crew seats, I'll address
my thoughts about that with this little story: While on a cart,
collecting dirty passenger trays, during a flight from a certain
Asian destination, we had sudden turbulence. The seatbelt sign came
on accompanied by an announcement from the flight-deck informing
the passengers and crew to sit down immediately. When the word
immediately
is used on an aircraft,
it means just that: sit down and strap in
immediately
.

I was close to a crew jump seat, so we locked
the brake on the cart, leaving it in the aisle, and I headed toward
that nearest jump seat. The turbulence was already quite severe, so
making my way down the aisle was no easy affair. When I arrived at
the seat I discovered three dirty trays piled where I needed to it.
In addition, the door bustle beside the seat was stacked high with
trays. I had no choice but to try and place the trays left on my
seat onto the floor and strap myself in. With the shaking aircraft,
the act of
placing
the trays on the
floor was more like
throwing
.

Safety, including my safety, is always the
number one priority, although I knew the mess now at my feet will
need to be cleaned up by someone - and that someone would be me.
Adding to my woes were the trays on the door bustle. The turbulence
was such that the aircraft shuddered in a side-to-side motion. Most
of the trays fell off the bustle and onto the floor; right beside
me. Some of the trays fell on me. Half full coffee cups splashed
stale coffee up my legs and scraps of food littered the floor, my
lap, and my feet.

I was angry.

When the seatbelt sign finally turned off I
leant down to begin picking up trays. It was obvious which
passengers had dumped them as they were the ones with an empty tray
table in front of them. Some of these passengers did not speak
English; it mattered little as my expression relayed exactly what I
was thinking. I calmly placed the trays back on each of the vacant
empty tray tables. It didn't matter whose tray it originally was. I
then picked up the strewn individual components to put on each
tray. I returned to the galley to retrieve a dustpan, broom, and a
bag to put all the scraps in.

While I was on my hands and knees cleaning
and scrubbing, one of the passengers, to whom I'd returned a tray,
leaned over the top of me in an attempt to place the tray back on
the door bustle. I can't remember my exact words, but I did not
swear - well, not out loud anyway.

If it is not already apparent, my pet hate is
trays being placed on the floor - often in areas which may cause a
safety hazard to the crew or other passengers. The selfishness and
irresponsibility of these actions is inexcusable. When I tell Helen
of passengers doing this, she too is dumbfounded.

'Does it happen very often?' she once
asked.

It shouldn't, but it does.

I once slipped on a tray placed in the aisle,
so I am particularly cautious and equally frustrated by the
scenario.

Here's a tip for that .1% who deem themselves
more important than the other passengers and MUST have their tray
removed immediately after use: Place it on the floor under YOUR OWN
feet, then turn on your laptop or do whatever you need to do on
your tray table. When the crew come collecting, simply pick up the
dirty tray and pass it your flight attendant.

It's that easy.

I have some revelations for those who think
airline service is slow: I don't know one flight attendant in the
history of aviation who has deliberately given slow service. It is
the opposite. We go as fast as we possibly can, given the tools,
the preparation, the safety, the resources, and the procedures we
have to work with.

The airline times the service events before
they are ever implemented. This is done in a virtual world; a world
based on theory. In their laboratory-conditions there are no
screaming babies, no passengers complaining about their seats, no
hosties being tugged on their dresses every twelve paces to be
asked for drinks, no adjusting air-vents, no fixing inflight
entertainment systems, no replacing broken headsets, no turning on
reading lights, and no demands for newspapers, magazines, extra
blankets, pillows, headache tablets, and a partridge in a pear
tree.

The questions passengers ask are often fired
from a question-asking machine-gun at deadly speed.

Habitually it is the most inane questions
which are asked at the most inappropriate times.

'Excuse me Miss, can I get another arrival
(immigration) card?' is usually asked when the seatbelt sign has
been turned on with me walking back to my seat for landing.

I feel like saying 'Oh, I'm sorry; didn't we
hand you an immigration card, what 12 hours ago, and although you
have had half a day to fill it out, you do it now - and stuff it up
- right when we are about to land?'

By the way, from my understanding about
immigration and customs forms, they are not the responsibility of
airlines. They are a country-to-country requirement legislating an
agreement between the visitor or citizen and that country. Airlines
hand out documents and assist with tips on how to fill them out as
a nicety, not a legal requirement.

On several occasions I have been abused by
passengers because we had run out of immigration forms onboard.
This was because customs officials in the departure port, not our
airline, did not have enough forms at the time to give us. In one
instance a passenger had made a mistake with their paperwork and,
true to form, asked for another just before landing. When I said we
had no more (which we didn't) the passenger became abusive. In
times like that I would love to have a printed card I could hand to
the passenger. It would read: Now listen here...

Today's flight to Singapore is going so
smoothly. I've chatted with a number of passengers. So much of our
time is normally taken up with problems. Sometimes they are genuine
problems; sometimes the problems lie fairly and squarely with the
passengers. The most annoyed I ever get on the aircraft is when
passengers become so self-centered that their actions affect other
people.

Am I judgmental?

'No way; I'm only judgmental to those who
deserve it.'

I say this statement with my tongue firmly
implanted in my cheek. Like most jokes, there is often an element
of truth behind the laughter.
I am
judgmental
. Experience has armed me with the tools to
identify those I like, those I don't, and those to be wary of. We
can't like everyone, however part of my job is to try to mask any
ill-feelings. Acting skills are a key component of the hospitality
industry. I'd like to think I can identify passengers with genuine
problems and deficiencies. I would never knowingly ridicule someone
who cannot help who they are or what they are doing. Those who have
a choice, and choose to be disrespectful to others, well then, in
my eyes it's open season.

If a passenger pops sleeping pills to wash
them down with alcohol with the inevitable consequences, then it's
open season. If a passenger is so rude they upset everyone in the
vicinity, then it's open season. If they put a meal tray on the
floor, putting crew and other passengers at risk of injury, then
it's open season.

It is not just on the plane; I see acts
worthy of 'open season' everywhere: If someone takes 105 items into
the supermarket's cashier lane clearly signed
eight items or less
, then it's open season. If
someone spits in the street, queue jumps, is racially or sexually
inappropriate, swears in front of children...

Societies have rules. Airlines have rules.
Not every one of those rules, if broken, is going to have someone
end up in a prison cell, yet there are certain guidelines and
manners which should be afforded to our fellow man.

A friend of mine once told her boyfriend:
Treat me with respect and I will be your friend forever; disrespect
me and I will annihilate your world.

I am a strong, independent woman; I make no
apologies for that. If I have an opinion I will give it. I joke
that the only time I am helpless is when my nails are drying, yet
the rest of the time I am primed and dangerous. Most of my fellow
female hosties are independent women. They need to be; it is a
physically and emotionally-demanding job and lifestyle. That is one
of the reasons I am enjoying my conversations so much with Kathy. I
don't see a 65 year-old woman wearing a little too much make-up to
cover her wrinkles. I see a vibrant woman full of life, a woman
with a strong sense of where she has been and where she is
going.

To share in someone's wisdom is more
educational than sharing in someone's life. Most people talk about
what they want and what they do. I can be one of those people. I
wish I wasn't. Kathy talks about what she has learned and how she
is enjoying life more because of that knowledge.

We should all be more like Kathy. I know I
should be.

She's been doing this, sometimes monotonous
job, for 40 years and yet I have not heard her complain once. I
don't need to ask if she enjoys the job because I can already tell
she does. She is highly intelligent and not intimidated by the
workload. This flight is stress-free and easy. Even so, I can tell
if someone is lazy or not. Kathy is hard working.

Sometimes I work with crew with some type of
physical issue. They'll usually tell you - some sooner than later.
Occasionally someone has a legitimate physical injury or
restriction limiting their ability to work in the cabin. It cannot
be major or debilitating. Ours is a physical job: there are heavy
weights to lift, lots of bending and stretching, much pushing and
pulling, and constant walking (and running) - all in an
oxygen-starved piece of metal hurtling along on an angle to make
every step feel like you are walking up a mountain. I hear so many
twenty-something new recruits complain about the physical burdens
of the job, yet Kathy, being 40 years their senior, says
nothing.