Around the World in a Bad Mood! Read Online Free Page B

completed the WAFTI training program. I was beaming with pride and relief when June Larson pinned those wings on me. The best part about graduation was learning that I had been assigned to the New York base. I was truly thrilled and eager to begin my career, which at this point I thought was going to last about six months—a precursor to my theatrical career. Well, I blinked my eyes and six months turned into sixteen years. Looking back on the first phase of my career, I wish there had been someone to take me under his or her wing and show me the ropes. As a gesture of generosity, I would like to share with any new flight attendants who might be reading this some of the knowledge I have acquired after years and years of crying—oops, I mean years and years of flying.
    First of all, the real world of flying is completely unrelated to what they taught us in training. Second, seniority rules, baby! The sooner you get that into your head the better.
    Being a service and safety professional is not an easy task. Most people probably aren’t aware of the great choreographic skills one must possess to maneuver six beverage and meal carts around a small galley the size of a postage stamp. According to training, “the trained professional” can handle this choreography with aplomb, but the reality of it comes down to this: Do what ya gotta do to get through the meal service. For example, if you’re in the left corner of the galley and need a pot of coffee from the right corner, and there are six carts between you and the coffeemaker, there is no easy way to get the coffeepot. You just have to ask your colleague, whose entire upper body is enveloped inside the meal cart while trying to find the rolls, if she would mind passing the coffeepot. First of all, she will mind because she’s pissed she can’t find the rolls. Second, she won’t be able to hear you because she is inside a meal cart, cursing. But hey, you really do need that coffeepot, so you ask another comrade in arms, who is busy chopping up a solid block of ice that has been on a bed of dry ice for three days, if, when he has a spare moment, he could pass you the coffeepot. He looks up at you from his position on the floor for a moment, glares, and then returns to his chopping. Guess not. OK, well there is always flight attendant number three, busy pulling out 185 hot entrees from the ovens and stacking them into something that resembles a tall, tin-foiled structure and sways. This person’s face is always red from the heat and she has generally developed a rhythm to her work, which does not welcome interruption. You meekly inquire what the possibility of her passing you the coffeepot might be, and she continues unloading and stacking the meals with her left hand while grabbing and passing the coffeepot to you with her right. Mission accomplished! You now have the coffeepot. Now the ice chopper needs you to pass the orange juice to him. Again, short of pole-vaulting, there is no easy way. But while a pot of scalding-hot coffee must be handled ever so gingerly, a jug of juice can be tossed across the galley like a Frisbee, and so you toss it. It goes on like this until the entire production is assembled and ready to go forth into the aisle. The meal service commences: Soup’s on!
    Here is where the going can get a bit rough for the new kid on the block. This is also where the seniority thing comes in. Every plane is different and every service is different, and some services are done one way if there are four flight attendants and another way if there are five. Who cares? New flight attendants care. They have to know the standard procedure on all types of planes for all types of service in all types of staffing situations. All flight attendants are supposed to follow the order of service as dictated by the manual, but as I said earlier, seniority rules on the airplane. That is, whoever is most senior on the flight runs the show and