I Survived the Night

Birds...I'm hearing birds. I'm not quite sure where they are or if it's just the heater. But I hear birds!

I'll be heading back to the airport in a couple of hours to work my DCA flight, but after thinking about this last trip, I thought I'd add one final comment. The 'A' flight attendant from the 4-day had dropped the final turn to Phoenix, so we had a fresh face on the turn last night. And let me tell you...it was so nice. She was friendly! At the end of the trip as we're riding the crew bus to the parking lot, we actually had a conversation! Like I said in yesterday's post, the crew can make or break a trip.

Our Flight Attendant Leadership Council is having a special Forum tomorrow for flight attendants on reserve. In anticipation of that meeting, I put together a list of suggestions that could help our situation, and I included both pros and cons for each suggestion. I sent the email to the Leadership Council and assorted others in management, as well as to my classmates. Then I got a "not-so-nice" email from a senior flight attendant telling me that I had stirred up a hornet's nest...I knew when I committed my ideas to paper that it could be sent out to anyone, and I wasn't concerned, because I didn't feel there was anything inflammatory in it. Wrong. Evidently the seniors are worried that the company is going to take from them and give to us. Hmmm. She totally missed the boat. I'm wondering if that's why the 'A' flight attendant was so cool to me.

I wrote a calm, cool and collected response to the senior flight attendant, and forwarded her letter and my response to all the original people I had contacted. From what I hear, the seniors have calmed down, but several are still planning on crashing our meeting tomorrow. There are about 14 of us who will definitely be there, and another 35 who are "on-call" and hope to be able to come. I'm kind of disappointed that there won't be more reserves there.

I really enjoy my job when everything "clicks" on a flight - but I couldn't resist the challenge of making suggestions when management asked for assistance - I guess it's the manager in me. But the old signs of stress - neckache, backache and headache - are coming back...Bummer.