Saturday, April 30, 2011

I'm Allergic to My Job!

Yes...you read it correctly. I am allergic to the job that I love. Fortunately, I'm only seasonally allergic. Thank goodness. It appears that I have developed allergies late in life, I'm exposed to lots of different environments every week, and I experience pressure changes constantly. Unfortunately for me, those allergy irritations have usually turned into bronchitis before I get treated. On my last flight (LAS to DEN) I started getting a really bad headache in the back of my head as we started preparing to land - it continued to grow and I thought my head was going to explode! It turns out that we all have sinuses in the back of our heads!!! I do not want to experience THAT again! So far this year I've been to the doctor twice, I've followed all her suggestions for allergies, I'm mad and I'm fighting back! (I'm also on sick leave on the couch until the gunk clears out of my head...)

Our newest class of flight attendants has graduated! Yahoo! Twenty-seven new flight attendants have joined us here in Denver. Hopefully, we'll soon "feel" their presence - I'm up to 99 hours for April, and I worked every duty day except one.

That reminds me of a recent conversation in the crewroom - a senior mama was upset because the company is setting the bidding threshold for lines at 95 hours. So that means that everyone is getting assigned that many hours, even if they normally work more/less. The kicker is that they can't drop any trips if the "flight attendant grid" is in the red (not enough flight attendants to cover the couch sits and on-call at home). And lately, the grid is ALWAYS red. However, the new flight attendants may help that situation. Anyway, the senior mama was crying to us - 4 reserves sitting on the couch - telling us that she NEVER works 95 hours! I interrupted her and told her that the reserves have been working between 90-110 hours each month for the past FOUR MONTHS. She then told me that I "just didn't understand" - she getting assignments to places she didn't want to go on days she didn't want to fly. Wah wah. I just looked at her and said, "And what do you think RESERVES get to do? Sheesh. She should seek her comfort elsewhere.

Even though people have told me they would, no one has written in a complimentary letter for me yet. Instead, they tell it to my face. One of the best recently occurred the other day - I parked the cart next to a guy in his 20s as I served a couple rows in front of him. I decided to show off my two-handed pouring style, and he asked me, "Do you like your job?" I looked at him and wondered if this was a trick question..., "I LOVE my job! It's the best job in the entire world!" He then replied, "I can tell - it shows!" What a nice compliment! I'm just "being myself," being silly, but yet being serious when the need calls.

That brings back a memory - in my previous life I was an internal auditor for a food & beverage company. I never sat behind the same desk for more than a couple weeks in a row - I was constantly traveling from one place to another. One of my visits was at Zion National Park. Now, remember that I had all this silliness bottled up inside of me, probably since I was a baby, but this professional job I held didn't let me express that silliness...until one night at Zion. Each auditor was given a little cabin to stay in, and in the middle of the night, I stole all the toilet paper from my room and toilet papered a car that was parked a short ways away. I thought it was a park ranger's car that I was teasing. BUT, the next morning at breakfast, I found out that it was the Head of the National Park Service's car! Oops. No one ever knew, because I was always such a "good girl." But now I'm letting that silliness out.

Since I'm higher up on the seniority list at work, I bid for mostly weekends off in May. Wow. Even if I don't have plans for each weekend, it'll be nice to actually be off from work on the same days as my husband and friends. Woo hoo! At the very least, I'll be able to set up some nice trades, using weekend days as my trading "bait." Life is good!

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Home, Sweet, Home!

It's pretty hard to remember to keep up this blog - at first, there were lots of new things to write about. Then I started traveling and I had funny, or stupid, stories to write about. And then slowly as the months passed, the reserves started working harder and harder. Our days of sitting at home waiting for the phone to ring were over. We started working on every single duty day...usually 19 or 20 a month! And to top that off, when we would work, crew scheduling would try and squeeze every last drop from us and work us between 14 and 16 hours! Exhaustion set in, and when I got to a hotel or home, I glanced at Facebook and email, and then went to bed!

But I'd like to announce that a NEW DAY IS DAWNING! A new class of flight attendants is graduating this week and about 27 of them are being assigned to Denver. WOO HOO! That fact reflected in my May schedule...I was no longer 35 from the bottom of the reserve list. I was more like 62 from the bottom, so I took my chances and bid for weekends off! And guess what? I got every single day off that I bid for. Oh my God.

There is another class starting on May 2 and another on May 28 - after those two classes graduate, I may be a lineholder! And what does that mean? That means that I can bid for the days off that I want, I can put in preferences for the position (A, B, or C) that I like to fly on the plane, I can avoid certain types of flights, and I can maybe even request a few trips that I'd like to fly. I'll be very junior. But what I'm hoping to do is get a schedule, drop everything I don't like, and then pick up trips that make me happy. I'll KNOW IN ADVANCE what I'm doing, where I'm going, and I won't have to answer calls from crew scheduling any longer! Halleluiah!

However, when it comes to the holidays, I very well may drop back down to reserve so that I can have the holidays off. Ah...to have a normal life again. Is it a dream?

For those who are wondering, I still love my job. It makes me happy. I am very good at it. I get to be me, act silly, but still convey messages about safety, help people who aren't feeling well, entertain passengers with stories, etc. I recently flew with two Milwaukee-based flight attendants who had been with the company about a year. It was so refreshing! They are still in the "I love my job" phase, and it showed. The passengers are upbeat and happy, the flight attendants are upbeat and happy, and everything goes really smoothly.

That's unlike what it's like to fly with DEN-based flight attendants. Most have had about 3 years experience now, and there are a lot of burnt-out flight attendants. I've witnessed rudeness, yelling, negativity, bad attitudes - all on the part of flight attendants. Then I have to work doubly hard to keep myself upbeat and happy. Recently, a more senior flight attendant came to me during a flight and asked, "Do you really love this job this much, or are you just acting?" And I could honestly tell her that I really do love this job.

With the new hire classes, my friend EC's new program on virtue, how can one NOT love it? Sure, there are things that can go wrong, but if you don't take it personally, just sit back and relax a little and enjoy the ride, it really isn't that bumpy!

So...as I head towards the end of April, flying at least 100 hours for the third month in a row involuntarily, I know that a better, slower life is just around the corner - I can hardly wait!