Adventures in Flight: Threshold for Negativity

Negative of a plane over Chicago

I had just finished the dinner service in first class and was seated on the jumpseat to catch my breath. It was a long service, interrupted by turbulence in the stormy skies over West Texas and Southern New Mexico, compounded by having to feed the hungry pilots as well, and made worse by the fact that of my two ovens, one was inoperative. Dear Mia walked into the galley looking like she'd just run a race. It seems the service in coach was as rough.

We exchanged a few pleasantries after checking in on one another, when she told me that I needed to talk to the woman in 28F. The woman had already spoken to both flight attendants working in economy and was not happy with what either of them had to say. It was something about food being served and how much she spent on her tickets.

I had already dealt with three negative people earlier that day, so when I turned around to see the threshold of my ability to sanely deal with more negativity, I could no longer see it. That threshold was long gone, hurried along by 1A during our boarding process.

He had a bag that was preventing the overhead bin from closing. Neither Mia nor I were able to close the bin. I even turned the bag around to see if that would help. It didn't. I asked who the bag belonged to and found a bunch of faces silently looking at me as if I might break into song. Without a word, 1A gets up, stomps to my location at row 2, turns his bag around and then slams the ever-loving shiitake out of the door. It startled the women in 3A and B and the man in 1B looked terrified. Mia was there, looking at me with her mouth agape and eyes as wide as the Gulf of Mexico.

I followed him back to his seat and asked that he not treat our plane so roughly, or I'd might be forced to send him the bill for the damage. I should have reminded him that had he broken it, we'd have to empty the contents, check the bags and tape the bin closed, as that is what happens with a broken bin. Regardless, he was now on our radar and had best behave himself for the remainder of boarding or he'd find himself on a later flight to San Francisco.

Negative from the flight deck over clouds

I rolled my eyes at Mia, seated next to me on the jumpseat and asked if the woman in 28F had actually asked to speak to me. She had. There was no getting out of this one; I'd have to go back and deal with it.

It's amazing how a smile can disarm negativity. I started, maintained and left with a smile on my face when I got to 28F. I'm not sure where I found that smile, but surely it was just about the last one I had left. Waiting for me was a woman with a quaint British accent seated next to a young man who spoke under the same condition. She seemed a bit surprised that I actually came back to speak with her and she reminded herself that she was upset.

She started by telling me that she was amazed to be told there was no food when the flight attendants reached her row during the service. “We ran out of food?” I asked. “No, there was only food for purchase,” she replied. I told her that we no longer had complimentary food on our flights. When she asked how long this afflicted us, I found myself searching for a condensed version of Mother Airline going into bankruptcy many years ago, and how, to save money, one of the things we lost was free food in coach. But she had just flown in from London and received a meal. Yes, but that's international- this is domestic. This response required my giving her a few definitions, but I was all smiles.

The woman lost steam as we spoke and she became more and more pleasant, telling me she had spent over 2,000 pounds on her flight from London.

“Two thousand pounds? Why that's more than a rhino weighs.”

“Shut up, Inside Voice, this doesn't concern you!”

Soon we were chatting about the places I've lived, what to do in San Francisco for their 10-day holiday, and the lack of anything redeeming about fruit cake. By the time I walked back to the forward galley, my two friends from London in row 28 were all smiles, including the woman listening in behind them who had hoped to hear more tirades, but instead got an earful of pleasantries.

Mia couldn't believe how nice she was to me after giving she and Sue such a hard time over not eating on their 4 hour sit time in Houston and how we didn't have anything free to give her for her 2000 pounds sterling tickets.

As she and the young man left, they both shook my hand as I bade them a fantastic California holiday. She stopped to look in the cockpit and asked if she could thank the captain. “Oh, she just left,” I said. “As now must you!” said Inside Voice. I'm so happy Inside Voice stays inside or I could get in trouble. My new friend in 28F and her companion were nice, but the flight was late and I was ready to get to my hotel. “Buh-bye.”

Landing in SFO

View to a Thrill: Checking Inn

A Marriott

Inside Voice has a sassy personality that I can't always control. I try to keep Inside Voice silent, but sometimes it just blurts out. Inside Voice's favorite response to the question, “Does Mother Airline pay for your hotels?” is, “No, we sleep in the terminal in makeshift shanty towns of lost and found coats and jackets and old seat cushions.” Inside Voice can be so sassy. Of course Mother Airlines provides for our hotels.

It's said that back in the day, flight attendants had to bunk up and share a room. Today, our contract provides language of certain expectations for our hotel layovers. They must be of a certain standard (sorry, Best Western and Howard Johnson, our standards are high), be located in a safe environment, have food available, provide Internet access, provide no smoking rooms and a room for each crew member. Bunking up is strictly at the whims of the crew involved. (And yes, there have been times I've willingly bunked up, but that is for a completely different series!)

Most of our crew hotels are of the caliber of Marriott, Doubletree, Hyatt or Sheraton. One of the things I enjoy about my job the most are the layovers. I love the chance to get out and explore, engage in new cultures, see how people live and work, and enjoy a nice hotel room. Some hotels are fantastic to stay in. Others are quite mundane. Only a few were bad enough that I would never wish them on anyone else! (I'm looking at you DC.)

Almost any crew member will readily admit that there is nothing better than staying in a hotel that is attached to the airport. Not having to wait for the van, tip the driver or spend time in transport, are a huge bonus! It's a fairly rare, bonus, however, as most of our layovers require the van ride.

My favorite hotel chain is probably Marriott, although I love the free cookies when you check in at a Doubletree. But with Marriott, you know that no matter what city you're in, you're going to have the same basic room...down to the same desk and lamp. It's sort of nice to have that expectation. Of course, that doesn't help in trying to figure out in which city you're in. “Wasn't I in this room last night?”

I'm often hear jealousy from others of all the room service I must take advantage of. Room service is a nice luxury, however, if I were to do it on a regular basis, I'd need another job to support the habit. Yes, most hotels give us a small discount- usually 15%. But most hotels tack on a 20% charge plus a fee for the opportunity to have someone bring your meal to your room. I've only taken advantage of room service at a hand full of hotels; once when the crew discount for food was 50% and perhaps a few times when I just didn't feel like getting dressed and going down for food.

The Peabody Hotel in Memphis

I've found a routine in entering a room and I'm not sure if I should attribute this to be slightly anal retentive or just comforted in having a routine for the many hotels in which I stay. Number one is safety and locating my exits in case of emergency. I enter the room and inspect it for intruders and odors. I refuse rooms that still have a lingering odor of cigarettes.

Off comes the tie and my airline ID badge, then the shoes. As I take off my watch, I verify that the room's clock is correctly set; you'd be surprised at how many times I have to adjust a clock. After this, I adjust the thermometer. I like the room to be between 67-70 degrees. In a hot locale, I may turn it down as low as 60!

Now it's time to lose the uniform, hanging it in the closet. Then I set out the items in the bath room on a washcloth; toothbrush and paste, comb, meds, deodorant, cologne, cotton swabs, liquid soap (I bring my own so I don't waste the hotel's on a single use) and like a rock star's dressing room, it's always set out in the same fashion. After all, I am a rock star. Of sorts.

Once this is complete, I may need to facilitate...or as some might say, use the oval office. Usually, when I get to a hotel room, I've been working a long day—as long as 16 hours. Airplane lavs are disgusting and I avoid having to sit in one at all costs.

Not every hotel has a heliport...but this one does!

As my name-sake might suggest, I don't like a lot of heat, so the next thing I do is remove the down comforter from the bed. When I started this job 15 years ago, it was rare to see down on any hotel bed in the US. But today, 99% of the hotels in which I stay have down. It gets old ripping the bed apart and making it back every time I'm in a hotel room. The only times I can handle sleeping under a hot down comforter is when I make the room 60 degrees or colder!

It's at this point that I can do what I need to do. On a short layover, that means going right to bed, as by this point I may have an alarm set for as little as 6 hours later (Flight attendants often have only an 11 hour layover, which is block-to-block, meaning once you subtract deplaning, getting to the hotel, checking in, doing the above settling in, getting up, showering, dressing, getting back to the airport and starting work an hour prior to takeoff for passenger boarding, you're only left with 6-7 hours for sleeping!)

If sleeping is not necessary right away, I'm usually on my computer to write a story, checking email or chat with friends all over the globe. When I have a longer layover, I really love getting out to explore and take photos or working out in the gym.

Exploring on a layover in Pittsburgh

They are our chance to recharge. They are our home away from home. They are nice, comfortable and if we're lucky, close to things we enjoy doing if we have enough time to do them. Yes, a nice hotel after a long day flying the skies is just the thing needed between flights.


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