Daily occurrences and struggles of a Flight Attendant.

Because the internet doesn’t have enough of these “list” articles.

I’m easing myself back into the writing game slowly with one of these really original articles that bullet points a few statements that a niche market of people can relate to and elaborates on them with only a paragraph and maybe some pictures, if you’re lucky.

I’m now going to try justify my publishing of this article.

Because I don’t want to tarnish my integrity as a writer…

As I said, I’m easing myself back into the writing game and these article’s popularity is undeniable, bitesize pieces that only last a couple of scrolls on a smart phone and bring a knowing smile to those who can relate. It also serves as an introduction to my work, a background on my life just now and hopefully a little giggle here and there.

Let’s go.

1. Seeing pictures of my friends doing handstands on the Great Wall of China becomes boring.

My trip to Beijing was one of the first I ever did in this job. It’s a place I never thought I would go, but I was lucky enough to be given the trip in my roster in the first month. The Great Wall is certainly not how I ever pictured it, I always thought of it more Berlin Wall-esque, in the middle of the city or even surrounding the city, I think this image is a mix of my memories of Dubrovnik and having seen some pictures of the Berlin wall’s destruction. The wall is actually about a 90 minute drive from central Beijing and the drive is pretty magnificent, passing through the chinese farm lands, where I saw my first camel, despite living in the Middle East for three months. Obviously the Great Wall of China is pretty damn big, there are spots along the way that you can access it as it is on high ground. We took the most conventional way, cable car ride from the visitor centre. At the foot of the cable car was a Subway, which specialised in dog meat marinara, think I’ll settle for the smarties cookie thanks.

I reckon this cable car line was built the same time as the wall, and i wouldn’t be shocked if the carriages even pre-dated the wall. Due to the way our group worked I went solo on the car. It was high, real real high, higher than me and that’s high. And just when i would settle in and enjoy the view it could creak and stutter, like a steam train does when it departs from the station, except this steam train was about 15,000 feet high above a Chinese Jungle.

After the ride of death we are there.

On The Great Wall Of China.

I did this thing, which I find myself doing often in this job, I scrunched up my eyes and tried to focus, on nothing physical, just focus on the situation. I think it’s maybe what people call “ a mental snapshot”. And then we started walking along, picture here, selfie there, jump shot there. It was spectacular. I returned to the hotel and threw one of the photos on Facebook, with some witty caption and the “likes” just rolled in. Most from friends and family back home, others from fellow flight attendants. I was one of the first from my joining date to go to this wonder of the world, and now when I see someone doing a back flip and a triple handstand on the edge of the wall, it doesn’t phase me at all, that’s a 5 liker that is. My Facebook feed is full of photos of coconut cocktail drinks, Mauritian waterfalls and selfies with Lions. I can’t imagine it any other way.

2. The world is my Supermarket.

In this job, the world is my shopping mall and more importantly, my supermarket. Living in a desert, we don’t have local produce as such, everything is imported, even the birds. I don’t mean women, or even chickens breasts, I mean like actual birds are imported every few years to bring some je ne sais quoi to desert living. So everything is imported, even the people. But I like to choose what I import which is one of the perks of this job. My lunch can be made up of spinach from Hamburg, avocados from Sydney, mince from Aberdeen and brazil nuts from Sao Paolo, I’m not quite sure what dish that is, but you get the idea. After doing this job for a couple years people start to chose their destinations based on the quality, location and price of the local supermarket. I personally prefer German supermarkets, they offer the best in fresh foods, can’t be beaten in quality nor price, and there’s always a good pint waiting round the corner to award my supermarket sweep efforts.

3. Like normal people, I take my work home with me too.

Those falling dreams that you get as you are drifting off to sleep, you know the ones where we never die in them cause then we would die in real life? So we always wake with a slight jump in our bed. Well they are replaced by physically jumping out of the bed to hurry to the kitchen to pour a glass of water for 33A, because we are human too and we do forget that you asked for a water, but don’t worry it haunts us. Maybe it’s karma, maybe it’s life but it’s a bitch regardless. The other thing I often catch myself doing is pouring my left over tea or coffee down the toilet before rinsing it in the sink. This little habbit is picked up from on board… have you ever seen a flight attendant go into the lav with 3 pots of tea and 2 of coffee? Don’t be fooled into thinking this is the only time that we get to have a cuppa, we don’t have to smuggle it in and sit and skull it on the lav, as tempting as it is to hide away from passengers, we do actually drink our tea in a civilised manner, from cups… in the galley. The reason we take the tea and coffee in to the toilet is due to the plumbing of the aircraft, the sinks on board flush out on to the body of the aircraft, but the toilet doesn’t. So to avoid any unwanted makeovers on the body of the aircraft, we have to dispose of the unwanted drinks as such. The plumbing in my flat doesn’t work quite the same way, but the plumbing in my head has no idea what is going on after a 14 hour flight.

4. I have realised that sugar alters the colour of tea or coffee.

It doesn’t actually, but more often than not when someone asks for Tea or Coffee and you say “with milk?” and they say “no, black”, and you say “sugar?” and they reply, slightly irritated “no, black”. Yes I heard, but sugar doesn’t actually change the colour of your drink. Another favourite is “Black coffee with milk”, ok so a white coffee then? I once got asked for a Flat White, in economy class, I’m standing there with a cart which has a pot of tea and a pot of coffee and a milk jug, can you please point out the Nespresso machine sir because I am struggling to see it. Of course I didn’t say that, what I did say though was “well I have coffee, and I have milk and if the pilot would just fly straight, I’m sure I could make it flat for you.” Blank expression. I have also been asked for a Chai Latte and an espresso, I think I need to remove my Starbucks apron when I’m at work.

5. The onboard lavoratory is my beauty salon.

I take my tweezers on board to pluck my eyebrows, because there is no light more invasive and true as the one in the on board lavoratories. People wonder how we can look so fabulous on board, becuase when they look in the mirror in the bathroom they see an uncanny resemblance to the corpse they saw on last night’s episode of The Mentalist. Honestly, we look just as horrific, we hate looking in those mirrors. Coatings of Chanel and lashings of YSL doesn’t change that. Honestly, you don’t actually look that bad when you are travelling. It also goes without saying that you are the true winners here as wearing Double Day wear every day in conditions which dry skin out ten fold to on ground, is not going to have us looking like Jen An in 10 years. I once spilt 16 cups of juice and one litre of coffee onto my sikrt, admittedly not my best moment. The skirt was dry in under ten minutes. That’s no lie and that my friend’s is why you should always bring on your own water and moisturise as much as humanly possible when flying.

6. I’m an expert in justifying not going to the gym.

In this job, image is important whether we like it or not, we are objects to passengers and to some cultures, we are celebrities… or aliens, not too sure but I prefer the idea of the former. But honestly after any flight, be it a 2 hour turn-around to Pakistan or a 14 hour flight from Sydney, the last thing I have energy for is the gym. So I sleep, I binge watch tv series and I go out for dinner, just to get out the house. I justify my laziness and extra sleep by saying “my body must need it”. Or I say “it’s fine, I’ve cut out hot meals, I had a salad on board and some diet water*”. We have discussions in the galley, like “I swear we have walked the equivalent of a marathon today”. I have started using a pedometer at work, it’s very disappointing to see how little we actually do walk. But we will continue to justify ourselves whilst complaining about our lack of six packs.

*Yes we believe in diet water, water with chia seeds and lemon slices. It’s a staple in our daily lives, along with 2 bottles of wine and a pizza.

7. I am actually a meterologist as well.

Weather is an important part in my job, it can extend or decrease my working day considerably. I’ve been stuck in sand storms, been struck by lightening and landed in gail force winds and hail- naturally in Glasgow. Turbulance is a result of weather, clouds to be exact. There are all different types of clouds which make all different levels of turbulance. You would think that this is one thing that we would not be blamed for, but unfortunately not. The cloud patterns are also a result of our existence as crew. The most complaints come when the clouds are clear that we are flying through, although they are clear, they still cause turbulance. Most will not accept this, and request that I discuss it with the captian. I always say I will as soon as he wakes up. That is a joke that is much funnier in my head, but it always slips out. I concede by reassuring them that the Captain isn’t using the steering wheel like a game of GTA and is actually completly in control of the situation.

8. That was my wee small talk joke, just smile mate.

Of course no day at work is complete without an antagonisnly embarrassing language barrier. It’s not surprising considering each time I go to work, there will be a crew consisting of at least 10 different nationalities and even more languages. And then there are the passangers, who naturally come from all over the world, being based where we are we connect the sub continents to the north and quite often they can make for the funniest language altercations.

I love working on the UK flights where the passengers are predominately native English speakers, this is when I’m in my element. I can have a giggle and a bit of banter with them, and they love it, not expecting to find a Jock on their journey through the Middle East. My favourite is when they refuse sugar for their coffee or tea and I say, “aw you’re sweet enough hey” … they love it. A good old fashioned giggle from a fellow Brit, great little bond we’ve formed. Little do they know I say it to everyone, well not everyone, I make sure there is a couple rows between recipients so they are not in total earshot. It’s nice if they think they are the only ones. The embarrassment comes though when I say it to a customer who I mistake for being British and is actually German and they what “vat?” and I repeat myself…slower, and again, louder…

“YOU- I point at them, are, SWEET- point at the sugar, enough- big smile.”

When that still fails, I try shake it off with a wave of the hand and a “doesn’t matter, just a joke”. But by this time the Geordie couple two rows in front who got such a chuckle from me before suddenly feel a little less special as they turn around and see me throwing sugar at a not so sweet German.

And there you have it, a little insight into my daily life, it’s not all fish or chicken… infact it’s quite often only beef.

I’ll leave you now with a perfect depiction of my biggest struggle on board, brought to life by the one and only Kevin Bridges.