Lessons From 35,000 Feet

Flight Attendants:

The Homeless of the Sky.

He was a very gregarious passenger, but was also the type to poke the flight attendants to get their attention.

“So do they ever let you leave the airport on overnights? I mean, do you sleep here, or what?” I stared for a full three seconds to determine how serious he was. Do people really think we sleep in the airport?

“If we are very good girls, they allow us to leave,” I told the man. “Sometimes, we actually sleep in hotels downtown, nice ones, actually. I’m not allowed to specifically say where we stay, but they rhyme with Milton, Bestin, and Fairiott.”

I mean, I guess I was a smidge sassy. But I said it with a smile and I look innocent so it’s okay.

Maybe its a general public’s anxiety about air travel, maybe its our deceptively cheerful dispositions, our approachable faces that the airline saw was hirable. It could be the nature of 200 strangers being forced to sit together in a metal tube zooming across the sky. Whatever the reason, it gives entitlement to verbalize things about our job that sound absolutely ridiculous when heard out loud.

Recently, people have asked me if we are responsible for paying for our hotel rooms during a layover and respond with relief, “Oh, that’s great!” when I tell them that of course the airline pays for our hotels. Our instagram accounts might be flooding your feeds with European architecture, but we aren’t on vacation on these trips… do you think this is a volunteer position? We are not studying abroad, thank you! We are actually professionals who work hard for our travel benefits, who have 401Ks and should be regarded as safety professionals. I swear to high heaven.

There is a strange public perception of cabin crew that is similar to the one from the 1960’s, a fun escape from real life, a way to become eye candy to businessmen, not a real job but just a cute way to be frivolous and travel around the world without any attachments or desires for one.

We are flight attendants: the homeless of the sky.

I admit, that’s not entirely inaccurate… sometimes we are away from home for half the month. But we can make our homes wherever we happen to be, we can choose where home is and change it on a whim. We adapt to make any city, any town, any country our home for that moment, that 18 hours, that 32 hours. I feel as comfortable walking into a cafe in Rome as I do sitting down in a country bar in Nashville.

It’s just like when you were in Elementary school and everyone assumed that the teacher lived at the school. If you saw her at the dentist, the grocery store, out to eat with her family you didn’t know existed, it was downright shocking.

Flight attendants are treated the same way; our homes are in the plane, we sleep in airport, and we probably don’t have families who care about us. Otherwise we’d be home, doing the right thing, having babies and being with our significant others.

My first lesson I’ve learned while four years as a cabin crew member is this : people are comforted with the stories and fantasies they have of others whose lifestyles they either don’t agree with or understand. There will be so many weird questions, so many strange assumptions about your life.

But it literally doesn’t matter. At all. It doesn’t matter that someone has an impression of you as a directionless gypsy, all that matters is that you are doing whatever it is that makes you happy to be alive.

We can live anywhere, go anywhere, and our work day never will follow us after the trip is over. I’ve learned to work through this, to forgive others for not liking or understanding aviation people, and to add some sass to my replies when I hear them say “I guess you don’t want to have a family life, since you’re doing this gig?”

Sir. This is no gig. I have annual raises and profit sharing bonuses. You get no pretzels today.

That’s an Ashtray, Not a Doorknob.

It doesn’t matter where we fly, whether its from JFK - LAX, or from MIA - DTW. People will always, until the end of time, not understand the physics involved when operating a lavatory door. No matter the sign involved, no matter the knob size and shape, passengers do not know how to open the door, much to the entertainment and devilish glee from the crew in the galley, watching you struggle.

It really does happen on every flight.

One woman tried to pull the door that had huge capital letters on the middle saying “PUSH”. Another tried to use the ashtray as a doorknob much longer than reasonable. Others attempt to hit the door in the middle, smacking it with their palms until they see the handle, while some merely stand there with squinted eyes trying to figure out if someone is inside.

“Green probably means it’s unlocked,” I will say to them, and receive a blank stare in return. “You can go inside if the door is unlocked. It also says “vacant”, which probably means that the lav is… you know… vacant. Which probably means there are no people inside.”

I really hope she makes it, I tell the crew in the galley, who pull the curtain back just enough to see her open the door, and climb inside. Is she able to lock it on her own? It’s a 50/50 chance she will succeed. I am rooting for her.

My second lesson is this: our plane is the great equalizer. It doesn’t matter if you’re the CEO of some bread factory company, the newest addition to our favorite Netflix show, a hard working mother of five dogs, or the smartest gal in your creative writing class. You will all struggle to open the lavatory door on an airplane.

We are all the same on this metal bird, we will all do the same dumb things, and we have false illusions that we are in control. You can either shrug and accept this fate, or you can fight it and break out of the Matrixy world that we are all living in in the sky. Stop, think, and locate your brain.

Slam. Click. Good Morning!

“You’re going to Amsterdam!”

Squeals ensued. This was my very first trip, once I began to plan for immediately, researching the best museums, the best restaurants, the culture, and nightlife. I arrived at the hotel bright eyed and ready to go, napping for a mere 45 minutes before getting dressed and getting ready to walk around the city with my crew, also junior like me. I figured that I’d have plenty of time to explore with my crew before the sleepiness kicked in. We had a great time walking around the city, dodging bicyclists intent on running us down, sampling Dutch snacks and sampling Belgian beer. I shopped a little bit, not realizing how cold it was here in May.

I think I was in bed by about 9:00 PM.

Flying is so exhausting. It drains you of your life, it smacks you on the butt as soon as you step into the hotel room. Naps are crucial now, and I take one as soon as I land in Europe. The time difference messes with your head and the nap is necessary. I started taking Melatonin hormone supplements to get a better, deeper sleep at night, and made a careful choice to avoid too much alcohol on layovers. One drink, for me, is plenty for me to loosen up and feel saucy. I have learned to listen to my body more than I used to; to find the strength within me to say a polite yet forceful “No”, when I just don’t feel like going out on a layover. Sometimes I’d rather stay in an rest, catch up on my reading, plan my next vacation, zone out to Netflix, call my friends, call my mom. Taking care of yourself can definitely mean getting to know your crew at dinner and enjoying the layover with them, but it also can mean going for a run and going to sleep early, depending on what demands your body makes of you in that moment. I’ve been to Venice and stayed out for the entire day and night, and I’ve had many fun experiences in Paris that will make up for the one or two trips I take there and don’t leave my bed all day

It’s okay to be bored sometimes, and it’s okay to be alone. if you’re doing what you need to do in order to save money, work on a personal project, finish budgeting for the year, study for your next French class, or make that phone call to your family to reconnect. There’s so much pressure for us aviators to be perpetual vacationers, but sometimes we just want to take a nap. Paris is still there tomorrow, and you have a week off to travel wherever you want at any time.

My friend and talented business owner Eneia, of Eneia White Interiors, told me once that “You have a great life; you travel around the world for free, you get to see amazing things on the regular. What is most people’s exceptional trip is your normal Wednesday. There’s no pressure for you to do anything unless you really want to do them. Most save up all year to do what you can spontaneously decide a few days prior.”

Yes, I might have a working trip to Athens, but if I’m not feeling up for wine and cheese and late night dancing, its fine. Athens will be there next month. I can go back when my heart tells me to go, with close friends and a two week vacation, or on a romantic rendezvous.

This can transfer to other aspects of life too; that party you don’t feel up for or that relationship that seems like painful work rather than exciting romance— don’t give up on the things that matter but if you don’t feel in your heart to do it, then say no. Your friends will understand. Your time is only for you, after all, and you need to save your energy for the things that you feel a resounding Hell Yeah for. This is a constant struggle for extroverts, who tend to become energized by being around others and try to avoid being alone for too long.

Flight attendants, listen to your body and recognize when you’re being complacent and lazy versus taking care of yourself. Simpleness can be delicious! Doing nothing can feel sublime. The world will still love you in the morning if you don’t go out all night and party, and of course the world will love you if you join them, too.

Jumpseat Therapist Certified

If you are a flight attendant, you are also an expert in the practice of jumpseat therapy. What is this responsibility? To provide talk therapy for your crew who happens to be sitting next to you on their respective jumpseat during taxi, take off, breaks, service, and really the entirety of the flight. Very quickly we get to know each other, and very quickly divulge every personal heartbreak, relationship troubles, and current life dilemmas with family members and life choices that they need to work through.

Five minutes into the trip, I might be telling my crew about the guy I am currently in love with with or giving advice to the girl on the crew who thinks her boyfriend has been cheating on her. Don’t worry girl, we can stalk him on social media together and get to the bottom of it all. No matter that we met yesterday. We’ve got a job to do. Service in the main cabin can wait. They’re already cranky, nothing will make them happy right now anyway.

Sometimes it surprises me how deep these talks can go; mental health issues, secret lives outside of work, childhood trauma, hopes, dreams, embarrassing stories… they are discussed at length on a layover and in the “privacy” of an echoing galley. We can grow incredibly close to each other in the short three day trip only to part ways and perhaps never meet again. It’s the Last Night at Summer Camp syndrome, the urgency of connection when you know it’s about to be taken away. After a three day trip I will have a moment of sadness if I have become friends with a crew; I know that I will most likely not see them again for a long time. We are a support network, a strange disjointed family. We don’t always get along but we get each other.

Having my jumpseat therapist credentials has helped me in so many ways, namely to be able to talk to anyone about anything; it doesn’t matter if the crew is 45 years old or 23, we are all going to gossip about Beyonce and tell scandalous stories about our lives as though we are the same generation. Age is meaningless.

time is also meaningless

Where are we, where are we going, and what time is it? The answer is that I. Don’t. Know! I also don’t care that much, to be honest. It’s counterintuitive since our entire lives are guided by our punctuality to the airport, but time is so abstract to me at this point.

I’m stuck in the clouds, I have three flights today, I’m rushing around the airport, and I’ve passed over several time zones twice already. I’ll get home on a Tuesday afternoon and go out that night because my “weekend” dates change constantly. Who cares what day it is? I work so randomly that I never know what day of the week it is, and I’ve woken up in a hotel room thinking I was in my own bed on more occasions than I care to admit.

But let me tell you the date of the month. That I know for sure. It’s January 8th.

When I work a red eye to Europe, we wake up the next day and sleep the day away so we can go out at night. Then we work the next morning and arrive in the early afternoon. This version of time travel is pretty cool, but causes the weirdest jet lag sometimes.

Time is strange. I have been working for four years being a professional coke dispenser slash preschool teacher in the sky, and all the trips I’ve worked become blended together. What happened three years ago seems like two years ago, what happened yesterday seems like two years ago too. This is a very common conversation I have in the airport :

Me: “Hey Jen! Oh my god, didn’t we fly together somewhere?”

Jen: “Hmm, yeah it’s possible. Did you work the late London flight last month?”

Me: “No, I did only domestic in March.”

Jen: “Weird. A turn maybe? Carribean? How’s your brother doing, is he still in the hospital?”

Me: “My brother isn’t sick. Must be thinking of someone else.”

Jen: “Oh my god, Megan, we worked together last Tuesday. We went out to the brewery in Denver and we saw one of our passengers out, remember? It was so weird.”

Me: “Shit, that was last week? I thought that was last summer.”

Time, wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff. It’s a man made construct, created with all events and interactions together in a mush of faintly recalled memory. Aviation life has definitely helped me realize that the future is just the present moment yesterday. When I stop becoming anxious about the future and focus on making my present moment really delicious, the past will eventually soon become delicious, and the future can’t be anything but delicious too.

The concept of time escaping us has created a lot of anxieties about starting things, becoming someone new, and ending toxic relationships. Well, I’ve already been with this person for five years, might as well stay with him… I can’t start to learn another language, I’m too old… I won’t be able to write something meaningful until I am older… these anxieties about time are just digging you into a hole of defeat without even attempting your dreams.

Go do the things you want to do, now, or later, it doesn’t matter because time is static, it doesn’t move in any direction.

Murderers, Bed Bugs, Bathroom.

Starbucks in the morning.

When we enter a hotel, there are three very important things we do. First, we check for murderers. Pull back that bathtub curtain, make sure the air conditioner is the only thing making the window curtains move in that suspicious manner, pull up the bed skirt to make sure there are no murderous faces awaiting your entrance. Once we have successfully located zero murderers in our room, we dramatically throw off the bed sheets and check the mattress for that significantly horrifying black smudged stain that is the indication of tiny awful creatures that will ruin your life. If the mattress is white, you can move on. After a flight there’s nothing I want to do more than take my uniform off, so I head immediately to the bathroom, make myself human again with a hot shower to wash the plane off of me, and curl up in bed. Routine matters. It centers us in a world where time is relative and normalcy is also relative.

A lifestyle of reroutes, early sign ins, long airport sits, random whirlwind vacations, and unpredictable schedules makes me crave stability. I actively work towards forming a routine that I can depend on to bring me down to Earth when I’m traveling. I always make sure to put my things in the same place in my suitcase (well, the intention is there but the reality might not be as impressive), and I always indulge a little with a face mask or two, or three. I always go to the gym on a layover, no matter how short. It lifts my energy and spirits, making me feel like I was productive even if the rest of the day was spent in an internet hole figuring out if it’s realistic to have a fox as a pet.

And on the last day I treat myself to Starbucks.

At this point in the trip, I am most likely negotiating with my hair to stay smooth and convincing myself that I really am a people person. Depending on the trip, I might be exhausted from a fun night out with the crew or eager to get through a four leg day and get home. Either way, the last day is the Starbucks day. Starbucks is dependable, and always available. It’s always waiting for me at every single airport in the world, (except Italy), it always has exactly what I want, and it’s always the same no matter where I am. It will bring me the same amount of relief and pleasure every single time. It’s something to mindlessly go for a quick dosage of happiness.

Also, since it costs a million dollars for a cup of coffee, it feels like I’m treating myself to something very special.

The lesson? Hang on to the things that make you feel normal and grounded, whether that be your favorite necklace you never take off they are more valuable than you think.

I am an island, a calm inner tube in an ocean storm.

Nothing will phase me anymore. I heard recently of a passenger who physically whacked a flight attendant on the back of her head and then began smacking her with her boarding pass. One man asked me if I was “sure” I didn’t want to get married to him, proceeding to call me “sweetie” throughout the rest of the flight. He was at least 60. I’ve had a grown woman scream at me because I asked her to use the economy class bathroom, which was where her seat was assigned. I’ve seen many excruciating butt cracks as passengers of a large stature struggle to wedge into their tiny seats, and have witnessed many hilarious and racy text conversations (by complete accident of course) from passengers’ phones, as well as had many people hand me their dirty diapers that they just changed on the seat next to them.

Also, I’ve lived in NYC for the past four years, so I think that also establishes a certain amount of non reactiveness. This job has trained me to express my thoughts in a placid manner when I see something crazy, for if I react to anything then the passengers around me will develop imaginations beyond my control. Anyone who is already a nervous flyer looks to the cabin crew for comfort, and if I gasp at anything, no matter how insignificant, they will think the plane is about to crash.

I know this because I used to be one of those terribly annoying passengers, cringing at every dip in turbulence, holding on to the arm rests whenever something felt “not right”. I would hold my breath when we took off and hold my breath when we landed, breathing a sigh of relief that I had once again escaped death when it was safe to relax. Throwing myself into this job has not only made me comfortable with turbulence because logically it isn’t safe unless you’re hit by one of the carts or something, it has helped me sleep better on a flight. The rocking motion is really soothing, I promise!

Stoicism, it’s a beautiful practice in self control. Emotions fly across my face in flashes, and my mood is naturally transparent. Working in aviation has taught me to wait before reacting, because the crisis is never that serious after pausing to think for a few seconds first. Let the passengers freak out about the weather delay, let them throw their hands up in frustration when they didn’t get their upgrade. Be Michelle Obama. Go high, and stay so high your head is higher than the clouds you’re flying through.

Flying has taught me this: most things that people get upset about are not that serious.

its all about attitude

Sometimes I’ll be with a crew that doesn’t have anything good to say about their lives, and the trip suffers for it; when I have fun crews who laugh at the craziness, the trip seems way too short, and I can’t wait to fly with them again. This job is sublimely and suspiciously easy most of the time, but emotionally you must be able to regulate your joy so that you’re able to pluck it from your mental corridors whenever it’s powers are summoned.

One trip I was on this year turned out to be one of my favorite trips ever, with both girls I flew with remaining good friends of mine. Tricia was a new hire, completely excited to change her life and visit new places, a bubble overflowing with good energy. Michael has a wonderful spirit and a wicked sense of humor. We all bonded tightly on that trip, and it showed. The passengers loved us, commented that we were fantastic, and continuously told us that they loved to fly with our airline specifically because we were always “so nice.”

It just makes a difference, it really does. The amount of energy you give to someone else will ultimately come back to you. If I’m having the worst day, it’s harder to protect goodwill and cheer, but I am conscious to avoid being a cranky pants no matter how I feel. I may not smile, but I’m not going to go out of my way to be a bitch.

Attitude is everything. Humor changes lives. A girl I worked with very recently told me that an old lady wacked her on the back of her head once to get her attention, and then began hitting her furiously with her boarding pass envelope. The best part of the story is that she had to serve the lady a drink right after, to the comical entertainment of everyone around her. The flight attendant didn’t even flinch once. The passengers stared, waiting for a reaction, but she gave them nothing. “I know these people have their phones ready to record something,” she said wryly. “I’m not interested in becoming a youtube star.”

If you’re in a bad mood, at least be funny about it. On a flight to Cancun during the holidays, I was losing my mind to the tune of crazy. Families demanded to sit next to each other, which was impossible because they’d all purchased their tickets off of discounted websites, which assigned them seats apart from one another. Their luggage wasn’t placed in the overhead bins properly, forcing the crew to check several bags at the gate. When everyone finally sat down, I realized that there was a child in the exit row. “Will anyone please switch seats with this disabled child?” I asked politely at first. When crickets answered, I said some choice words in my head involving things that rhymed with Beezus and Ducking, and finally a businessman offered himself as tribute. “Thank you, you are my personal hero today,” I told him. I went home later that day without bringing the bad energy with me, but one passenger never forgot how professional we were. I received an email a few months later, stating that someone wrote a very lengthy letter about our crew. “They were brilliant,” it said. “I travel frequently for work and noticed that this particular flight was insane with people giving the flight attendants a hard time. The crew handled them so gracefully, never sacrificing good service.”

Wow, I thought. We sure do hide our disgust well. Being fake nice is certainly one of the greatest skills one can have in their career! You never know who is watching.

final thought

Not only did I learn the ancient art of fake cheerfulness, I learned a wonderful skill of detachment as well. I don’t react emotionally the way I used to, and I would like to hope I’d be an asset in a crisis now. Hopefully that will never be tested, but I appreciate how the aviation life has broadened my horizons with place- plop me anywhere and I’ll figure out how to get where I need to go. Self sufficiency and close friendships are essential to loving this life. Endless adventure awaits, after you give this man his peanuts.

Don’t ring that call light unless it’s an emergency, and Happy Flying! xoxo