More Confessions of a Hostie (16 page)

Mary and I are quite senior on this trip, and when we chose our work positions on the aircraft we do so in seniority. I would much rather work with Mary with all her faults than the kindergarten kids down the back of the aircraft. The only problem – Mary is not here yet. Our crew briefing is about to start, and she is nowhere to be seen.

The briefing begins, and the manager first explains that one crew member has phoned in to say she has been stuck in traffic and is running a little late. She wishes to work upstairs. The manager could only be talking about Mary. On this aircraft, a jumbo 747, there is a section upstairs where two crew work. It is a great place to work, but with one drawback – the pilots are up there as well, and they can often be more demanding than passengers. I know Mary would want to work with me, so I volunteer to work upstairs with her.

Mary finally arrives. She apologises to the crew for being late and reiterates just how bad the traffic was. She later told me that she had a dream-run driving in to work and that she actually had slept in.

I am not surprised.

While I am doing my onboard security checks the flight crew arrive. We have four on this trip: a captain, a first officer and two second officers. The captain is a short, no-nonsense man with absolutely no sense of humour. The first officer, Peter, is a nice man. I notice he is wearing a wedding band. He doesn't appear to be the sleazy type. One of the second officers by contrast has my alarm bells ringing. His name is Nick, and he is probably in his late twenties, is very good-looking and equally sure of himself. I don't trust this guy, and I am normally a good judge of character. The other second officer is a woman named Fiona. She is lovely. I think she might be fairly junior as she is quite reserved and attentively watching the movements of the other tech crew, particularly the captain.

I get the impression that Fiona is intimidated by the captain. He certainly appears to be an angry little man and demanding. As I am doing my security checks he has barked a number of flight deck entry procedures and rules he wants obeyed and then demands a coffee as soon as he has completed his flight deck checks.

‘How the hell do I know when he has finished his flight deck checks?'

Mental telepathy is not one of my strong points.

Mary is in charge of the galley upstairs. When I enter the galley and start complaining about how rude the captain is, she smiles and says, ‘I see you've met the Poison Dwarf.'

‘So he is the infamous Poison Dwarf?'

Mary works upstairs on a jumbo quite regularly, and she has flown with the Poison Dwarf a few times. She imparts some invaluable advice on how to handle him. She remembers how egoistic and obsessive he is.

‘He wants everything. For a little man, he knows how to eat. Why don't we make a tray of goodies and send it up after take-off so that will at least get him off our backs for a while.'

That seems like a wise thing to do. Mary may lack wisdom in her own affairs, but she certainly knows how to manipulate a situation to get the best result for her. What is, however, not so wise is her observation on how cute the second officer Nick looks. I remind Mary that he is younger than she is, and if she is into younger men, then the back of the aircraft is full of glamorous hosties straight out of college. Mary gives a wry smile and tells me that she has met Nick once before and although they did not get the chance to hook up, she is certain he is interested.

‘He's a naughty boy that one. I can tell,' she boasts.

When Mary first started flying she was as pretty as any of the new Hollies and Ambers I have seen. Mary still rarely pays for her own drinks at a bar, but she has also burnt the candles at both ends – and it shows. Her body is not quite as sexy as it was all those years ago. Even though her body has changed, her dress sense hasn't. She still wears the same revealing little outfits she wore when she was twenty-one. Peter Pan may be the boy who never grew up, but Mary is the girl who didn't. The only real difference these days is that when Mary was young she was getting chased by the guys; now it Mary who does the chasing.

Mary and I sit next to each other in crew seats for take-off and landing. Mary loves to chat. The only problem is that the passengers seated near us can hear everything we say. I whisper and drop hints that we should talk later in the galley, but Mary is oblivious. She keeps chatting – and loudly. She talks about her recent troubles and therapy sessions. I feel very uncomfortable for those passengers within earshot. I can't do anything about being ogled, but I can choose what other people get to hear. Mary has those same options, but rarely exercises that discretion.

It can be daunting working in an aluminum tube for up to sixteen hours with hundreds of eyes looking at you and as many ears listening to you. Thank goodness aircrafts these days have inflight entertainment systems – the passengers now have other things to look at as well. When the screens actually work, that is.

I have been a passenger on numerous airlines over the years, and the check-in staff often seat me at an exit row, which means I regularly sit opposite or near operating crew. Most of those times I have not been in uniform, so the operating crew would have no idea that I too am a hostie. Consequently, I have heard conversations that are cringe-worthy. Mostly the crew bitch or complain about their working patterns/rosters and use airline jargon and terminology to thinly disguise what they are talking about. The regular passengers may not understand the specifics of what is being discussed, but they certainly would get the gist.

Once, on a domestic flight with another airline, I had been seated opposite a catty guy and a young Amber. Mr. Catty did all the talking, and he was toxic. The flight was waiting in a queue, readying for take-off and we probably had a fifteen minute wait on the ground: he spent fourteen minutes and fifty-five seconds talking to the other flight attendant, criticising anyone and everyone. He reserved his harshest criticisms for the airline he worked for. I could not help but think that there are so many people who would give almost anything to have his job.

I am very aware that an aircraft is a closed environment and that passengers can see and hear much of what you do and say. I don't want other people to know my business. Mary doesn't seem to be aware of the fact, but I am.

‘Mary, I'll chat later in the galley if that is OK?'

Still it does not work. The best I can do without being really abrupt is try and change subject or involve the passengers seated opposite us. I do both.

The passengers are all very nice and apart from the demanding captain, the day is going quite effortlessly. The day may be going smoothly, but the plane is not. The turbulence has been quite severe at times. The bumps have been caused by clear-air-turbulence, about which the pilots have little to no warning. One of the jolts throws me off my feet in a sideways direction. The seatbelt sign comes on immediately, but I have already bashed into a bulkhead near the galley, then bounced off that and into another section outside the galley before I have the chance to grab a handrail in the galley itself. Mary is already hanging on for dear life.

We clamber our way back through the cabin, bouncing from one seat to the next before we finally get back to our crew seats. We strap ourselves in tight.

On the list of ‘Ten dead giveaways you are a hostie', number seven was this: Your arms and legs are constantly covered in bruises. You even have bruising from bumping into carts, seats and people in places that don't seem physically possible.

If my shin is the perfect device to find a glass coffee table in a dark hotel room, then the rest of my body parts are perfect devices for bouncing off pieces of an aircraft. I feel like I'm in one of those bumper cars we find at fairs and amusement parks. The cars, however, have rubber bumpers. When hosties bounce off things in the cabin, we don't have bumpers and there is little to no rubber inside a plane. When you do bounce off something solid it hurts. Both Mary and I are shaken, slightly bruised, but overall we are not injured enough to make a fuss.

Who does make a fuss is young Amber. Just like Mary and me, Amber stumbled and hit her leg on some part of the aircraft. She is still traumatised when I see her, some twenty minutes after the turbulence subsided. She has tears in her eyes as she shows me the bruise coming up on her leg. I have three or four bruises twice the size as hers, including one on my leg.

I show her my infinitely larger and blacker bruise and she asks me the dumbest question, ‘For how long have you had that bruise?'

I nonchalantly reply, ‘The same amount of time as you have.'

She still looks at me as if I'd bought the bruise at a flea-market.

sometimes crew get very badly battered and bruised

On a flight a few months ago, I had worked with another Amber. This was only her second or third trip. If my memory serves me right, I think her name was actually Holly. She too had been in tears, although not over a bruise but over how a passenger had talked to her. The passenger hadn't sworn at her or used abusive language, but was just abrupt. If her skin is so thin that she cries over a little rudeness, then lord help her if she does a trip to the subcontinent. Maybe she should do an India trip or two – that will toughen her up.

Not every generation-Y hostie is as soft as Holly or Amber. It can't be easy for new flight attendants, particularly the really young ones who come straight to a globe-trotting and demanding job like this with no basic life skills and very little experience in dealing with people. I can remember the first time I started flying and how intimidating it was.

It seemed like there were more outrageous characters in the job those days. Often an experienced older guy would put his arm around me and say, ‘If anyone gives you a hard time, you just let me know. OK?' These guys were respectful and would look out for me, but if someone these days put their arm around a Holly or Amber, they would have sexual harassment charges slapped onto them. Mary jokes that if a guy talks dirty to you, he could be prosecuted, yet if a girl talks dirty, she could get paid $5 a minute.

I was so excited when I first started flying. I had travelled a little before getting the job, but there were so many places I had not seen. I went out every day, and I went out every night. Every trip was an adventure, and the fellow crew members were as exciting to be around as the destinations.

The Holly I flew with a few months ago had never travelled anywhere prior to becoming crew. Our trip was to Johannesburg, South Africa. I have been there many times before, but I still managed to get out and about. Holly barely left her room. I am quite confident she did not leave the hotel.

It was her first trip of any description to Africa, and I even heard several of the other crew members ask if Holly would like to join them in going to a local traditional marketplace. She declined. I went. Holly did not join us for dinner either. I am guessing she sat in her room and ate room service. If someone hides in a hotel room on their first ever visit to a city, what is in store for this girl after she has been to that same city twenty times? I'm guessing she won't be a hostie long enough to find out.

Mary was never one to sit in her room alone. She has always been a party girl and a party planner.

Even for our current trip, she has made plans for the whole crew, with the exception of the Poison Dwarf and Amber, to meet for drinks the first night we are in Santiago. It is the standard 6 p.m. get-together as seems to be the case in most hotels we stay in around the world.

Both Mary and I have been to Santiago a few times before. Last time I went to San Cristobal Hill. The weather was beautiful during that trip, and the views over the city were great. This time it is a little cooler so hopefully we will have snow on the Andes mountain range, which surrounds much of Santiago. It should make for a spectacular scenic backdrop.

I know I mentioned that the shopping in Santiago was not really in my favourites list, but that is always subject to change. For a die-hard shopper like me, nothing is set in stone as far as shopping is concerned. Mary is not really a shopper. She shops out of necessity, not for the fun of it (like me). Her plan is to party hard at night and sleep during the day. It is not so much a plan, but more a lifestyle for Mary.

Santiago has some great jazz clubs, and I love jazz music. I remember going to several clubs last time in an area called Bellavista. I have trouble remembering most Spanish names, but Bellavista (which means ‘beautiful view') is easy to recall.

After my mandatory four-hour sleep at the hotel, I decide to go for a walk around town in the near vicinity of the hotel. Mary and I are meeting in her room at six on the dot. From there we can go down together to the hotel bar. There is nothing worse than sitting in a bar on your own and waiting for others to show. It is inevitable that if you are on time and the first one to show up, everyone else will turn up late or not at all.

When we get to the bar, the pilots, minus the Poison Dwarf, already have a drink in hand. One thing I have noticed about pilots is if they say they'll be somewhere at a certain time, they will be there exactly on time. On the other hand, if cabin crew members say they will be there at a certain time they will be there half an hour later.

I take note that Fiona is a little less reserved than she was on the plane. I am guessing that is because she is away from the Poison Dwarf. Mary sits directly opposite Nick, but I notice Fiona sits beside me and not beside Nick.

Mary and Nick instantly indulge in some friendly banter and not-so-subtle sexual teasing. I am forced to redirect all my conversational skills to the other two techies, which is not so bad as they are both nice people. Peter is soft-spoken, but very genuine. Fiona begins to relax over a drink or two, and I find her very interesting to talk to. She has only been with the company for just over a year and prior to that she had spent a number of years in G.A. (General Aviation).