Flight Attendant Friday

Can I say, I think I've gone a little crazy lately! I mean hey, I usually work nine days a month ok!!! I've have worked five days in the past seven........WHOA!!! THAT'S BIG, REALLY BIG!!! I worked a three day Saturday, Sunday, Monday. Came home Monday night and at 3:00 p.m. Tuesday I was back on the dirty bird headed to Dallas to start a two day on Wednesday. Hey, I had to do it. It's hard to pass up VJA pay(time and a half) which my company offers every month on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd. I NEVER luck into VJA......well, I did this month and boy did I pay for it. Here's a quick run down!

First downfall......3:45 wakeup call! Ugh! But that's ok......VJA!!! However, the people in the next room to me in the hotel obviously didn't have a 3:45 wakeup call because I'm tellin ya, they partied it up all night. I called three different times on them and the manager kept sending security up to have them hold it down. Yeah right. That lasted about 2 seconds after security left. They continued to party and I continued to stay awake. Y'all I did not sleep one minute all night. But that's ok.......VJA! I finally got up, got dressed, went down stairs to catch the van over to the airport. When I get downstairs to check out of the hotel, the manager on duty says, "good morning, how are you". Can I say, WRONG QUESTION! To which I reply, "not too good". Then he realizes.....OOPS, WRONG QUESTION! He apoligizes and refunds my money. Ok, I'm gonna survive this, after all it just a two day! VJA!!

I get to the airport, go to the lounge check in for my trip and one of our Supervisors walks over to me and says, "hey Becky, I'm going with you girls this morning and I'll be doing a check ride on you". To which I am thinking, oh great! But it's a quick one hour flight to Houston, I can do this after all it's VJA!!! (We get check rides once a year by a supervisor, they ride along with us and make sure we basically know our job and can perform our duties correctly) By the way I did great!

We push back from Dallas at 6:15, it's still dark outside, I'm all buckled in my jumpseat and my supervisor is sitting on the back row. It's a normal take off, the cabin is nice and dark and I have my eyes closed. No big deal. After we reach 10,000 feet, I get up and start setting up for juice and coffee when my (A) flight attendant comes back and asks me if I noticed the seat belt signs blinking on take off and I reply "no, I had my eyes closed". She goes back up front and I continue to set up for service. After setting up, I step into the aft lavatory and as I'm doing my business the lav lights start blinking on and off......now that was freaky, I actually felt like I was under a strobe light and I needed to break out into a disco dance. As I step out of the lav, both of my fellow workers are standing there and I tell them the lav lights were blinking and my (A) says, yup, we're having problems and we are turning around and heading back to Dallas with a broken plane. Oh, ok, whatever. Long story short we land back into Dallas 47 minutes after leaving Dallas. We change planes and continue our day and after all that we end up in Lubbock 20 minutes early!!!

Yesterday morning we leave Lubbock and head back to Dallas and then on to Houston. My (C) flight attendant and I were standing in the back galley getting our second trays ready to take out into the cabin when we both experienced a strange sensation. It was like pressure really pushing our bodies downward. I could tell by the expression on her face she had expericenced it too! We are both like that was weird and she says, "ya know there are suppose to be some strong wind shears"........and the next thing I know clear air turbulence hits and I'm thrown on the floor and she is tossed across the cabin. As soon as I hit the floor I start scooting backwards into the cabin part of the plane where I hang on for dear life to the armrest on the last row of seats. Thank goodness one of our employees was sitting in that seat and she has both hands on my shoulders keeping me on the floor. It last about 8 - 10 minutes and after it was over I crawl to the jump seat and sit down with my (C), where she is sitting and wondering how she knicked her finger. We are both fine, I'm a little sore today, but hey its was for VJA!!!

I will have to say the best part of my trip was yesterday. Lori front row, right and her friends were celebrating her 50th birthday and they were headed to New York to have some birthday fun. We gave her a bottle of champagne and I sang "Happy Birthday" to her. They were going to the "Today's Show" and looky who I saw this morning on TV.........

Lori and the girls!


Please bear with me while I get on my soapbox for a minute. If you are flying.......please, please stay seated with your seatbelt fastened at all times, especially if the fasten seatbelt sign is on. No matter how turbulent it is, if you are seated you will be fine. If you are not seated you can be seriously injured or even killed. It's no laughing matter. Y'all I see people EVERYDAY get up and bring their children to the lavatory , when the seatbelt sign is on and the captain has asked US to be seated. We asked them to please return to their seats and we tell them over and over you could get hurt. It kills me when they say, "but little Bobby has to go to the bathroom, I don't want him to wet his pants". Well parents, I'd rather have little Bobby wet his pants, than to have to see a parent carry an injuried or even worse, a dead child off an airplane.

TURBULENCE CAN KILL!!!!

Until next week.......stay safe in your travels!