Hi Steemit peeps,
This is my first time on Steemit and this is my very first post! Hopefully my future content will please my fellow readers so stay tuned!
Ever wondered what a life of a cabin crew is like? So many girls (and guys) have dreams of walking to their departure gate with their crew, high heals echoing throughout the airport, passenger heads turning. They dream that life in the sky is full of glitz and glamour. They dream of exotic love affairs, overseas shopping and relaxing beach days. They dream they will see the world.
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However, if they think that’s the life they will lead as Cabin Crew, then quite frankly they can dream on!
I have worked as a cabin crew for 5 years now. When people hear me say this, they automatically think that I have such a great life, trotting the globe with a lot of money, ample time and no problems in my life at all. TRYING to understand crew life is, for some people, almost a pastime and trying to explain it to people has become like a second job. However, as much as I talk about it, some sides remain difficult to express. Some are simply quite personal. Others come off as complaints.
Essentially, I still love flying — but it’s glamorised and has real downsides that are often overlooked. There were many pitfalls as well as benefits to the job. Yes, I was lucky enough to cross the world’s busiest zebra crossing in Tokyo, I did hand-feed a kangaroo in Australia, and I manage to tip toe my way up to the Great Wall of China. But the reality is that although I did experience these wonderful things, I wasn’t able to make the most of them because I was constantly so incredibly tired. With rarely over 24 hours in a destination, night flights and time differences to deal with, my body rarely recovered from one trip before I was off on the next. I was constantly wishing for my bed and often missed out on going out and doing things down route because I was so tired. All I wanted to do on my days off was to sleep. The kind of fatigue a crew experiences is unlike normal fatigue. It’s hard to explain, it’s like a combination of physical fatigue, mental fatigue, being on your feet for hours and also the result of being stuck in a metal tube with low oxygen levels and breathing in recycled air filled with millions of germs.
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On my last flight, whist collecting in the rubbish (which for a start is not glamorous at all!), I was handed a cup covered in puke, half of which dripped all over my hand. I don’t cope well with puke, and unfortunately I encountered it regularly in this job. I had people being sick all over their beds, covering the toilets in puke so that they are no longer usable, projectile vomiting across the aircraft, and the list goes on. The worst part is when my supervisor made me unclog a sink full of puke because there was a full load onboard and we couldn't afford to lock one lavatory! A nightmare that will be stuck in my head forever! Some passengers even pees on the toilet bowl lid and I seriously don't get why they couldn't just lift the lid up!!
The passengers themselves were more often than not lovely. However there were certain routes, on which the passengers infuriated me. Some passengers were disrespectful to the aircraft and the crew. On disembarkation it would quite literally look like a bomb had exploded with all the mess. Hygiene levels were often poor, and there would be a terrible smell that would gradually worsen throughout the flight. I often had passengers tell me that they are going to ‘piss themselves’, and the state of the toilets often indicated that they had. But my main concern was the way the passengers spoke to me and the other crew. I understand that there are cultural differences, and that perhaps it is acceptable where they are from to hiss and click your fingers at people. But I just struggled to deal with it myself. After 8 hours of being hissed at, I would get off the aircraft feeling rather low and infuriated.
What Really Hurts the most to us is the things that people say about us that really hurts crew a lot is when they look down on us. They think being a stewardess is a lousy job, a job where people who are not smart/can’t study do. Just a high class waitress serving and cleaning up after people. But you are so wrong. You have no idea how intense is the training we go through for 4months and it is not just about serving coffee/ tea or cleaning your shit. Just so you know, in case of an emergency we are the ones who will save your butt from dying. If you have a heart attack onboard, we are the ones who will save you. If there is a fire on board, we are the ones who will fight the fire and it is not as easy as it looks. So please show some respect for the cabin crews onboard. There are strict requirements to actually qualify as one and one of it is to have brains and be well equipped with knowledge. We need to know what's going on around the world, we need to know every medical conditions we might face onboard and how to handle it, we need to know so many things. Not just any Tom, Dick or Harry can be a crew. You will always talk cock when you're not in a certain situation but when you're actually in it, how sure are you that you can save your 290passengers from any emergencies? How sure are you that you can prevent a disruptive passenger from entering a cockpit? We are certainly well trained for this job and we take pride in doing what we do so DO NOT call us waitresses in air. We are not just that. Our priority is the safety of our passengers not serving you breakfast, lunch or dinner.
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Another problem I had was my social life. If I look back at my pictures from trips with work, there are always big, social gatherings, usually involving substantial amounts of alcohol. This was great fun a lot of the time, but I just found it exhausting that every single trip you would be with different people and have to start up new friendships all over again. You would rarely see the people you have flown with before, and therefore it was very difficult to ever make any friends. It was even hard to meet up with friends on your days off at home as you would not have the same time off very often! We get off days on weekdays where people doing ground jobs are working. You want to be with someone you know and enjoy the company of, but those people are probably far away on a different time zone. Sure we’ve got colleagues, and we do hang out, but they’re probably mere acquaintances. It’s just not the same. In this job, you’ll miss out on birthdays, weddings, Christmas, Chinese New Years etc & it is very sad as well.
The work is tough no doubt. You are not only a waitress in the air, but also a safety officer, baggage porter, bar tender, toilet cleaner, policeman, babysitter, maid etc. The list goes on. Many girls don’t know this before they join and they’re in for the shock of their lives once they start the job. And we really work very hard for the money!! Living in Malaysia, we are very underpaid as a crew and the amount we earn is not enough to live on. Many of us has commitments like a car or a house to pay for and after deducting all the bills you're left with so little. Worst part is we have to exchange our own foreign currency and it really kills when your own country's currency is so small. Imagine the amount we have to spend on foreign currencies.( RM200 = AUS60, 30pounds..). I had to skip meals at times so that I didn’t spend my allowances down route as I needed that money to live on. We do not have transport provided unlike the foreign airlines so we have to also save money to take public transports or drive to the airport and it takes about 1hour to get there. For me, that took away from the experience of being a crew a lot. I was forced to avoid doing some of the tourist things down route to save money, which defeated the point of doing the job for me. So as you can already tell, cabin crew aren't as pampered as you think we are. Being in this industry is hard work. I did this job for my love of travel. I thought getting paid to travel would be perfect. But in reality, it had negative effects on my health, I didn’t really see that much outside of an aircraft or a hotel room, and it has left me in thousands of Ringgits of debt. There comes the part where I tell you about TEMPTATIONS and how I get debts every month.
Flying can be bad especially if you end up falling into the life of vice. It’s temptation island- pretty girls, handsome boys, 5-star hotel rooms. Being surrounded in such a work environment you really really have to keep on guard and watch yourself to make sure you don’t give in to temptations like drinking, smoking etc. Not ALL crew drink and smoke and party but majority do. If you have made “rules” for yourself, stand by it and don’t falter. It is very very hard I know.
I’m no exception. I’m only human & fall too. Can you imagine other “bad habits” like drinking, smoking & splurging on branded bags? Once you start, you may not be able to stop.I know for the fact that I'm in it and it is so so so hard to STOP.
Sometimes when I step into stores with crew & when they bought stuff, honestly it was very very tempting. And then I start hesitating. Every one was buying something, and I wanted to buy too. I just bought stuff just for the sake of it or simply just because I could afford it then. After the payment was made, I would stare at it and wonder if I'm ever going to use it.
Then you wondered what we did before you guys board the plane. The work is really super labour intensive!! Crew will enter the aircraft about 20 minutes before boarding of passengers. Within these 20 minutes there’s so much to do!!!!!!
For stewardesses. (Female cabin crew)
•Set up newspaper trolley, cut all the newspapers meant for 200+ people and display them nicely
•Arrange the menu cards
•Dress the toilets with moisturizer, eu de toilet, paper towerls and toilet rolls, as well as making sure lavatory call light is working
• Combine headset bags, 3 into 2 because 1 bag only has 50 headsets and there are probably more than 120 people in the cabin.
• Heat up towels
• Do a security sweep for the cabins
For the stewards (Male cabin crew)
• Organise galley
•Make sure there’s enough coffee and tea pots and breadbaskets
•Check meals with the caterer, make sure all the meals and special meals that’s supposed to be there, are there.
• For business class is even worse because there’s crockery instead of trays and the guys need to arrange everything.
There was once I did this flight to Sydney. It was a A380, it can take 399 passengers in economy class so you can imagine the chaos. Sydney flights are really really tough and A LOT of crew always take MC for Sydney flights, yes it’s THAT bad. You practically walk all the way to Sydney and you work until your panties become a G-string. It was quite bad that I really hated this and asked myself why I wanted this job so badly in the first place. Like I said, you won’t know what you’re in for until you finally join this industry.
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Every job also has its own politics. In most asian airlines, you will most probably have a hierarchy system. Seniority and juniority are very important. You cannot argue or explain your actions. For example if your boss asks you “why did you do this??” And if you try explaining yourself, it is seen as being argumentative and defensive. You should just say “sorry I won’t do it again”. Even if you are right, you have to be wrong sometimes. It doesn’t make sense and I hate this. And if your boss tells you off and tells you how to do things the “correct” way, you just gotta suck thumb and say “oh I’m so sorry. Thank you for sharing with me I will take note”. Obviously I don’t mean what I replied him but I HAVE to do this to survive. No choice. If you really want to survive in this job, the only way is to eat humble pie. There’s no “explaining” yourself because in asian airline culture it is deemed as defensive and argumentative. I find this ridiculous to be honest. So whatever or whoever corrects you, just say sorry & thank you.
Aside from my rants, I still really enjoy what I do. I did try to work in the hotel line for a few months but I realised I missed all the drama onboard the aircraft. So I decided to go back into being a cabin crew and I never felt happier. Its contradicting I know. I get depressed while working in the airline but when I'm not I miss it so much. The lifestyle has been embedded in my soul and I just cant stand doing an ordinary ground job. To conclude, apart from all these negativity like the rude passengers and all, I really learned a lot. Like my tolerance capacity tank has increased so much and I’m able to take more shit. Hahaha nah but seriously, I’m thankful for being able to visit so many countries (although we have only 24 hours on short haul flights and 1.5 days on long haul flights). I'm able to experience and see so many things that no one but a cabin crew can. I'm surely more observant and able to profile a person better. Also after working in this service line, I’ve come to understand how important it is to be grateful to whoever has served you. A small “thank you” can do wonders and that respect among people is so important.
Even after a rough flight, standing at the door bidding passengers goodbye, even a simple “thank you so much for taking care of us” just warms my heart and makes me so happy that suddenly all the tiredness and anger that was in me just dissipates. It’s like all my slogging during the flight was all worth while.Now I make sure I am even nicer to people like waitresses. When my food takes a little longer than usual, I’m more patient because I can understand it may not be their fault. It is the same for us crew, if the plane was delayed by weather and the passengers scold us. It’s not our fault I didn’t make it rain or have a thunderstorm but we always take the blame because we are the last people the passengers get to see. So overall, it is indeed an eye opening experience. It takes you to a whole new level as a person. It changes your perception and way of living for the better. Most importantly, do what you enjoy doing and you'll always get through! When I look back, I can say I'm glad I became a cabin crew.Being a flight attendant is the alchemy that has allowed me to marry what would normally be a competing lifestyle dreams. In a sense, I have it all! If you think you have what it takes, the strength and ability to do this, you absolutely should give it a try.
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