Memorable crew moments, Part 1
Good afternoon my wonderful little blog readers! I had a few serious posts, so going to keep it a bit more light-hearted today. I'm currently sitting in traffic on the way to Bristol for one night for Si's work... why does it always sound way more exciting than it is? Why do we always stop and look when an accident has happened? Guaranteed you always look - we can't help ourselves! Even I took my eyes away from my blog for a moment to look 👀
So yeah, today I'm going to introduce you to my life as a cabin crew... I'll talk about becoming a cabin crew in my next blog, but I wanted to give you a little story first. Growing up, I always wanted to be a cabin crew, but my dad always joked it would be the worst job ever; I was sick every flight and stupidly nervous... I was that person that was scared and needed the stewardess to calm me down. I actually love it when I have a nervous flier now, as I've been there, and I know exactly what they need to hear. I always pretend to them that this turbulence is expected, that we have the most experienced captain (but without him being on death's door), and I'll say a random amount of time that it's expected to last so they can mentally tell/ prepare themselves. It's total crap most of the time, but I knew that's what I wanted to hear when I was shitting myself.
So back in 2015, I found myself as a cabin crew for Etihad Airways (they work you so much harder than my current airline, by the way, but we'll go into that another day). I was so excited but equally nervous - I genuinely think I had to wear a game face and pretend I was ok for my first two years of flying. Every takeoff/ turbulence, I would say a little prayer to myself (please don't let me die today or at least on the way back if it was an exciting place). I had a few of what I would call 'scary/funny flights' early days at Etihad. Few stick out for me. One of them, I was on my way to Lahore. It was during some storms - we were told we would remain sitting in our jumpseats for the whole 2.5 flight - I kept my game face on for about an hour. Then the turbulence got so bad that it felt like we dropped out of the sky for a few seconds, and if we hadn't been wearing seatbelts, I don't know what injuries would have happened. Anyway, I had this fully grown man in front of me who grabbed my leg and asked me, 'Is this normal? Does this happen often?' And I chose that moment to start crying and said, 'This is not NORMAL, THIS IS NOT NORMAL!' I was rocking back on my chair and threw up a bit in my mouth. This sent all the passengers into a frenzy around me - they started screaming because the stewardess was crying. (To be fair to me, it was one of my first flights). I stopped after a while and conversed with the gentleman in front of me (we weren't calm, but we were no longer crying). We were coming into land, and a little old lady was passing me, and I said to her, 'Go to your seat; we are landing!' She didn't understand any English....I gave her the benefit of the doubt and let her pass. She then tried to get into the toilet (why can so many people not open the toilet door - Push in the middle of the door, people!! It does make me laugh watching, though, and I'll give it a good two minutes before I help them). Anyway, I then realised her seat was at the back; there was no time to get there, so I told the English-speaking passengers around her to hold her down (we had seconds to land). I have that image in my head, landing into Lahore and this old lady laying on the floor with about six people holding her down, and she didn't have a clue what was going on. My bad!
Another story I won't forget is when I was 'quite' new, they were already making me a galley operator (in the kitchen for my non-crew readers), and well, I forgot my glasses on this occasion. I couldn't see what my colleague further down the aisle was trying to signal to me to bring to her. She was flapping her arms and down from what I could see. For some reason, I predicted this might mean she needed more water or something. When I got closer, she said how do you not know that this is a sign for more chicken (she was flapping her arms like a chicken - you can imagine it under the arm and, well, quite obviously, a chicken). I was too nervous to admit I'd forgotten contacts/ glasses, so I pretended I didn't know that meant chicken. (She properly thought I was an idiot - if I see flapping in the aisle now, I will always bring chicken just in case).
So anyway, next time, I'll either give you some more stories or how I became cabin crew and what it's like living in the Middle East. Mind you, I'm desperate to tell you about the four rhinos in the cargo story first, so that might have to be next. Have a good week all.
xBx
P.S. I hope none of my managers is reading this; I promise I'm a much better crew these days. :)