Around the World in a Bad Mood! by Rene Foss Read Free Book Online Page A

was alone in Queens, just waiting for a trip. Sometimes it would be two or three days of waiting, and I cried a lot. I began to feel that I had made a horrible mistake with my life. I wanted to go home, and yet I didn’t want to just give up. I had come this far and I was finally in the Big Apple. Eventually, I would get off reserve and hold a set schedule. In the meantime I would just have to endure my miserable, wretched life. And let me tell you, it was miserable. I’m the type of person who likes to sleep at night and be awake during the day. However, when you’re flying on reserve you might be working a red-eye one night and then working a trip that has a 5:00 A.M . check-in one day later. Your time clock is completely shot. I also like to have a modicum of control over my existence. Who doesn’t? Being on reserve, you might as well throw the idea of control out the window. You’re controlled by central scheduling, so you’re no longer a human being with needs such as sleep, food, and regularity. No, you’re merely a number, a body required to fulfill the minimum number of crew members on board an aircraft bound for somewhere (and often nowhere). Not only that, when you finally do get let out of your cage and assigned a trip, you’re at the bottom of the barrel when you bid in with the crew. This translates to having absolutely no choice of where you work on the airplane. Bidding for your working position is done in order of seniority from the most senior flight attendant down to the most junior flight attendant. Junior flight attendants get what nobody else wants, and, believe me, there is a reason nobody else wants those positions. Eventually one works one’s way up the seniority list, but it takes an eternity! So there I was, living in Queens, at the bottom of the seniority list, trying to grow out my bad training haircut and battling constant jet lag. I pretty much looked like crap most of the time. I realized that I had never known the true meaning of the word “exhaustion” until I became an international air hostess. Even to this day I wonder what long-term effect crossing the international date line so often has had on me. I remember one hellish week in July: I was lying in the sun (supposedly this alleviates jet lag) on the tar roof outside my bedroom window, fondly known as “Tar Beach.” I had the tunes cranked and the phone stretched out from the hall onto the ledge. It wasn’t exactly Saint-Tropez, but it was better than sitting in the house watching General Hospital. Riiiinnng! The phone rang, ripping me from a sweaty slumber. It was scheduling.
    â€œWe have a London trip for you leaving at nine P.M . tonight, short London layover, returning on the third day. Check in at JFK at seven-thirty P.M . Thank you.” Click .
    Most people would be excited about the prospect of going to London, albeit for less than twenty-four hours, but not me. I was getting sick of London. I was still tired from my trip the day before, and definitely not in the mood to force myself to stay awake all night serving a full ship of Brits, only to arrive just as the sun is rising in jolly old England. But what choice did I have? I, of course, flew the trip and made it back to JFK three days later. The worst part came when I arrived back home at 22 Lefferts Blvd., Top Floor. It was about 2:00 P.M . when I walked into the house, stripping off my nylons and polyester uniform, to the dreaded ringing of the phone.
    â€œHello?”
    â€œThis is scheduling for flight attendant Foss, we have a trip for you.”
    â€œWhat? I just got in from London. I can’t possibly go anywhere else today.”
    â€œThe trip is for tomorrow. Tokyo, departing at three-thirty P.M ., check-in is at one P.M . Thank you.” Click.
    â€œAhhhhhhh, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me like this?!” I screamed. Coming in from London one day and then going off to Tokyo (which is