See-Saw Trip

I finished a 3 day trip the other day and it was one of the strangest I've been on in a long time. We had rotating flight attendants for almost every leg. I was the only one of us on for the whole 10 leg trip (OMG! My sweet hubby just brought me coffee in bed! God, I love him!) Anyway, for the most part I had great colleagues, as usual. We had a 19 hour layover in Salt Lake City, getting in about 2 in the afternoon. One of the other FAs brought a friend along for the layover, who also happens to be a Frontier FA. The three of us met at this super cool place right behind our hotel. It's called Brewvies, and it's a pool house, bar, restaurant, movie house all in one. The food's good, the beer's cheap and the movies are only second run and cost $3.00 each. It's a great place to hang out and kill some time. The other ladies played pool before I got there, then we stayed for 2 movies: "Gran Torino" and "Frost/Nixon." (Both excellent movies in their own right, but "Gran Torino"? Awesome. Go see it; I think you'll be surprised.) We had lots of laughs, conversation and food and it was a good time.

Omaha was my next overnight and all was well. My classmate was with me and she's wonderful, and we went to have a sandwich with the Captain, who is extremely naughty, but in a good way. He made us laugh all through dinner. The only strange thing is this: our Omaha hotel has a reputation for being haunted, which of course I love, but nothing strange happened the other time I stayed there. This time, though, as I walked into my room for the first time, I had the strangest feeling, like a physical density or pushing around my head and shoulders. I hadn't been thinking about where I was, so it kind of took me by surprise to feel something so strongly and suddenly - like the air in the room was almost solid. The feeling jolted me into remembering where I was, so I said, "Huh," walked back into the hallway to test the air there (which was fine), and returned to my room after about a 15 second wait. And the air in my room felt different, normal, just that quickly. Nothing else happened the rest of the night, even after I set up specifically placed items on the tables around my room to see if they would get moved. I wonder if that corner is in a "fear cage", as some paranormal investigators call it when there are LOTS of electrical wires in the walls and stuff, creating off the chart EMF readings. I'm kind of disappointed that we will be changing hotels as of March 1st.

Which brings me to the last day and our Cabo San Lucas turn. Renate (my classmate) and I got a real "winner" of a C Flight Attendant. This post has been longer than I intended it to be, and I don't want to give spend any more emotion on the situation than I already have the last couple of days, so I will try to make it brief. This "C" FA, a guy, is senior enough that he holds trips to Costa Rica every week (or so he claims). From the get go, he treated Renate and I (Reserves) as if we had no idea what we were doing with international forms, etc. and stepped all over me regarding the handling of those forms. He and the Captain clearly didn't trust that I could take care of business efficiently. Twice, when I caught his hands in the red bag that houses the forms for us, I informed him I had it under control and had even discovered some forms that were missing, and twice he said he was going to double-check me. Grrrr......He insisted on handling the distribution and passenger instructions of said forms all by himself, even after I offered him help - several times. I finally decided that he was punishing himself by not letting us assist him in that part, so I adopted a "Knock yourself out, dude." attitude, and told him to let us know when he needed help, otherwise we were just going to stay out of his way since that was what he seemed to want. The most annoying thing? He handed the forms out and gave instructions over the PA about how to fill them out DURING THE BOARDING PROCESS. Was he monitoring bags? No. Was he helping with bags? No. Was he closing bins? No. Did he do his exit row brief? Well, yes, he did, thank goodness. But the whole thing did not go smoothly at all, in my opinion.

And the last straw? On the flight home, after all of our duties had been performed, he sat down in the front row, put on his own Bose headphones and proceeded to watch TV!! I looked it up in our FAM and our Company Handbook, and officially he didn't break any rule that was written down anywhere by watching TV, but common sense should say that if the Company says not to listen to music or work on personal projects during the flight, you shouldn't sit down and put on headphones, either! Talk about checking out!

What a nightmare he was all the way around. After much consideration, I've decided I am going to put a very kind "heads up" note in his V-file in the crew lounge telling him how his un-professionalism made me feel. I realize I should have confronted this immediately, but I let his seniority intimidate me, and that's my downfall. But I still feel it would be a kindness for me to let him know that his actions underminded my trust in him, in a similar way that he let our lack of seniority undermind his trust in us. The biggest difference being that I waited to judge him until I witnessed his actions for myself firsthand. I can almost guarantee he won't like or appreciate what I have to say, but I will sleep better knowing I had my say, even if it's belated. And I pray for God to give me just the right words so that maybe, just maybe, he'll hear and change at least his tv-watching and pre-judging behaviors.

Thank God for the first part of the trip, Emily, Carly, Renate, and Brewvies!