(TYR) to (IAH), A Continental Flight Experience...
We made it home - at midnight. Of course, there’s a bazillion things to be done, so I was up and at ‘em at 5:00 a.m. Back to work, back to the grind! That’s okay though, because I thrive on my routine.
But first, I simply must document the events of yesterday. Mainly, the Tyler airport. Let me be clear, I have nothing against the Tyler airport. In fact, it makes my life a whole lot easier when I can fly into Tyler, versus Dallas. It’s great. But the service yesterday was... interesting.
We walked in and were practically the only people in the airport. There were only two more flights leaving that day, our 4:15 p.m. flight and a 7:15 p.m. flight. Surprisingly, there was a fair amount of employees standing around without a whole lot to do. We walked up to the ticket counter and I handed the lady my ID. To put it nicely, I’m not sure she had ever checked anyone in before, at least that’s how it seemed. She asked the guy next to her a number of questions and he elaborately explained to her what she should do. There was some sort of error on the computer and it didn’t want to let me check my bag, because there was an issue with the flight out of Denver. Just to note, we were flying from Tyler to Houston, to Denver, to San Diego. After about 15 minutes of her being on the phone, talking to the attendant next to her and getting my bags checked, she handed Dusty and me our boarding passes. She had finally resolved the issue but was unable to print our boarding passes for our flight out of Denver. She instructed us to get them from the ticket counter when we landed in Denver. I then noticed she didn’t give us Silas and Eli’s passes, so she had to start the whole process again. Meanwhile, a lady kept popping her head out the door behind the counter, panicked about an airplane that was arriving. She was on the radio with the pilot and didn’t know what she should do. The attendant who was also helping the lady checking us in gave her instructions, “Look, I can’t help you right now. Call so and so. Write down how much fuel the airplane has and call it in...” He told her a few other things and she closed the door. It seemed he was the only one in the airport that knew how to do his job. Oh, and a line was forming. I forgot to mention that. A few minutes later the lady popped back out of the door just to let the guy know that she took care of it. “Did you write down how much fuel the plane had?” “No.” “Get the pilot back on the radio, find out and write it down.” He had been very specific about this one thing - even I heard it - and she failed to follow his instructions. Hmm. That’s all I’ll say.
The greatest part was - after all that, she didn't even weigh our luggage, which I guarantee were both over 50 pounds. AND she didn't even charge us the $25.00 fee per bag. Thanks lady, for not knowing what you were doing. I'll save my $50.00 any day. Date night!
The greatest part was - after all that, she didn't even weigh our luggage, which I guarantee were both over 50 pounds. AND she didn't even charge us the $25.00 fee per bag. Thanks lady, for not knowing what you were doing. I'll save my $50.00 any day. Date night!
Once we made it through the long line of security - just kidding, it was only us - the same lady that checked us in was now working at the gate. I guess they multi-task at the Tyler airport. We boarded our plane to the sound of our flight attendent saying, “Woah, they told me there were only 6 people on this flight. They were wrong. There are more than 6 people. Okay everyone, this is gonna be fuller than I thought, but it’s okay. Sit where you want. It’s open seating.” Our flight attendant. I don’t even know where to begin. This is really the point of my whole post. Let’s focus on her. Everything about our flight attendant was baffling to me and also raised some questions in my mind regarding employees.
First of all, rather than greeting us as we walked on the plane, as is pretty typical from all my flight experience, she was animated at all the people on our flight. I heard her say at least 5 times that there were only supposed to be 6 people. Okay, so there were probably 20. It’s not like she couldn’t handle it. No sooner than we sat down and stored our belongings underneath the seat in front of us, it was time to take off. The pilot came over the intercom, telling us about our 45 minute flight to Houston. He also gave an incredibly long introduction regarding our flight attendant, “Nancy”. She laughed. “Oh, so it’s Nancy today.” A guy in the front, whom she ended up talking with the entire flight, questioned why she responded that way. “Oh, ha ha, it’s a game. It changes every time he says my name and I have to figure out what the category is for the day. The first clue is Nancy.” Not five minutes later the pilot came back on the intercom to say something, and referred to her as “Sarah”. “Ohhh, Sarah! Ha! This is so fun. On my last flight, my names were Rosemary and Ginger and I knew it just had to be spices. Once, it was Jan, Marsha and Cindy, so obviously that was The Brady Bunch. AND, {giggle, giggle, giggle}, this is so bad. One time, I was Trixie and Bambie, so those were prostitutes. I wonder what today could be. This is so fun. I like to involve my passengers. I think it makes the whole experience more fun for everyone. Sometimes people don’t get it. They wonder why I keep getting different names and I just tell them ‘It’s a game.’”
No, I am not kidding. All this happened. There’s more.
So, the time came for her to bring us drinks. A few minutes after serving us our beverages, she came walking down the aisle with half empty sodas, reaching over people and filling up their cups. “I just can’t let this go to waste.” As she walked back down the aisle to the front, she chugged the rest of a soda and threw it in the trash. She also, throughout the entire flight was biting the accrylic remains off her fingernails. Once she did her duty of serving us our beverages, she plopped down on the front row, sitting sideways with her legs crossed in the center of the aisle, and fiddled on her cell phone with her extra large Jack in the Box soda. All the while, she carried on a very loud conversation with the guy I mentioned before. These are the things I learned about her:
- She just realized she pays $150 a month on her nails and that’s just ridiculous. That’s why she was biting them off. She’d rather buy a tv in a few months.
- She just spent $6.00 on a pair of panty hose. The company requires that she wear them and it’s just silly.
- She grew up in Rhode Island and has lived in Houston for 4 years.
- Her brother lives in LA and he took her to dinner in West Hollywood. It was beautiful.
- Flight attendants have an extremely high turn over rate. She’s only worked there 4 years and out of over 600 attendants, she’s #68.
- Her mom smokes two packs a day. She cannot believe the nerve of some people who try to light up a cigarette on a plane. “Like seriously, are you kidding me??! That’s some nerve. My mom uses my miles and I tell her, ‘MOM, you better not EVEN think about lighting one up. That could get me fired!’”
- She has experienced the new enhanced pat down through security and it’s ridiculous. She was wearing skin tight yoga pants and she was still groped. The security woman even put her hand under her bra. “Soooo uncalled for!!”
- Her roommates’s boyfriend just moved in. She was going home for the first time in a few days and all the new stuff would be there when she got home. She’s rarely home, but has a two bedroom condo - why shouldn’t someone at least get to use it?
- She loves her job because it’s so flexible. If she wants off Friday - Monday off, she can have it. If she wants nights off, she can have it. She can get whatever she wants.
- She loves talking to passengers (She stated this, as if we couldn’t tell already)
- Once, she got a concussion during a flight. There was turbulance, she went air bound and Boom! She was out.
Okay, I think you get the point. What this made me consider is - what are the boundaries between being friendly and being professional? No one wants a rude experience - we all appreciate people that are of service to us being polite and caring. But, do we want their life story? Was her demeanor at all professional? There has to be limits, right? I hate to sound harsh, but please just do your job. I have no problem with and often enjoy interactions with strangers - but when an employee at a grocery store, restaurant or in our case, a flight attendant, initiates a conversation including their entire life story, I think it’s stepping over some lines. Even the whole game thing struck me kind of funny. The pilot introducing the flight attendant with three different names seems a bit odd. I think it’s well within their right to have fun and enjoy their job, but not when it interferes with or is obvious to those they are supposed to be providing a service to. I was amazingly intrigued during the entire 45 minute flight. I found her extremely unprofessional, but at the same time I couldn’t stop listening. I was baffled. I couldn’t imagine how far she would take things. Really, what would she not feel free to share? And, why would I want you to give me a soda while you’ve been biting your nails the entire flight?
So - after 10 hours of traveling, we did make it home. Denver was chaotic. We barely made it to our gate in time. We did figure out the issue with the boarding passes. Apparently Continental and United are merging. Our first two flights were Continental, but the last was United. When we got to the ticket counter, they were just about to give away our seats because technically we weren’t checked in. The attendant looked at the guy next to her and said, “Stop. Don’t give away another seat. Oh no.” It took her about 10 minutes to find us 4 seats that had two and two together so we could each sit with one kid. Eli had a meltdown on that flight. He was overtired and lost it at one point. After picking him up off the floor with him screaming hysterically, I asked him, “Do we need to go to the bathroom?” My only intention was to get him away from the current scene and settle him down. He screamed about 10 times over, “Nooo! I don’t WANT you to spank my bottom.” I hadn’t even mentioned it. He succeeded in embarrassing both of us, all the while getting a few chuckles along with some evil glares. As sad as I was to leave Texas, at that point, I couldn’t have been happier to be home.
My bed never seemed so welcoming. I crashed - for 5 whole hours.
Texas was fun. Christmas was a blast. January 5, 2011 will be an incredibly busy and productive day. I know that at the end of it, I will again be overjoyed to see my bed.
Please, free free to offer your thoughts and opinions on the above scenario regarding our flight from Tyler to Houston. I’m dying to know what you think...
p.s. The third and final clue from yesterday's flight was "Hilary". The category was "Politics." Nancy Pelosi, Sarah Palin and Hilary Clinton. Just in case you were curious.
4 Comments
Ewww, I would be so annoyed with her. What airline was it? It was obviously a small airline that flew the short Continental flights but I wonder which one.
ReplyDeleteThe short of it seems, she could care less what anyone thinks and gets paid WAY TOO LITTLE to even try.
Pay flight attendants more and you'll get more professional people in there.
Well, of course she did mention the name, seeing as how spilled out her whole life story, but I don't remember.
ReplyDeleteI literally found myself just staring at her in pure amazement. Of course the first thing I thought was at least it makes for a good blog :)
I would be amazed as well and am sure I would have listened intently. Let it be noted she was not really a southerner and not from Tyler - just saying! Very unprofessional, but entertaining-pilot game strange. At least you saved some money
ReplyDeleteThis might be the most entertaining blogs I have ever read!!! I've had 3 people talk to me while I was reading it and I ignored all of them because I was so intrigued with this story! SO crazy! I would have been freaking out. I hate flying.
ReplyDeleteNo comparison to your story but we had a flight attendant this Christmas break who demanded that no one talk while he gave the instructions on what to do in case of an emergency. He called a guy out who was talking, the guy ignored him and he waited till he stopped talking to continue his spill. He was so mad that the guy was talking that he told us he lost his train of thought. hahaha.