Life.

Life.

I am 28 years old. I am a flight attendant for a small-ish airline that probably won't be around for long. I didn't finish school. I 'live' in a crash pad with 7 other people, most of my worldly possessions are still at the condo I shared with my ex-husband. I was married for five years and I've been divorced for almost 2 months.

I'm not unhappy with my life. It's definitely hard and stressful, but I'm afforded SO many opportunities other people aren't. I can hop on a plane on any of my days off to almost wherever I choose. I meet a lot of different/interesting people and I've been to a lot of places I never would have seen were I not doing this job.

I will say that ten years ago if you had asked me where I would be right now my current life would never have crossed my mind. I would have given some generic, vanilla, possibly very Mormon answer. Still, I am in a relationship with someone whom I really love, I'm taking care of myself financially, physically and emotionally.

It can be hard sometimes, but for the most part at this point in time I feel like I'm doing the right thing. However, I know I'm not going to be doing this job for much longer and it's a little scary to think that I'm going to be doing something completely different next year this time.

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Hot Reserve

Hot Reserve

For those of you not in the know about the glamorous life of a flight attendant, take note.

As a new flight attendant to rule of thumb is you start out on reserve. This is a nice way of saying you're on call. You get assigned certain days in which you'll be 'on reserve'. At my company it's for a 12 hour block of time and you get paid for 4 hours of that time. Usually it's 3am to 3pm, however, say you get sent out on a one day trip on Friday. Now, it's just one day, so most likely it'll be at least four legs and you'll be getting back to your base at night. Let's say you get home at 8pm. Crew scheduling (who are in charge of the day to day schedule of said flight attendant) will notify you that since you don't have 12 hours in between this trip and your reserve period the next day they're moving your reserve time to 8am. Totally sucks, because while you're on reserve you have to be able to get to the airport within an hour and a half of a call from scheduling. So basically you're sitting aroundwaiting for a call that may or may not come. Somewhat lame.

Now there is also 'Hot Reserve'. On hot, you are on call 10 hours instead of the usual 12 and you do get paid for five hours instead of four. Here's the catch: the whole time you are at the airport waiting for a phone call. Basically, you're their bitch.

Don't get me wrong, I love my job, love flying, love (most of) our passengers. But today I'm their bitch. From 11am- 9pm.

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