Friday, January 12, 2007

So You Think Your Commute Sucks

One of the best commentaries on the human condition that I've ever seen was a Gary Larson cartoon. Thousands of cars are gridlocked on the interstate, fleeing a goofily drawn but ostensibly final nuclear blast, and a dog in the car closest to us has just seen a dog in the car next to it, and is waving his tail, happy to see another dog. No matter what kind of calamity is going on around you, if you see another one of your own, you'll shout, "HEY, another-one-of-my-own!" Or something more fluent, probably. Or not... it is a calamity.
Point is, when flight attendants meet each other on a plane, it's kinda like that cartoon.
I met a very nice Chinese flight attendant on one of my trips a week ago or so, and we started talking. She was mainline Delta, and I work for a smaller company, so we tossed stories back and forth. Most noteworthy of her stories was her commute. Now all I've told you so far in this blog is that I moved to Salt Lake to work out of Salt Lake, so you may think that all flight attendants live where they work. Nope. Once you get seniority and can be reasonably assured of making flights regularly, you can live somewhere else and commute to work. Pilots do this a lot, since they can sit in the third seat in the cockpit (which unfolds to the size of a Thermos). Flight attendants do this too, although not as much. The furthest away I've heard of someone commuting to SLC from has been Houston. Imagine your drive to work taking four hours. Now imagine fifty strangers in your car, staring at your uniform and asking questions like, "Are you a flight attendant?"
Now imagine that you commute to San Diego from Hong Kong. No BS, that's what this lady did. I think it was last year sometime that I realized that there are people out there that are better than me, and this lady is one of them.

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