Travel
My Last Day as a Flight Attendant
Your last day at a job and it changes your life forever
When I was a young boy, I lay in the grass of our home in Echo Valley (yes, that was the subdivision name) and looked up at the jets as they flew overhead. Yes, they were very far up in the air, pretty much just a trail of smoke, but I could see them just the same.
As those jets flew away, I always wondered where they were going, what it was like to be on one, and who was lucky enough to be flying in one? I didn’t know if I would ever find out for myself, but I sure hoped, at least inwardly, since the prospect of taking a flight was so remote, only the “rich” get to do that.
As I grew older and developed new friendships, we found exciting and unique things to do to pass the time. One was to hang out at the airport, sip a soda in the restaurant near the gates (you could do that then), and watch the people coming and going to their planes.
While gawking at the airport, we would sometimes act like we were going somewhere. We sometimes would walk back and forth up the smallish single concourse. We would go up to the observation platform to watch the jets take off. But, mostly, we would sit, drinking our Coca-Cola and watching the people, and wonder about their exciting lives as we sat in our tiny airport in our city.
Years later, when I was at my first job, I got offered a transfer to a city some 400 miles away by car, though I am sure much closer by air. It was one of those transfers where they tell you that either you take it, or perhaps you will not have a job if you don’t. So with that understanding, I knew I had to consider it, and heck, I got to take my first plane ride, yea, for me!
I remember that first flight like it was yesterday. I remember the excitement of being all dressed up (remember, it was the 80’s, and I was going to sort of an interview) and taking a flight like “those people” that I had wondered about on the planes overhead so long ago.
When I settled into my seat, I remembered the flight attendants walking back and forth in the cabin, “what an amazing life they must have,” I thought. Soon the cabin was full of folks just like me, and off we went for a short, not even one-hour flight.
That flight of some four-hundred driving miles was my last flight for several years. I didn’t take the job, and yes, they let me go in a down-sizing. I thought then that I might never take a flight and be on a plane again.
Years went by of being a server, managing a movie theater, and a similar job to what I had before when I got to fly. I was also in real estate and then sold high-end and imported cars. That’s when I got a call one Monday morning that may have changed my life.
It was a Monday morning, pretty early, and I was off work that day. So I was sitting in my tiny apartment in one of the funner parts of town. I was still pretty young, so I had to have fun at my fingertips.
I was reading the paper at the table since that is what you did in the morning back in those days when sipping on your first cups of coffee. Then the phone rang. It was one of my best friends from work. Her words were about to change my life.
I answered the phone with a “hello,” which you did back then since you never knew who it might be. My friend said “hello, love” back. That is what she and another friend of ours called each other, mirroring one another’s affections for one another in an English accent.
My friend went on to ask about my morning thus far? She also asked what I was doing and my plans for the day. Of course, since it was my day off, two of two, I didn’t have anything planned, since my going out nights were usually Friday, Saturday, and sometimes Wednesday, but never on a Sunday. Well, at least not that week.
As we chatted, she asked me if I had my paper close at hand, and I confirmed that I did. Then, she asked me to turn to the ads and a specific page. Of course, I obliged; she was one of my dearest friends. She then told me to see a particular ad, which I did.
I read the ad that my friend told me to look at and wondered why she wanted me to look at it since I already had a job. Plus, she and I were trying to grow a business that she had on the side too. So why was she telling me to look for yet another job?
It was an ad for interviews for one of the legacy airlines, one of the majors, and they would be in our town that day. The truth be told, that hour and not far away from where I lived. My friend went on to say that she thought that I should see them and interview for it. The job in the paper is a flight attendant position.
As I sat there at the table, first I objected that I already have a job, so why would I seek another.
Then when that objection to interviewing didn’t hold water, I said it was too late since the interviews had already started and I had not even showered yet. That didn’t work either since there was a second session later in the day.
My last objection, and one that I believed in, was that I didn’t even know if I liked to fly, so how could I apply for a job that would have my flying all the time. That was a crazy thought for sure. But, when it hit me as I was saying it out loud, why would I not want to fly all the time? Be on a giant silver plane whisking across the sky. Be with those people that I had been enthralled by for so long.
Knowing that my other objections fell on deaf ears and that I was intrigued by the “what if” idea of getting the job, I went to the interview.
Hours later, I thought that the interview had it went well. But then, they stopped me on my way out the door and asked me to come back later in the day.
The next day they called to interview me on the phone, and by the end of the week, they asked me to come to Atlanta to start training the following Monday. Come to a city that I had never been to, for a job that I didn’t even know I could do or even wanted. Oh, by the way, for a month and with no guarantee of getting hired either. So, of course, I said “sure”!
Fast forward years later, and I have been up in the air, flying on those silver jets that I only used to fantasize about more times than I could count. On one of the very last trips that I took, even though I did not know it would be my last, I thought to myself, “how amazing flight is, and how lucky I was to do it for a living.”
I said those words on my last day as I sat in a passenger seat, dead-heading (not working the flight) to a northern city, then to work it back to Atlanta. I thought it was just another day, except that I would be back in my bed the same day I left since I only was picking up some flight hours.
Once we arrived, after I had worked for an uneventful flight, the cabin crew I worked with were going further south as their day was ending there, and I was saying “goodbye.” The pilots that had taken us up north then back to Atlanta were departing the plane to meet another aircraft somewhere else, and a new set of pilots came on board. Their first words changed my and my fellow crewmembers’ lives.
As they stepped on board, saying goodbye to the pilots leaving, they said “hello” to us. Pilots for our airline were always super friendly and very cordial to the cabin crews that they worked with. Since I was still on board, they thought I was going to Florida as well. I told them I was not, just getting ready to leave and go home.
The pilots then asked us if we had heard the news? That CNN was reporting that we were to fold that very day. We had been hearing that for years, and it was not true each time. A few times, nearly accurate, but not true in the end. Yet, this time, the news we were hearing seemed different, not only to the pilots but also to me.
As I departed the plane, I was ready to turn toward the subway station at the front of the airport to head home, but something inside of me suggested I go right instead of left and take the airport subway to where our offices were at the base of one of the concourses.
I passed the guard; all around the door, people were hustling back and forth; nothing seemed different there. I then put my code into the door lock and took the metal stairs to our offices for the flight crew.
You took a long hall to get to the central part of the offices, where there were crew lounges, places to store bags, monitors for flights, check-in computers, and then the supervisor and pre-briefing offices.
As I walked down the long corridor, there was an odd “air” to the space, but I could not put my finger on what was different.
I stepped into the first ample space, where we checked in for flights, had our mail folders, stored bags, and had some supervisor offices. Across the room was Jill, my supervisor. She had worked her way up from flight attendant during my tenure there. She had just stepped out of the door to the hallway leading to other offices.
As I saw her, I just stared at her for some reason. Then, not saying a word but asking the question, “was what the pilots said true”? She nodded back across the room, not stepping toward me or saying the phrase, “yes.”
She then walked across the noisy space, and then we hugged; then she told me to look at the screen of upcoming flights. First, there were some saying, “see agent.” Then, as we stared at it, another “see agent” notice said the same thing. So what was happening, we both asked ourselves?
The following hours were a bit of a blur since there was much chatter as crews came into the lounge to depart, finding they may not be going anywhere.
These were not just any crews, but most were crews who had traveled the skies for many years, most since they were very young women and men, right out of high school or college. What parts of the world had they not seen, and now the world was changing before their eyes.
I knew many of these men and women since I had flown the same flights, the long flights to the west coast for cities we still served. They would see me and ask me if I knew what was happening, but I didn’t have an answer either.
As all of us, the flight attendants of this many grand decades-old airlines stared at the TV in the crew lounge, it became apparent that this was not just a tale being told, that perhaps the stories of our demise maybe this time genuine.
I stepped into the larger space where the check-in computers and the monitors of flights flashed several more flights as “canceled” or “see agent.” Those flights to head west in a few hours started pinging those words. It might be happening; our days may be ending.
There was a large orange dot matrix printer in the space that printed schedules of trips, crew manifests, etc. It was the exact model that I used to work with years earlier when I took that first flight. I thought it was ironic that it would still be used so many years later, but it did what they needed it to.
The printer came to life as I leaned against the machine, talking to my friends about the flight board and what the words “see agent” might mean. Then, finally, I turned around to watch it print and get a glimpse of what it said before the paper was torn away. Surely someone just printed something, right?
The printer was not printing a manifest or anything crew or schedule-related. But instead, a memo to us from the person running our airline these past years. I alerted Jill since she could read it to the room. It stated effective midnight that our airline would cease to exist; we would cease operations forever starting that very night.
As I stood there reading the words before they were spoken I never imagined what they would mean to me in the days, months, or years.
After years of looking into the sky, watching planes, visiting airports to watch airplanes and people fly away. Years of taking the subway to one of the largest airports in the world, then flying myself to far-off locals, then coming back days later, that was all going to end. It would end that very day!
Even today, decades later, people ask me, when they find out about that blip on my resume, how I liked it, and I still respond without hesitation that I LOVED it, best job ever.
Sure, when that printed message was read aloud, my world and many others changed, but our memories did not. Yes, all these years later, I can say that I wish it had not, but no, I would never give up that chance I took and the memories we created. It’s just that I didn’t know how much I loved it till it was yanked away; for that, I do have some regret.
I hope you enjoyed reading about my last day of work at my airline job and understand how much it changed my life. Sure I don’t think about it as often now, but I know how it set in motion changes that I never imagined both when I took the job and when I left.
More Stories and Poems by Michael Thacker
About Michael
Michael Thacker is a not-so-young adult blogger, aspiring writer, and sometimes seller of real estate.
Michael tweets a LOT on Twitter. Posts every once in a while on Facebook. Occasionally lets his opinions be known to friends, family, and anyone else that will listen.
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You can follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/MichaelThackerI.
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