A bad case of the somethings has had my wings clipped for well over two weeks now. I’ve been sitting in my apartment enjoying all the sights and sounds of this vibrant city (mainly construction sites) just resting so I could get back to the air and make some money.
Since getting my clear to take off from the airline’s clinic I’ve had a problem. A roster troll has been attacking my schedule. I’m on reserve this month and the next 16 days turned to absent days. It took about two hours to clear that up and then I checked again and I was marked sick today. ERRRR!!! So I called back to the roster gods and finally got a standby duty for tonight from 1 – 5 am. For non-flyers, this is a time you sit in your house or at the airport waiting for someone to not show up or call sick and then you inherit their lovely flight. For flyers who work for normal airlines that have bedtime hours for their aircraft, I’m sorry you will never know the joys of working for a 24-hour operation and sitting on airport standby from 1 to 5 am. It’s sheer bliss! Lucky for us, the airline has provided us with a beautiful lounge complete with sleep rooms for napping while we wait.
All the flights departing during that time head to the far east. So I could end up anywhere from Seoul, South Korea to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia or any other great Asian city in between. I’m hoping for Shanghai. It’s a 2 to 3-day stopover and the hotel there is AMAZING! 5 stars and close access to great food…Western food.
So now comes the task of making myself look flight worthy after two weeks in my man cave. I’ve used this time wisely. I now have an impressive facial hair display which will need to be hacked off to comply with uniform standards. I will also get my hair did in a few hours. For the boys, our hair can not be worn in a spiky manner. It must not touch the back collar and not too short where you can see the skin of your scalp. Uniforms are pressed and ready. Skin will need a little prepping and shoes will get a good shine too. My airline has now put the uniform police on patrol at crew departures and you get tagged by the computer for random weight and grooming checks. I want to be ready. I don’t want a low score on my record for appearance. Need to make up for my low score on attendance.
I will do all of this and then get sent…home. I hope not, but if it happens my bed is also a great alternate destination and I can return to my man cave for one more day. If that happens I will have been nothing more than a good example to junior crew on how you are supposed to look when you are working first class on the world’s largest and most prestigious jumbo jet :p
