Sky Waitresses In Action.
Over the last year, I’ve found myself on quite a few Virgin America flights—or as I prefer to call it, Fly-Over America (Seriously, look at their flight map: it’s every elitist Democrat’s dream: they connect all the important cities—SF, New York, DC, LA, Seattle, etc.—and just fly over the rest of Real America). They’ve got a pretty nice setup: mood lighting that makes you feel like you’re in a club, in-flight entertainment centers at your seat and relatively good food. But one thing that I’ve noticed more and more over the past few months is the sassiness level of their flight attendants. Just because you have your own TV show now doesn’t give you the right to be an asshole; I mean, it’s on the CW for crying out loud. Sassy flight attendants aside, Virgin America is by far my favorite airline.
Let’s get one thing out of the way before we move on: the name “flight attendants.” In my opinion, it exaggerates their skill-set. Really, they’re more like waitresses—waitresses of the sky, if you will (and I will). Yes, I’m sure they have some sort of “training”, but at the end of the day, the most difficult thing they’ve ever done for me is slip me an extra bag of warmed nuts (“eww, gross—he said nuts”).
“But waitress isn’t a gender-agnostic title, Chris.” Exactly, my friend (and good use of agnostic, I’m going to write that one down). I’m sorry, some jobs are better suited for a woman (sewing, cleaning and midwifery) and some are best suited for a man (financial services, law, engineering, executive management, the list goes on and on and on). Sky waitressing falls under the former.
Disagree? Well let’s think about one of the most annoying sky waitresses of them all: the gay male flight attendant. Lisping through the in-flight announcements like a nail grinding down a chalkboard, I cringe every time I hear him tell me to fasssten my theat belt. “Go back to your assistant manager position at American Eagle,” I say, “they’re having a BOGO and your presence is critical.”
The only thing more annoying than the gay male flight attendant is the elusive straight male flight attendant. As sure as can be, he’ll get on the PA and announce “the gorgeous Rebecca and Ginger-Anne in the back of the plane, wave your hands girls.” Have you ever turned around and looked at Rebecca? Nine times out of ten, she’s far from attractive, and pretty much all the time, she’s rolling her eyes at the unwanted sexual advances of her counterpart. Male sky waitresses? No thank you, I rest my case.
Where was I? Oh yes, sassy sky waitresses. The last couple flights I’ve been on, some geriatric EFL-passenger inevitably gets up while the seat belt sign is on (don’t worry, I will dedicate a whole post to incompetent airline travelers, I mean really—just because you don’t speak English doesn’t mean you can’t read a fasten seatbelt sign, it’s icon-based).
“Attention passengers, the fasten seat belt sign is on. Please remain in your seats. I repeat, you should be in your seats at this time.” If that’s not the most passive aggressive request, I don’t know what is. Don’t bring the rest of us into this, Rebecca, we all can see who you’re talking about. There’s only one person standing up in the whole plane, and it’s an 85-year old Filipino grandmother. Furthermore, if she can’t understand the fasten seatbelt sign, do you think she can understand your request? No, she can’t.
Just one example of their sassiness, I could provide more upon request, but this rant has already gone long enough.
Anyway, I guess I would probably be sassy too if I spent my days shuffling a plane full of 150 disgruntled, borderline-obese, extremely incompetent people across the country everyday. But at the same time, I didn’t sign up for that job: they did.
