Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do (15 page)

One time I went down into the area of swinging bars with two other girls. We just didn’t want anybody to know that we were stewardesses, so we had this story made up that we were going to a women’s college in Colorado. That went over. We had people that were talking to us, being nice to us, being polite. Down there, they wouldn’t even be polite. They’d buy you drinks but then they’d steal your stool if you got up to go to the restroom. But when they knew you weren’t stewardesses, just young ladies that were going to a women’s college, they were really nice to us.

They say you can spot a stewardess by the way she wears her make-up. At that time we all had short hair and everybody had it cut in stew school exactly alike. If there’s two blondes that have their hair cut very short, wearing the same shade of make-up, and they get into uniform, people say, “Oh, you look like sisters.” Wonder why? (Laughs.)

The majority of us were against it because they wouldn’t let you say how
you’d
like your hair cut, they wouldn’t let you have your own personality,
your
makeup,
your
clothes. They’d tell you what length skirts to wear. At one time they told us we couldn’t wear anything one inch above the knees. And no pants at that time. It’s different now.

Wigs used to be forbidden. Now it’s the style. Now it’s permissible for nice women to wear wigs, eyelashes, and false fingernails. Before it was the harder looking women that wore them. Women showing up in pants, it wasn’t ladylike. Hot pants are in now. Most airlines change style every year.

 

She describes stewardess schools in the past as being like college dorms: it was forbidden to go out during the week; signing in and out on Friday and Saturday nights. “They’ve cut down stewardess school quite a bit. Cut down on how to serve meal classes and paperwork. A lot of girls get on aircraft these days and don’t know where a magazine is, where the tray tables are for passengers . . . Every day we used to have an examination. If you missed over two questions, that was a failure. They’d ask us ten questions. If you failed two tests out of the whole five weeks, you would have to leave. Now they don’t have any exams at all. Usually we get a raise every year. We haven’t been getting that lately
.”

 

We have long duty hours. We can be on duty for thirteen hours. But we’re not supposed to fly over eight hours. This is in a twenty-four-hour period. During the eight hours, you could be flying from Chicago to Flint, to Moline, short runs. You stop twenty minutes. So you get to New York finally, after five stops, let’s say. You have an hour on your own. But you have to be on the plane thirty minutes before departure time. How many restaurants can serve you food in thirty minutes? So you’ve gone thirteen hours, off and on duty, having half-hours and no time to eat. This is the normal thing. If we have only thirty minutes and we don’t have time to eat, it’s our hard luck.

Pilots have the same thing too. They end up grabbing a sandwich and eating in the cockpit. When I first started flying we were not supposed to eat at all on the aircraft, even though there was an extra meal left over. Now we can eat in the buffet. We have to stand there with all those dirty dishes and eat our meals—if there’s one left over. We cannot eat in the public eye. We cannot bring it out if there’s an extra seat. You can smoke in the cockpit, in the restrooms, but not in the public’s eye.

 

“
We have a union. It’s a division of the pilots union. It helps us out on duty time and working privileges. It makes sure that if we’re in Cleveland and stuck because of weather and thirteen hours have gone by, we can go to bed. Before we had a union the stew office would call and say, ‘You’re working another seven.’ I worked one time thirty-six hours straight
.”

 

The other day I had fifty-five minutes to serve 101 coach passengers, a cocktail and full-meal service. You do it fast and terrible. You’re very rude. You don’t mean to be rude, you just don’t have time to answer questions. You smile and you just ignore it. You get three drink orders in a hurry. There’s been many times when you miss the glass, pouring, and you pour it in the man’s lap. You just don’t say I’m sorry. You give him a cloth and you keep going. That’s the bad part of the job.

Sometimes I get tired of working first class. These people think they’re great, paying for more, and want more. Also I get tired of coach passengers asking for something that he thinks he’s a first-class passenger. We get this attitude of difference from our airlines. They’re just dividing the class of people. If we’re on a first-class pass, the women are to wear a dress or a nice pants suit that has a matching jacket, and the men are to dress with suit jacket and tie and white shirt. And yet so many types of first-class passengers: some have grubby clothes, jeans and moccasins and everything. They can afford to dress the way they feel . . .

If I want to fly first class, I pay the five dollars difference. I like the idea of getting free drinks, free champagne, free wine. In a coach, you don’t. A coach passenger might say, “Could I have a pillow?” So you give him a pillow. Then he’ll say, “Could you bring me a glass of water?” A step behind him there’s the water fountain. In first class, if the guy says, “I want a glass of water,” even if the water fountain is right by his arm, you’d bring it for him. We give him all this extra because he’s first class. Which isn’t fair . . .

When you’re in a coach, you feel like there’s just head and head and head of people. That’s all you can see. In first class, being less people, you’re more relaxed, you have more time. When you get on a 727, we have one coatroom. Our airline tells us you hang up first-class coats only. When a coach passenger says, “Could you hang up my coat?” most of the time I’ll hang it up. Why should I hang up first class and not coach?

One girl is for first class only and there’s two girls for coach. The senior girl will be first class. That first-class girl gets used to working first class. If she happens to walk through the coach, if someone asks her for something, she’ll make the other girls do it. The first stew always stays at the door and welcomes everybody aboard and says good-by to everybody when they leave. That’s why a lot of girls don’t like to be first class.

There’s an old story on the airline. The stewardess asks if he’d like something to drink, him and his wife. He says, “I’d like a martini.” The stewardess asks the wife, “Would you like a drink?” She doesn’t say anything, and the husband says, “I’m sorry, she’s not used to talking to the help.” (Laughs.) When I started flying, that was the first story I heard.

I’ve never had the nerve to speak up to anybody that’s pinched me or said something dirty. Because I’ve always been afraid of these onion letters. These are bad letters. If you get a certain amount of bad letters, you’re fired. When you get a bad letter you have to go in and talk to the supervisor. Other girls now, there are many of ’em that are coming around and telling them what they feel. The passenger reacts: She’s telling me off! He doesn’t believe it. Sometimes the passenger needs it.

One guy got this steak and he said, “This is too medium, I want mine rarer.” The girl said, “I’m sorry, I don’t cook the food, it’s precooked.” He picked up the meal and threw it on the floor. She says, “If you don’t pick the meal up right now, I’ll make sure the crew members come back here and make you pick it up.” (With awe) She’s talking right back at him and loud, right in front of everybody. He really didn’t think she would yell at him. Man, he picked up the meal . . . The younger girls don’t take that guff any more, like we used to. When the passenger is giving you a bad time, you talk back to him.

It’s always: the passenger is right. When a passenger says something mean, we’re supposed to smile and say, “I understand.” We’re supposed to
really
smile because stewardesses’ supervisors have been getting reports that the girls have been back-talking passengers. Even when they pinch us or say dirty things, we’re supposed to smile at them. That’s one thing they taught us at stew school. Like he’s rubbing your body somewhere, you’re supposed to just put his hand down and not say anything and smile at him. That’s the main thing, smile.

When I first went to class, they told me I had a crooked smile. She showed me how to smile. She said, “Kinda press a little smile on”—which I did. “Oh, that’s great.” she said. “that’s a
good
smile.” But I couldn’t do it. I didn’t feel like I was doing it on my own. Even if we’re sad, we’re supposed to have a smile on our face.

I came in after a flight one day, my grandfather had died. Usually they call you up or meet you at the flight and say, “We have some bad news for you.” I picked up this piece of paper in my mailbox and it says, “Mother called in. Your grandfather died today.” It was written like, say. two cups of sugar. Was I mad! They wouldn’t give me time off for the funeral. You can only have time off for your parents or somebody you have lived with. I had never lived with my grandparents. I went anyway.

A lot of our girls are teachers, nurses, everything. They do this part-time,’cause you have enough time off for another kind of job. I personally work for conventions. I work electronic and auto shows. Companies hire me to stay in their booth and talk about products. I have this speech to tell. At others, all I do is pass out matches or candy. Nowadays every booth has a young girl in it.

People just love to drink on airplanes. They feel adventurous. So you’re serving drinks and meals and there’s very few times that you can sit down. If she does sit down, she’s forgotten how to sit down and talk to passengers. I used to play bridge with passengers. But that doesn’t happen any more. We’re not supposed to be sitting down, or have a magazine or read a newspaper. If it’s a flight from Boston to Los Angeles, you’re supposed to have a half an hour talking to passengers. But the only time we can sit down is when we go to the cockpit. You’re not supposed to spend any more than five minutes up there for a cigarette.

We could be sitting down on our jump seat and if you had a supervisor on board, she would write you up—for not mixing with the crowd. We’re supposed to be told when she walks on board. Many times you don’t know. They do have personnel that ride the flights that don’t give their names—checking, and they don’t tell you about it. Sometimes a girl gets caught smoking in the cabin. Say it’s a long flight, maybe a night flight. You’re playing cards with a passenger and you say, “Would it bother you if I smoke?” And he says no. She would write you up and get you fired for smoking in the airplane.

They have a limit on how far you can mix. They want you to be sociable, but if he offers you a cigarette, not to take it. When you’re outside, they encourage you to take cigarettes.

You give your time to everybody, you share it, not too much with one passenger. Everybody else may be snoring away and there’s three guys, maybe military, and they’re awake ‘cause they’re going home and excited. So you’re playing cards with ’em. If you have a supervisor on, that would be a no-no. They call a lot of things no-no’s.

They call us professional people but they talk to us as very young, childishly. They check us all the time on appearance. They check our weight every month. Even though you’ve been flying twenty years, they check you and say that’s a no-no. If you’re not spreading yourself around passengers enough, that’s a no-no. Not hanging up first-class passengers’ coats, that’s a no-no, even though there’s no room in the coatroom. You’re supposed to somehow make room. If you’re a pound over, they can take you off flight until you get under.

Accidents? I’ve never yet been so scared that I didn’t want to get in the airplane. But there’ve been times at take-offs, there’s been something funny. Here I am thinking, What if I die today? I’ve got too much to do. I can’t die today. I use it as a joke.

I’ve had emergencies where I’ve had to evacuate the aircraft. I was coming back from Las Vegas and being a lively stewardess I stayed up all night, gambled. We had a load full of passengers. The captain tells me we’re going to have an emergency landing in Chicago because we lost a pin out of the nose gear. When we land, the nose gear is gonna collapse. He wants me to prepare the whole cabin for the landing, but not for two more hours. And not to tell the other stewardesses, because they were new girls and would get all excited. So I had to keep this in me for two hours, wondering, Am I gonna die today? And this is Easter Sunday. And I was serving the passengers drinks and food and this guy got mad at me because his omelet was too cold. And I was gonna say, “You just wait, buddy, you’re not gonna worry about that omelet.” But I was nice about it, because I didn’t want to have trouble with a passenger, especially when I have to prepare him for an emergency.

I told the passengers over the intercom: “The captain says it’s just a precaution, there’s nothing to worry about.” I’m just gonna explain how to get out of the airplane fast, how to be in a braced position. They can’t wear glasses or high heels, purses, things out of aisles, under the seats. And make sure everybody’s pretty quiet. We had a blind woman on with a dog. We had to get people to help her off and all this stuff.

They were fantastic. Nobody screamed, cried, or hollered. When we got on the ground, everything was fine. The captain landed perfect. But there was a little jolt, and the passengers started screaming and hollering. They held it all back and all of a sudden we got on the ground, blah.

I was great. (Laughs.) That’s what was funny. I thought, I have a husband now. I don’t know how he would take it, me dying on an airplane. So I thought, I can’t die. When I got on the intercom, I was so calm. Also we’re supposed to keep a smile on our face. Even during an emergency, you’re supposed to walk through the cabin and make everybody feel comfortable with a smile. When you’re on the jump seat everybody’s looking at you. You’re supposed to sit there, holding your ankles, in a position to get out of that airplane fast with a big fat smile on your face.

Doctors tell stewardesses two bad things about them. They’re gonna get wrinkles all over their face because they smile with their mouth and their eyes. And also with the pressurization on the airplane, we’re not supposed to get up while we’re climbing because it causes varicose veins in our legs. So they say being a stewardess ruins your looks.