Thursday, April 26, 2007

For those who knew me before I was blessed with this awesome job, knew I did not like coffee at all. I know that when I was working at Metro and Velluto at PCEC, with the 4am wake ups, 5am starts, that every now and again I'd have a cappucino every now and again. But you wouldn't find me buying instant in a hurry. Coke-Cola, English Breakfast, or a Hot Chocolate would satisfy my caffine intake for the day.

My how things change. For the Colombo-Male flight, I had 2 cups to operate the sector out of Dubai. Going back into Dubai I had a whopping 4 cups and then after arriving back into Dubai found myself at Starbucks. Woke up this morning, had a nagging headache, drank some coffee and the headache was gone. Scary, very scary...

So... just arrived back from Colombo. Wanted to go out with the crew to Kandi and see some elephants, all were initially keen and then after landing into Colombo realised we were all wrecked and just wanted to rest. Getting back on the bus to the airport 36 hours later found out that they did end up going and didn't think for a minute to call me. Wasn't happy when I found out. It doesn't really matter though - I have a Singapore Colombo fight next month with even more time in Colombo so hopefully I can con encourage some of the crew to go with me.

Anyway, time for photos! Courtesy of Alex, because silly me left her camera at home thinking she wouldn't need it. These are from my Birmingham trip, unfortunately I didn't take any in Colombo, but there will be other opportunities!

Cathedral in the middle of Birmingham City

Me outside the scaly thingo that's attached to the shopping centre


Stupid me forgot to pack socks. Bought a paid and turns out that despite the fact that the shoe size clearly said 9-12 it was too small for me.


Alex (Kazakhstan), me, Noor (Malaysia). Very cool people to be spending the day with. Plus I want Noor's poncho.

Now who's this sexy beast???

Coming up next is a lovely Tehran on the 28th, then a Can-Use on the 30th (it was originally a rest day but scheduling decided they wanted to play around with me. Then I have a Perth flight on the 3rd, so will be seeing the family and hopefully everyone else I care about dearly. After that it's Dusseldorf, then my Greek Island holiday with Yiannis!

Labels: Layovers, Random Thoughts, Work

Posted by Melissa at 1:49 pm

4 comments

• A bad, horrible SFS. Had a go at pretty much everyone in Economy except the other Scottish crew, plus reported one girl. Last week reported one of the business class crew who was pulled out from standby to do the flight. Felt really sorry for him. Also treated passengers like crap.
• I got the worst position as far as being Business Class crew is concerned. I had Duty Free, Economy class, Galley duties, Security and safety checks, there was a lot I had to do. Did I mention I'd never done duty free before?
• When doing Duty free, the computer was missing, there were discrepancies with stock, I had no manual credit card swiper and basically anything that could go wrong did go wrong.
• I had sweet f--k all help upon landing in Dubai with final duties and had to collect shit whilst 11 of the 14 crew were already on the bus.
• We had a drunk passenger on board. We were told by ground staff we can't serve him any more alcohol and he was a pain in the arse the whole 7 hours. When he wasn't in the galley buttering us up for a drink he was pushing the call bell (without exaggeration) every 15 seconds.
• On the return sector, for some reason people left their manners at the door. Didn't hear a single 'please' or 'thankyou' until we landed and everyone was getting off. Even had one woman snap her fingers at me. One guy grabbed my arm when he wanted a drink.

I guess when looking back at everything it doesn't seem so bad, but it was a really horrible, stressful flight. The worst thing for me would be if I screwed up the credit card transactions, then I'm accountable for several thousand dirhams. Would really top off a great couple of days.

I did end up going out, visited the city with Noor, from Malaysia, and Alex from Kazakhstan. I didn't even know we had Kazakhstani crew in the company! I didn't take many photos, but I'm waiting on some from Noor, so hopefully they'll be up soon

Labels: Airline Stuff, Layovers, Work