Chapter Four: Senior Mammas

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Let's talk about the flight attendants that have been around for centuries, or as we call them, the Senior Mammas. These were the flight attendants that came in during the golden age of flying. Gorgeous figure, well groomed, wide pearly white smiles. Today, most of them have become bitter creatures. Most of them. There's of course, the occasional sweet Peggy. The one that has the sweet voice, knows where everything is, offers help and makes your life easier.

But beware of Devilish Donna. This one is always whining about the airline. Like that one time we flew from Frankfurt to Chicago and worked in First Class. I had this passenger complain about his recliner being broken and TV remote not working. Very frustrating, of course. I completely understand, specially when the passenger has spend thousands of dollars for his amenities not to work. During our dinner service, Donna was picking up dishes from passengers to later serve the main course. At one point, she dropped a spoon, and deemed it lost. She came back to the front galley and started ranting:

"This is one of the reasons why I have sciatica, from awkwardly having to lean over someone else, because someone can't simply be polite and courteous enough to hand you a dish when you have almost straddled the aisle person. I'm done!"

I responded, "If your sciatica is so bad that you can't reach over and grab a plate, how, may I ask, do you plan on opening a door in an emergency?"

Donna gave me a dirty look.

"Looking to lash out, Emily? I am well capable of opening a door and throwing your ass out of it. I have better things to do than to try to lash out at my fellow co workers over a some idiot who can't hand me his dish and rants about his broken recliner and remote control not working. I don't know how long you have been flying. There are some people that are never happy about anything, even if the service was impeccable. But when the princess starts bitching about having to hand a plate, I'm done. " She told me as she put dishes inside a cart.

I was taken aback. What is her problem? It was a fair and honest question. We have a physical job. Sounds to me like she has some limitations. I hope she gets that check out soon. And I hope I'm not sharing a jumpseat in an unlikely event of an emergency. So far she's threatened me, used foul language, lashed our at multiple people. I'd say she has some personal issues. Oh, honey. I hope an early out is coming soon, for your sciatica's sake. It's this kind of defensive attitude people more senior have that doesn't allow many airlines to move forward. This is a fluid industry. If you can't keep up or accept constructive criticism maybe it's no longer the career fro you. It's definitely not the same industry 10, 20, 30 years ago.
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But let's talk about those senior mammas that should retire. Yesterday I worked from San Francisco to Chicago on a Boeing 757. I was the purser on that flight. A pretty easy job. A senior momma, Anne, was the ¨aisle¨ person, which means she only assists on the beverage cart. Her voice was so low and slow. She sounded like she was very high.

A nonrev was very kind to give us some chocolates. Anne was up and down during the flight taking Reese's and Twix. She actually ate the whole pack of Twix. I was left with nothing.

Caroline, who's 20 years senior to me, told me a crazy story about Anne. One time they flew to Salt Lake City and layover there. The next morning, as they checked out at the hotel front desk they noticed Anne was not around. Their shuttle was due at 7am. They had to leave. As the flight attendants walked down the terminal towards their gate, Anne was running down the terminal screaming '' You left me!''. Anne told the flight attendants she was lucky she saw a police car outside the hotel and asked them to drive her as fast as they could to the airport. Apparently they activated their siren and speeded to the airport. Poor Anne.

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