Further tests

“Breathe in. Hold it. Breathe out.” I did what I was told as my GP held his stethoscope to my heart and listened intently. I didn’t know where to look or how to feel. There were plenty of distractions in the office – my doctor had quite the artistic son, so there were paintings from art class everywhere, as well as plenty of souvenirs from his travels displayed all over his walls and bookshelves. But I couldn’t concentrate on any of them. Suddenly my heart was under pressure and I’m sure it was probably beating irregularly fast just because I was so bloody nervous.

Only minutes later my doctor sat me down and gave the good news. Yes I had a heart murmur, but so do 90% of all women, he said. It was an innocent murmur – meaning it was not dangerous – and likely caused by my posture (sorry Mum, I knew there was a reason you were always nagging me to sit up straight!). He confided that he thought the doctor who had done my medical may have overreacted slightly and because of this I’d still need to go to the hospital and have an ECG done, just to satisfy the company that I was fit to work. Only once I had the results from the ECG could he clear me to begin work. I wondered if I’d ever get to begin this job.

And that was how I found myself at a private hospital the next day – the only one that could fit me in at short notice – lying on a trolley and getting to experience how it is pregnant mothers feel when they have an ultrasound. It was complete with jelly and everything, only it was on my chest, not my uterus :) I laid there for more than half an hour as the nurse did a great job of distracting me by asking me about my travels of the previous year and about my new job I was (hopefully) heading into.

$450 and three days later I received the results and with a sense of relief informed my new employer that I was fit to work – nothing was going to stop me.

I wound everything up at my old job in mid March, and it was a sad affair. I’d become part of the family there after six years and learnt an incredible amount about good customer service and being apart of a team. I was sad to leave, especially after my workmates presented me with a gorgeous watch and a scrapbook of the last six years together. But I knew I was just going on to the join another family, as corny and lame as that sounds.

With one week to go before my first day of ground school, I was all set to bum around home and enjoy the last few days of sleep ins and relaxing hours on the couch. But then my parents suggested I take a holiday before I start ground school. It hadn’t even entered my mind. I am tight with my money (for good reason – I’m not just a scrooge) and even just having a week off between jobs had not sat very well with me. But they convinced me and before I knew it I was on a plane to Melbourne to spend 4 days with friends.

Not until I was sitting on that flight did it hit me what I was about to go into. Suddenly I was so aware of the flight attendants. I was always the type of person who watched the safety demonstration anyway, but now, well now I hung onto every word and watched their every move the entire flight. Soon that would be me showing people how to fit an oxygen mask. It was so exciting!

Four days in Melbourne did the trick. I got a chance to relax and had such a great time with my friends. I was glad my parents had talked me into going. Because I knew this’d be the last time I’d get to relax in quite a while.

Turns out though I didn’t know just how much I should’ve cherished that time in Melbourne…

In a heartbeat

I waited two months to hear back from my dream airline. They’d told me two weeks. With every week that passed I lost more and more hope. I thought it was pretty clear that I hadn’t been successful. But I didn’t mind. I was too busy starting my new career elsewhere.

Two weeks before I was due to start ground school with L and J I ventured into the city one afternoon to have my medical done. It’s a requirement that cabin crew be fit and healthy and with no pre existing conditions that could hinder them on the job. I am pretty healthy though, so walked into the waiting room with no fear.

The medical was an array of urine samples and drug tests, vision charts and measurements. And that was just the beginning. When I finally saw an actual doctor, my reflexes, breathing and balance were tested. I lay on the examining table and the doctor listened to my heartbeat. And that’s when he started frowning.

“Did you know you have a heart murmur?” he asked me.

I stared back at him blankly. No, I replied. Memories of my Dads heart attack several years before came rushing back into my head and I remembered our family’s history of heart problems. I immediately thought the worst – but not what the doctor considered the worst.

“You’re going to have to get this checked by your GP,” he explained, deadly serious.

“Will it stop me from starting my new job?” I asked, slightly panicking. If I couldn’t do this job, I’d have nothing. I’d be right back down on the bottom of the heap – somewhere I’d only just managed to crawl out of.

My question didn’t sit well with the doctor, understandably. “Your heart health is more important than any job,” was his icy reply.

Of course I knew this, but unemployment played on my brain. I didn’t want to go there.

I left the doctors office a little while later, worried that all the good luck I’d had in winning this job was now about to come to a screeching halt. I sat on a park bench outside the building, the 5pm busy-ness of the city centre buzzing around me. But it all fell on deaf ears. I rang my GP straight away and made an appointment for the following day.

You've got the job!

Not five minutes after I’d hung up with my east coast interviewer did my phone ring again. It was the January interview. “You’ve been successful! Congratulations!” came a voice. At the time I was so shocked and excited that I didn’t realise for weeks who the voice on the other end of the phone was that day, but now I’ve realised it was J – I knew she was my goodluck charm! The paperwork would be sent out soon she said, and in the meantime I should get my police clearance organised.
I was over the moon. I’d made it! I couldn’t quite believe it. But I was so excited and spent the next three weeks checking the mail everyday to see if my contract was sitting in the letterbox, just waiting for me to sign it. But it took forever to arrive and when, in early March, I got an invitation to a recruitment day at my dream airline – the one I had grown up admiring – I was torn as to whether I should go. I talked it over with my family and friends and they encouraged me to go, if for nothing else than to get my name into the system at that airline for the future. Working at that airline was still my ultimate goal. And maybe it would come sooner than expected?

Somehow I was less nervous in March than I was in January, even though this interview was by far the biggest and most serious one I’d been to. And all the other candidates were of the highest standard. They were mostly all older than me, all with previous experience, and all looking down their noses at me. I thought I cut an all right figure amongst them though, and this was confirmed when I made it to the panel interview that day as well. I couldn’t have been more stoked with myself and had a hard time trying not to let my mind run away with me and picture myself wearing that lovely dress already.

As I waited in the inner city hotel foyer for my interview, I bumped into a girl from my January interview. She’d also been offered the job there and I asked her what she’d do if she was successful today with this much bigger airline. She was quick to answer: “Oh I’d be here in a second! I’d pull out of ground school with J and L…I don’t care.” I guess some people only want to go to the big time. Nothing wrong with that – heck, I had been incredibly naïve as well and wanted to only work for the big airlines at one stage, but now that I had an offer I was happy to take it. I honestly didn’t know what I would decide if I got offered a job at two different places.

I was interviewed by a big burly bloke who could’ve been the CEO of this airline for all I knew. He was very business like but so wonderfully pleasant that I felt at ease sitting across from him and even had the guts to tell my awkward story about having to dob in a colleague who was coming to work under the influence of drugs. It was a good example of my work ethic and my integrity and I knew it. And I know it impressed him. And when we got to talking about my barista skills I thought I was in with a chance – he seemed so interested and so enthusiastic about my experience, whilst I was nothing but honest and polite to him.

I went home that day feeling as good as I had about my interview in January. But I didn’t know what to expect. Salaries and allowances and pretty uniforms and discounted travel and Hilton hotels were all swirling around in my head.

This job is not for everyone dear…

It was almost 5pm when I finally had my interview. And who walks down the stairs to fetch me but L. She beckoned me with a bony hand and powered up the stairs way ahead of me. The crew had partitioned off the room into three tiny interviewing cubicles. The seat I sat in opposite L and D, another scary senior crew member, was so close to the table I felt I almost had to suck in my stomach as I sat there.
All my life I’ve had a bit of trouble looking people in the eye. I don’t know why – it’s not like every word that comes out of my mouth is a lie and therefore I can’t look people in the eye or anything. I just find it a bit off putting and intimidating. But I knew I had to make good eye contact with L and D right then. D acted as scribe as L fired questions at me for 40 minutes – everything from what would you do with a drunken passenger? to could you really handle running through a dark, smoke filled cabin to open an exit? Do you mind working public holidays? Do you realise that ground school training will be the most intense and difficult four weeks of your life? Are you ready for that?

Of course I was! Well, at that moment I thought I was. For my first real interview though, I thought it had not gone too badly. I left feeling happy. I just had a great vibe – it seemed like a great company to work for, one I’d want to work for, and everyone I’d met that day seemed very nice. I wanted to join this team. So I thanked them and left, getting into my stinking hot car and driving home via the shops to get myself a block of chocolate as reward for surviving such a long day and making it through.

I spent the next three weeks back at my waitressing job, eagerly awaiting any news from my interview. As luck would have it suddenly every airline started calling me and I went to two other interviews while I waited to hear from J or L. But none measured up to the experience I’d had that day in January.

Late in February I was just about to head off to work when I received a call from an Australian airline recruiting for one of their east coast bases. As I was about to head to work, they promised to call me back later in the day. Any call from any airline was a cause of excitement for me so I was bubbling over the whole day, so keen to get home and have this woman call me back. And she did, as promised. Being a large airline, she was critical of my answers to her questions and as we wound up the interview and she still hadn’t asked me to attend a recruitment day, I feared my chances were slipping away. But to my surprise she extended a sympathetic hand. “Your answers aren’t as strong as I’d like, so you’d need to work on that. But I can tell you mean well and so I’m going to put you through to the recruitment day,” she said. Only problem was it was a five hour flight away and was in 3 days. And I hadn’t been too eager to move out of my state for this job just yet anyway. I told her I couldn’t give her an answer right then. “Don’t let me down,” she said. I was grateful she was giving me a chance. I knew it was rare and it made me realise the people on the other end of these phone interviews aren’t just reading off a sheet and ticking boxes…they really are human and go beyond your answers to make an assessment on whether you’d be right for the job.

Thanks for coming!

It wasn’t a you, you, you and you situation, but close enough. The crew sounded apologetic as they thanked the rejected ones for coming today and informed them that they’d no longer be required. It was harsh to say the least but they had to be brutal I suppose. If you don’t make the cut you don’t make the cut. Of twenty only twelve remained after lunch. And I was lucky enough to be one of them.

By then it was well after 2pm and they had organised a schedule for the panel interviews. Six crew meant they could do three interviews at a time. I must admit I was relieved that I would only be sitting in front of two people and not three or four. All the jobs I’d previously held up until that point had barely even had interviews – I’d either been hired over the phone, on the spot or been recommended by a friend. This was a totally new experience for me.

My interview was going to be second last so I was in for a long wait. It was a stinking hot January day outside and even though the lure of an ice cold Coke at McDonalds down the road was tempting, I resisted, knowing something bad would happen and I’d get a flat tire coming back, or spill the drink all over my nice dress. So I stayed put and tried to make conversation with the others girls as we waited (that’s right – K had not been correct about M. He’d been sent packing and walked from the building with his shoulders slumped. As had K, much to her surprise – and mine. Just goes to show you experience isn’t always what employers are after!)

D was excited enough for all of us. “If they ask you to take a medical, you’re gonna fly girls, you mark my words!” I was feeling pretty stoked that I’d just got through to the panel interview. A medical was the last thing on my mind and seemed many, many steps away. All I was hoping for at that moment was that J and R – the super friendly crew member who’d taken down my passport details on arrival that morning – would be the ones who did my interview.

As we waited, we all could not help but discuss those who’d not made it. Everyone was shocked K had not made the cut and as the afternoon wore on, A, a member of ground staff at the middle eastern airline I mentioned earlier, had a few choice words to say about why she thought K hadn’t made it. I won’t repeat it, but as I sat there I thought it a shame they had actually chosen A to have an interview. Out of everyone there that day she was the only one I found unpleasant and unfriendly and up herself. And after she bagged out K to me as she fixed her perfectly styled hair I hoped today would be the last day I saw her.

The Wait

By midday the formalities were over and we snacked on a lunch provided by the airline. Oh wait, did I say formalities over? Nope! We were only eating sandwiches but that didn’t mean we weren’t still being evaluated and observed. What kind of a flight attendant would I be if I sat in the corner eating my ham and cheese sandwich and not talking to anyone? I made an effort to be social and friendly even though I knew we were probably all going to go home that day and bitch to our friends about the girls we met at this interview. And I know J and L and the rest of the crew were watching us too and seeing how we interacted in a more relaxed setting and furthering their opinions on us.

After lunch it was time for the decision. We all trundled back downstairs to await our fate – honestly, the air was unbelievably thick with nerves! Everyone was a bit more chatty by then though and I judged people by what they said to me and to others. Not in a harsh way - it was just my way of getting to know who they were. There was K who was a flight attendant with the airline down the road. She looked like she belonged behind the make up counter in David Jones. She spoke loudly and was bubbly and friendly, reassuring us all that we would get through to the next stage, gushing especially over our lonesome male M: “I don’t want to sound sexist, but you’re a shoo in hun! It’s to your advantage that you’re the only guy here. You’ll get to the panel interview for sure,” she said.

Her colleague, R, was also looking to jump ship (errr…plane?) and was much more refined in looks and demeanour. She sat prim and proper next to me and didn’t say much but did let me in on all the goings on at her airline – the god awful early morning starts and the clattery tin can aircrafts she flew on all by herself. But she had no qualms about switching airlines – the pay was no better here than it was there!

Then there was D – a former hostess with the mostess from the big A. D was there right up until the day it collapsed and wasn’t ashamed to admit she was married to her job – that was how much she loved it. No kids. No marriage. No home of her own. Just flying for a living and going to the nudist beach on her days off (seriously). As we waited she told us stories about the good ol’ days at her old airline. It certainly sounded like the golden era – a real family. I have since heard that crew at D’s old airline were the highest paid in Australia (maybe even the world, I can’t remember) and therefore extremely loyal and well trained. She was taking a step down going for this job, but she just wanted to fly again, dying to get back into it after almost a decade away from the love of her life.

The rest of the group consisted of mothers who worked from home selling Tupperware or running boot camps for other mothers, several ground staff from other airlines wanting to crack into operations in the air and surprisingly - well to me anyway – a lot of people from interstate. They seemed willing to go anywhere for a cabin crew job and I was aghast at first to hear this level of commitment from them. I wanted a cabin crew job too, but I don’t think I would have packed up and come all the way across the country for it. If that doesn’t show you that the competition is fierce then I don’t know what will! And this wasn’t even a big airline interview either!

We waited for almost an hour as they made their choices. I thought I was going to burst. We distracted ourselves by gossiping about other airlines as we waited. This airline offers this much per year…that airline makes you do exams every six months…oh but this airline gives you $5.50 daily travel allowance!...but at that airline you’re away from home 15 nights a month… I must admit, I loved hearing all the gossip. I already felt like this was my domain, where I belonged, and I loved learning these little tidbits about the industry from the other candidates.

Suddenly J appeared at the top of the stairs, her fellow crew huddled behind her somehow managing smiles that were a combination of ‘I’m sorry, half of you didn’t make it’ and ‘Congrats! You’re through!’. We all looked up at them hopefully. I don’t know about the rest of them, but I was holding my breath and had my crossed fingers hidden underneath the handbag on my lap.

Dressing to Impress

“Dear Candidate. You are invited to attend the Cabin Crew Recruitment & Information Day”

I got this news whilst checking my emails on my phone in the middle of Big W after yet another particularly boring waitressing shift. I had to steady myself by putting a hand up against the bags of Starburst beside me to contain my excitement. “Please dress in business attire” it said – well I already had that covered with my classy Cue dress that knocked the socks off even my older brother, whose usual response to my questions is a grunt.

The recruitment day was not for another month, which gave me plenty of time to prepare. I pondered where to even begin. Then I remembered I actually already knew two people who were flight attendants (the luck of it all!). Seeking them out through Facebook, I pummeled them with an endless stream of questions and waited eagerly for their replies. But I was disappointed. One didn’t even bother replying which I can now put down to my first taste of cabin crew snobbery. And the other proceeded to scare me so much with a long list of what I should and shouldn’t do at the recruitment day that for a moment I had second thoughts.

But only for a moment. What would become a trend within me over the next six months, her sobering advice only drove me to greater heights and made me more determined. And now, looking back, I am so glad that this happened. Because you need to be driven for this job. You need to really want it. I was half assed about school and sport and university and boyfriends and…well, everything. But not this job. Because if you are they’re going to turf you out and slam the door in your face.

I got online and researched the airline. I prepared answers for the interview. I spent hours perfecting my hairstyle for the big day. I even changed the way I spoke to people. It took some practice to get the bogan sounding ‘no worries’ that I said to every customer I served in my waitressing job out of my vocabulary. I knew slang like that wouldn’t make a good first impression.

By the time the day finally rolled around I was the most prepared I’d ever been for anything. I was miles too early of course – I hate being late for anything, but the day of the recruitment day I’d allowed extra extra time, just in case – and sat jittery in my car for half an hour before I even needed to approach the door of the building.

I watched in my rear vision mirror as women – and a single lonesome guy – rocked up. Almost everyone was dressed like they already had the job – a little tool of the trade that I found really worked for me and helped with my confidence. Dress like you already have the job and you fool everyone. I got out of my car nervously and approached the group. Seconds later the building’s doors opened and we all took seats awkwardly in the foyer, barely speaking a word to each other.

We tried to disguise it, but we were all sizing each other up and sussing out the competition. It was easy to tell who had experience in the industry already. They were the ones dressed the most appropriately and who had the immaculate hair and make up. They talked the most, reassuring the newbies like me that today was going to be a cinch. I appreciated the guidance and observed the entire group of twenty candidates the whole day long and applied their mannerisms to myself constantly. Ohhh she’s sitting up nice and tall, that looks good, I better sit up tall too. It was an exhausting day just constantly thinking so hard about my appearance and the way I spoke and moved.

Six smartly dressed crew ran the recruitment day. J and L were clearly the head honchos and I took a liking to J straight away. She was never without a smile and looked uncannily like a woman I used to work with which seemed like a good start for me. When she sat at my table to observe during group exercises I was pleased. She spoke so enthusiastically about the job and was so encouraging, telling everyone all the things she loved about her role. But there was no sugar coating either – we heard the bad stuff too. The aircraft break downs, the spur of the moment overnights with no clean clothes, or even a suitcase to pack your dirty ones in, the sprint across the tarmac at 5am in pouring rain in high heels. The thought of these things almost made me cringe, but at the same time I appreciated her honesty. I was under no illusions that this job was way less glamorous than people think and I am not afraid to get my hands dirty anyway.

L was an intimidating force of frizzy haired nature. Tall and skinny with the highest of high heeled shoes on her feet, L spoke with an English accent and seemed to fumble over her words because her teeth were too big. I wondered if this was why she had her lipliner drawn so far over the natural line of her lips, dangerously close to her nose, as if to accommodate for her big chompers. Her hair was equally as attention grabbing, frizzed and coiffed into a high French roll. L was a veteran of the skies, having flown for years with airlines in the US and Britain. The straight forward way in which she spoke totally intimidated me and I prayed she wouldn’t do my interview – if I got that far.

I was so aware the whole day that I was being watched and scrutinised every second, not only by the cabin crew running the day but also by the other candidates. It was quite unnerving but through the group activities and all the discussion I had a good feeling. Then when we spent far too long talking about the glamorous side of being cabin crew – the uniforms, the travel and the status – I found myself getting more and more excited, the energy swirling around in my stomach like nothing I’d ever felt. I think it was then I realised how much I wanted this. It was an awesome feeling.