So this post is a recap of all the jobs that I have had up to this point in my life with highlights on the best and worst.
When I was about 10 I instantly became the neighborhood babysitter. I was babysitting at least a couple times a week and loved it!
Every summer for 4-H I would become a farmer. I would raise and show two lambs in the county fair and that would be my income along with babysitting til I was in high school.
At that point I hired myself out to people in town to mow their lawns and clean their houses. I did that till I was finished with highschool. And for extra money in the summers I would umpire little league games.
My senior year of high school I took courses at Snow College Richfield. CNA and Cosmetology. After I was trained in the field it was a requirement to have hands on experience so they would schedule shifts where I would go work at the Richfield Care Center or do customers hair and nails.
After high school I moved up to Snow College and became an intramural worker...keeping scores, setting up, taking down, and using a timer. Easy but fun. I got to meet tons of people at college this way and l absolutely loved my coworkers.
During the summers I would move back to Salina and be a dispatcher for the State of Utah Wildfires.
Back at Snow my second year, I kept my intramural gig going and also picked up a second part time job where I worked at Manti High tutoring in the reading class.
After Snow I went back to being a dispatcher for a summer and Matt worked at the forest service so he would here me over the radio...But come August I wanted a break from school so I moved out to Vero Beach, Florida and was a nanny.
When I moved back, Matt was attending USU in Logan so naturally I looked for work and an apartment Cache Valley right away. I quickly found a good full time job at an ophthamologists office.
Once that school year ended and Matt moved to Minneapolis to sell security systems I was at a loss of what I should do so I moved to Salina and did nothing for about a week till a friend called and told me that the company Matt and his buddies worked for were hiring in a call center in Provo and that we should do it together. So we did. We moved to Provo (never again) and worked that summer! I even got to talk to Matt on the phone sometimes when he called his sales in...but we had to be professional so it was exciting and awkward at the same time! Even though I would recognize his number and voice right away I still had to ask him his full name. (Usually it was already typed in before he spoke).
At APX I became friends with a really sweet girl in upper management named Tara. One day we got talking and she told me her hubby was a pilot. I told her how I always wanted to be a flight attendant but couldn't cause of my height. She then told me all about the company her hubby works for and that it was a regional carrier flying shorter routes for Delta and United and that the plane were smaller....and that they were hiring!!! I went home, called Matt and we both decided I should do it. I applied that night on the internet.
I missed a day of work the next week to go to an interview at the hangar in SLC. That interview turned into two more and three days later I got an email letting me know they had offered me a position in training. I went to a three week long training course that was very intense and people were dropping like flies all around me but I made it through till graduation and my check ride so here I am today...a flight attendant.
I love my job and couldn't think of a better one for me. If you can't tell this is my favorite!! It was a challenge to get the job but now that I have it, it is so rewarding. It is a very easy job, I mean, I do deal with a lot of messy and noisy kids, angry passengers, sad passengers,very stupid passengers, and the hoity toity first class passengers, emergencies and minor things every day but overall my job description is basically this: "Would you like something to drink?...mmm, ok, and how about a snack" EASY!!! And I love it! I don't have to work hard....I can stimulate my brain by other ways like reading a good book in the galley or having good conversations with the passengers or other flight attendant.
I get so many questions everyday about my job from anyone that meets me and hears what I do so here are the basics.
I go to the airport and check in for my trip (a trip can last anywhere from 1-4 days but I usually do two day trips). I work about 3 flights a day (usually with another flight attendant but sometimes alone depending on the size of the plane).
When I get on the plane I do security checks and make sure the plane is stocked appropriately. Then the passengers board and they all whine to me about everything and I smile and nod. Once they are on I get on the PA and say a few required announcements for safety and other information then close the bins and tell people to do what I already told them to do over the PA ie put your seatbelt on, turn your ipod off, put your bag under the seat. Then I do paper work and passenger counts making sure no terrorist is on :) then I talk to the pilots for a minute of briefing which includes: flight time, elevation, bumpy or not, how many passengers on board, entry signal to the cockpit if we want to go up and chill with them, if there is anything broken on the plane (lights, seats, coffee makers, etc) then we tell them we are ready for taxi and close the cockpit door. One more announcement and walk through to make sure people are following the FAA rules and then I take my jumpseat and sit down. The pilots call, I tell them the cabins secure, and we take off. At 10,000 feet make another announcement that it's safe to use electronic devices. Then at cruising altitude, we serve. After that, stock the galley, do trash sweeps through the cabin, answer call buttons and chill in the galley reading books, magazines or just chatting.
On descent we make another announcement and prepare the cabin for landing.
On landing, we welcome them to their destination and thank them for flying with us. Once everyone is off we tidy up the plane and board more passengers.
I do the same thing every flight and then wherever or last flight takes us is where we stay in a hotel the company sets up for us. If we get in early we (sometimes...depending how nerdy the pilots are..jk, hah!) hang out, go to dinner as a crew, see the city or do whatever we want. Then the next day we go back to the airport and fly around some more.
I love to fly and I love to meet so many new people and see so many new places. I love working with a different crew every trip! I never get sick of them.
I love the flexibility with this job. I only work about 15 days of the month and I am home almost every other night if not more. I pick and choose where and when I work and how long I am gone. It is so sweet, I will probably never quit!
Now for my least favorite (which I have already mentioned...) can you guess?
That's right! A CNA!!!
Working at the Richfield Care Center was no pleasant experience for me! I could barely stomach it at most times. Don't get me wrong, I love the elderly but once they get to that point they are just suffering in their own bodies...it is quite sad. But you will think that you are caring for a sweet, frail, dying, little old grandma till you try to take her for a shower or get her dentures out and then you will see the truth of just how much life they still have in them. Even though their arms are just bones, they put up a heck of a fight! I was bitten, pooped on, kicked and called many names by the sweet grandmas in the care center!
McKell is just finishing up her senior year as well as her CNA in Richfield. A few months back she came to me asking for my advice about whether or not she should do the CNA course. Believe me, I gave her fair warning and told her I would NOT do it if I were her. But thankfully she didn't listen to me and she just finished it! She absolutely LOVES it and she comes home with the funniest stories. For example...she was showering a lady the other day and her instructor told McKell and her partner that they needed to be sure to wash everywhere...including under the breasts. So Mckell was going about the shower with this woman and she told her she was going to wash under her breast and the woman said, "oh hear let me help ya with that!" and then proceeded to pick her boob off her stomach and throw it over her shoulder out of Kell's way!!!! Hilarious.
Sometimes you have to take care of the old men too and that is even worse...they are usually more cooperative and nice...but only cause they are perverts and like young girls cleaning their parts! When I was in high school I didn't sign up to see that!
One guy sang a song to me and Penny when we worked there and it went like this..."I'm a little tea pot short and stout...what used to be my sex appeal is now my water spout!" Penny was my partner when we were at the Care Center and let me just publicly thank her for doing all the dirty work that I couldn't do. I would literally feel puke coming up if I was taking one of them to the restroom...Penny would see my face, take the toilet paper from my hand and finish the job! Thank heavens for Kell's and Pen's of the world!!!
I am just not good with the old people. I was at my Grandma Camp's house the other day and I was talking to her about a lot of stuff and in the middle of our conversation my Great Grandma Sparks pipes in and says, "You ask too many questions!" I took that as a polite "shut up." I didn't even know she could hear me!
Oh man, I don't wanna get old!!!
By the way...NEVER google Flight Attendant or Nurse unless you have the word "cartoon" in front of it!!! Not Good! You will see way more than you want!
