Being Kind To Each Other

Today I flew back from San Francisco. It was not an easy flight. I had a fall on some uneven pavement in the city not long before our pickup from the hotel. Other than grazing my knee and ripping my trousers, I thought I was OK until I started work. I very much regretted not calling in sick and should have not worked back to London. It’s a very physical job and it doesn’t really work with a knee that doesn’t want to bend!

Thankfully, Flight Attendants are a very caring and supportive bunch, and I got lots of help and did the best I could. Our London base is particularly close and family-like, partly because it’s a small base and we know almost everyone. I was very grateful for their kindness.

Our pilots were based in Houston and I had never met any of them before. We actually worked with the same pilot crew in both directions, which is unusual. I often work the First Class galley position, as I did on this trip, and part of that involves keeping the pilots ‘fed and watered’. I always try to spoil them a little bit - make sure they get extra nuts or ice cream or other food, as it’s a very long time to be stuck up in that small flight deck between the thrill of takeoff and landing.

These 3 pilots were particularly friendly and on the way back to London one of them came bearing gifts - a set of brightly decorated cookies from Boudin, a well-known San Francisco French-style sourdough bakery. Twelve cookies - one for each Flight Attendant and one spare. How cool is that? Kind little gestures like that really make our workplace feel like family.

I was glad I took a picture of the cookies before they were devoured! There weren’t many other pictures taken today for my Blipfoto!