Heather Poole: Cruising Attitude

Successfully passing a test on one aircraft didn’t mean we had a clue what to do on another. Take, for instance, the emergency exits. There are single slides, double slides, tail cones, and wings. Even on a single aircraft the emergency doors and windows operate differently. The commands one classmate had to yell while at a window exit were completely different from the ones I yelled while at a door on the same plane. We were tested on a mocked-up section of a plane that looked exactly like it did in real life—except that the first-class entry doors were about eight rows from the window exits, which were about ten rows from the rear exit doors. This became even more confusing and difficult because there were always at least three of us being tested on evacuation drills at the same time, one of us positioned at each exit. We had to remain focused. The best way to do it was to outscream one another. To add to the stress, our instructors would throw in things like a fire or an exit door that wouldn’t open or a slide that wouldn’t inflate or a passenger who was too afraid to jump. Then we’d have to break into a whole new set of commands and procedures. We could score an A, B, C, or D on the computer tests that covered medical, safety, or security, but when it came to an evacuation, it was pretty much pass or fail. If we looked out an exit window in the wrong direction to make sure our pretend slide had indeed inflated, buh-bye! If we pointed to the back of the plane at the pretend engine and told passengers on the ground to run “that way,” the wrong way, adios! Forgetting to position ourselves between the jump seat and the fuselage wall while the slide inflates with air and a pretend frantic passenger eager to escape a smoke-filled cabin might push us out to our death. One wrong word, one slip of the tongue, one teeny-tiny mistake and we were immediately told to stop without an explanation. After three strikes, we were out for good.

Linda would get so worked up before her drills she’d start to feel ill. But medical training is the only thing that frightened the heck out of me. I’ll never forget the day our most laid-back instructor placed an infant doll on top of a table in front of the classroom and told us about the time a passenger rang her call light because her child was turning blue. Our instructor grabbed the naked plastic doll and checked for breathing. Resting its back on the length of her arm with her hand cradling the baby’s head, she then flipped the doll over, balancing it on her other arm that rested on her thigh and began banging it with the palm of her hand— whop, whop, whop! Then she flipped the baby back over and using two fingers pushed hard on its scratched and discolored chest three times. We watched in silence while she flipped and banged, flipped and pushed, a long blond ponytail flipping along with it, until whatever the baby was choking on came out. Our instructor cradled the doll in her arms and told us that while she may have saved the doll’s life, on her flight she hadn’t been successful. Another instructor took over when it looked like she might cry. After we each took turns practicing the Heimlich maneuver on an infant, we learned what to do on children, adults, and pregnant women. Next up was CPR. Dozens of lifelike dummies lined the floor. Our classroom resembled a horror movie, or even worse, a morgue. With the heel of my hand I pushed as hard as I could on a plastic chest that barely moved and counted to sixty, my partner giving two breaths, for what seemed like hours.

It didn’t matter how many times I went over the conscious and breathing versus unconscious and not breathing checklist, I just couldn’t seem to grasp it. So I organized a study group with other classmates who were having trouble. We met after dinner in a hallway to role-play medical scenarios. Georgia played the unconscious woman. A purple hair scrunchie wrapped around her wrist represented a medical bracelet. She had diabetes. Linda became a nurse after someone suggested we page for a doctor—but we came to find out Linda wasn’t really a medical professional, because when we asked to see her credentials she didn’t have any. Sneaky! While Joseph ran to get oxygen and the medical kit, Linda, who had transformed back into a flight attendant, called the cockpit to report what was going on. I could handle nosebleeds, air sickness, diabetic comas, and seizures, but the thought of losing a passenger freaked me out. Just dragging Georgia’s lifeless body over an armrest and into the aisle for CPR seemed daunting. And would I really be physically capable of dragging a grown man by the ankles to an emergency door to get him down a slide in the event of an evacuation? I’d take faulty hydraulics or an engine fire over a medical scenario any day.

Even though I knew we were only role-playing, it felt real and it always felt like we were about to run out of time. For me, flight attendant training was more difficult than four years of college because so much information was thrown at us in seven and a half weeks. What we were taught wasn’t difficult, but the program had been specifically designed to wear us down. The airline needed to know how we might react in a number of less-than-perfect scenarios in order to give us a taste of what flying would really be like… and also as a way to get rid of those who couldn’t hack it. So they pushed us to our limits, mentally and physically, filtering out the weak along the way. As we grew more and more exhausted, we were expected to absorb tons of information that had to be repeated verbatim. Procedures had to be done in step-by-step order. Late-night study groups were followed by early-morning drills. My adrenalin pumped nonstop for weeks. Imagine being on American Idol during Hollywood week, but instead of memorizing a song from the 1970s, you have to know the difference between dozens of weapons so that if you spot one in flight you can correctly communicate what it is with the cockpit. Instead of practicing Motown dance moves, we had to practice what to do in the event of ditching over water, a decompression, and planned and unplanned emergency landings. And just when we thought it couldn’t get any worse, the paranoia set in.

It began the day we sat down to learn about the basics of first-class service. We were being shown the proper way to set a tray table, pour a fine bottle of wine using a drip cloth, balance six wineglasses on a linen-lined silver tray, and serve caviar without dinging the fine china with a silver spoon. At one point, someone noticed that Joseph had gone missing. I hoped he didn’t have something contagious—that was the last thing I needed. During lunch break a few classmates went to check on him, but when they knocked on the door nobody answered. And when Joe’s roommate entered their room that night, Joe’s half was totally and completely empty. It was as if nobody had ever lived on the right-hand side!

We had questions. There were no answers. Initially, I wondered if Joseph’s weight had done him in. He was a bit—okay, a lot—heavier than the rest of us. Georgia thought it had to be all his joking around. In class, Joe was always making us laugh. He was hilarious! Linda believed it had something to do with his sexuality. Joe did seem to enjoy showing off his feminine side. But I don’t blame him—no one looked more glamorous in an evening gown than Joanne, his alter ego. We never did figure out what happened to him. Right then and there I made a mental note to begin collecting phone numbers of classmates I liked—just in case.

Slowly, slowly, bit by bit, we dwindled down from a class of sixty to forty-five. We never saw anyone leave—people were there one minute, gone the next. Is it any wonder that many of us came to the conclusion that our rooms, the bathroom stalls, and even the salt and pepper shakers were bugged? The instructors had to be watching our every move and listening to our every word. Why else did classmates suddenly disappear for no reason during a five-minute bathroom break? What made it even more disturbing was that the good ones, classmates who would make perfect flight attendants, were not immune. One minute we’d all be sitting together discussing the different types of hijackers or how to use an information card and a couple of soda-soaked blankets when encountering a bomb, and the next minute— poof! Another classmate was gone. Luggage and all. Not a word. Not a note. Not a mention of their name ever again. Of course we were too afraid to ask our instructors what happened for fear that we’d be next. Instead we silently sat in our seats, eyes darting in the direction of the empty chair as soon as we realized someone else had been booted out. Oh, sure, there were those who deserved to go, like the two who got caught fondling each other under the table during a what-to-do-during-a-hostage-situation movie, but for the most part none of it made sense. We never knew who would be next.