Cabin Pressure with Shawn and "G"
Have you ever wondered what goes on behind that little curtain or in the galley of your favorite airline?* Buckle up and join seasoned flight attendants Shawn and G as they take you on a thrilling journey through the high skies with our brand new podcast, "Cabin Pressure!"- It's like having two fun, knowledgeable friends sharing a drink and stories at 30,000 feet.
- Whether you’re an aviation enthusiast, a frequent flyer, or someone who loves a good story, there’s something for everyone.
- Stay entertained while you travel, during your daily commute, or when you need an amusing escape.
So, fasten your seatbelt, stow your tray table, and prepare for takeoff!
Cabin Pressure with Shawn and "G"
From Pajamas to The Rigors of Flight Attendant Training
Ever wondered why personal hygiene on flights is more than just a courtesy? Tune in to Cabin Pressure with Shawn and G, where we tackle the rise of pajama-clad passengers and the discomfort it brings to fellow travelers and crew alike. From the nostalgia of air travel's golden age to the critical role of maintaining decorum in enclosed spaces, our discussion is both candid and essential. Plus, we reminisce about the poignant memories of our first day in flight attendant training, a journey filled with intense emotions and unforgettable moments.
Join us as we reflect on the serene beauty of early mornings in Northeast Ohio, setting the tone for a heartfelt tribute to the victims of 9-11. This episode underscores the immense impact on the airline community and the ongoing importance of safety in aviation. We delve into a recent tarmac collision incident, reiterating crucial safety protocols and the necessity of vigilance during every phase of flight. Our stories and shared experiences aim to highlight the paramount importance of safety measures, ensuring every journey remains as secure as possible.
Ever been curious about the rigorous world of flight attendant training? We're taking you behind the scenes into the high-pressure environment filled with constant testing, emergency drills, and the resilience required to succeed. Hear personal anecdotes about EVAC drills, the camaraderie and conflicts among trainees, and the ever-evolving landscape of flight attendant qualifications. Finally, we explore the natural wonders of Montana, offering a perfect escape for those looking to recharge amidst nature's splendor. Fly safe, be happy, and join us for another enriching episode of Cabin Pressure with Shawn and G.
A travel podcast for women over 45 who want to explore this big beautiful world.
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Hey, you ever wonder what flight attendant training is like or how your crew feels about nasty pajamas and ugly slippers on the plane? Well, stay right here. It's next on Cabin Pressure.
Speaker 2:Welcome everyone. Fasten your seatbelts, stow your tray tables, don't even think about moving from that seat. It's time for Cabin Pressure with Sean and G. What's up Sean? Hey, what's up G? Not too much, buddy. Hey, did you get out this morning? Oh I absolutely did. Man, it was absolutely gorgeous the weather.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the weather here. We are in northeast Ohio, OHIO baby, and I don't know about all that.
Speaker 2:But we might differ on that a little bit, it's all good.
Speaker 1:On my side OHIO. Yeah, it has been amazing. The weather up here in Northeast Ohio this year has just been gorgeous, I mean just to.
Speaker 2:It has been.
Speaker 1:Just to like look at our mornings. You know, being a crew member and a lot of times on our trips we're getting up really early, so we get to appreciate the world.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know I'm an early morning person anyway, but the other day I got up and it's one of those moments where you get up and it's quiet, nobody's up. I'm looking out the back of my property. I got a tree line in the back and the sun's just coming up over the top of it, dew's going across the lawn, it's nice and quiet, it's serene. It's almost like, you know, when you're walking on the beach and the waves are crashing. It's a moment to where it's like you just forget about everything else. You're not really thinking about anything, just the beauty that you're looking at and you just can't believe how beautiful this is. And you know you're thinking how fortunate you are just to be here at this moment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I mean just, it's that meditative lick, you know, moment that you can just reflect and start your day out.
Speaker 2:I love coming back to those parts because a lot of times in life, you know, we always think about things that we have to have and and what we strive for new cars, bigger houses, stuff like that I get it. I mean don't get me wrong, I know everybody wants those, but it was that moment that I'm standing there and looking at it, thinking, and not even a thought, just how beautiful this is, and not thinking of anything else, and just the serenity and the simplicity of it. It was just absolutely gorgeous and I was so fortunate because those moments I mean a little corny for me, I guess, but I love those moments.
Speaker 1:No, there's nothing corny about that. That's the beauty of our job. You know, when we go all these different places in the world, we get to wake up into different views, different places on this earth.
Speaker 2:We do. I mean just like the ocean, like I was saying.
Speaker 1:To sit back and appreciate those things. That's part of the benefits of our job.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it was, and today is the 13th of September of 2024. And just a few days ago they're honoring the victims of 9-11. That's something that hits home every year.
Speaker 1:Yeah, as an airline family, we all reflect on 9-11. It's gut-wrenching, I mean it's absolutely gut-wrenching, the entire world really thinks about that day and what happened and the people that were affected and how the world has changed. It is a sobering moment. We don't want to forget and we want to pay our respects and remember all our fallen crew members that were involved with that day.
Speaker 2:It's just. It truly is heartfelt and gut-wrenching. I mean, we talk about it all the time, but yeah, 9-11, just honoring all those people that lost their lives that day. It was just a very, very sad situation.
Speaker 1:Also the people that were on the ground in those buildings. Oh, the firefighters, everyone.
Speaker 2:Everyone that lost their life, everyone that lost their life I mean there wasn't one person that didn't lose their life. That was not heartfelt emotions, just the loss for the families and everyone. I mean it was just gut-wrenching. I mean every time I see those pictures it's just gut-wrenching yeah.
Speaker 1:We just want to pay respects and we want everyone to make sure that you remember those that were.
Speaker 2:We don't ever forget, Trust me, I mean, we just don't ever forget. But, Sean, anyway, going on to this week, we're all about safety. That's what a flight attendant is basically is safety.
Speaker 1:Yeah, number one concern.
Speaker 2:And we noticed a couple planes that they collided. They got clipped, doesn't matter which airline it was. Let's talk about the safety aspect of that. We always tell passengers make sure that you keep your seatbelts fastened. We want them to keep their children out of the aisles because a lot of times they have their infant child standing, because the kids get upset and they get mad at us because we're telling them all the time to make sure that their seatbelts are fastened. Even taxiing and this was a perfect example right are fastened, even taxiing and this was a perfect example, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, this is a perfect example of you know that split moment of time, that you know instances happen and that happens on the plane all the time. It's just wow bam.
Speaker 2:But folks understand this too, when you've seen that, you've seen one aircraft taxiing, and they taxi at what?
Speaker 1:Yeah, they taxi right around like 35, 40 miles per hour 35, 40 miles an hour and it collided with. It was a regional right yeah, tail end of a regional just took the tail off. It was a wide body aircraft that clipped the back of the wing and just literally ripped off the tail of the plane.
Speaker 2:So just think about that, the jolt that would cause inside of an aircraft and that's a taxi, folks and understand this. That's right by the runway. So an aircraft landing at an average speed of 160 to 180 miles an hour, if that would happen and the same situation happened to an airplane, the devastation of that and it's simply the point of this is keep your seatbelts fastened. I mean, we don't say it to be mean, we say it because we want you safe, we want your child safe. We don't make you pick your child up because we're trying to be mean or anyone wants to stop them from stretching their legs, but it's just. That was a perfect example of why keeping that seatbelt on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, it's those instances of super quick happening. You know events that like turbulence, like this incident that just happened, whether it be on the ground or in the air. We're always thinking safety. As flight attendants, we're always thinking about everybody else's safety as well as our own and we are always worried about how would that be affected. And in today's world we get so involved with all the amenities and connecting to Wi-Fi and talking to our fellow passengers, all these different things, trying to enjoy our experience and our trip, but you need to keep yourself safe.
Speaker 2:Right and just understand this as being a passenger. We are not trying to make it difficult for you. We're not trying to. We don't look at it as like we're telling you what to do, because we're not. What we're doing is we're just informing you that the reason why those seatbelts need to be fastened, the reason why those bags need to be stowed trust me, there are reasons. If you've ever been in any of these situations, there are reasons why we tell you to do this. We don't just tell you this for us to control you at all, not even a little bit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this industry, every rule in our industry is because something happened to make it there.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:I mean we can go back. We've been like G and I started back when they were smoking on a plane. Yeah, how much smoking has happened on a plane.
Speaker 2:Yeah, how much smoking has happened on a plane town?
Speaker 1:Yeah, these are the things that instances happen, events happen and we change our rules and the way we do things to keep everyone safe.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Hey, last time that we got together we talked about how me and you got hired and we survived the cattle call.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, the experience of the cattle call everything that we did to change our lives to get into this industry.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but you know, we had a common denominator there too, right, right, okay, so today we're going to talk about flight attendant training.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, first day, first day of training that is absolutely crazy, folks.
Speaker 2:I'm telling you, the first day of training is absolutely crazy. But before we get to that, we're going to go over a few more things. I want to talk about why we actually do it on the podcast Sean.
Speaker 1:Our flight attendant family.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we have a worldwide family of flight attendants. This is not just about me and Sean being two flight attendants for our airline. This is the way we feel about all flight attendants Because, folks, you have to realize flight attendants we travel on each other's planes every single day. We travel going back and forth to work and we look at these people the same way that they look at us. They're family. I mean, even though they fly and they work for another airline, they're still family to us because they do the same job we do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when we see another airline personnel on our flight, we treat them the utmost respect. Yeah, absolutely. And we also provide them with whatever we got as amenities and all that stuff.
Speaker 2:It's a professional courtesy that we have with each other, but it's also kind of strange, though, right, Flight attendants and pilots we're definitely a different group, because as soon as you see someone, it's like you've known them forever right.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:A lot of times I mean it's crazy like that. But anyway, what we want to do is we want this to be about not just me and Sean, about our flight attendant group, our flight attendant family.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we want to talk about the travels, all the things that we do, the places we go, foreign and domestic. We also want to talk about sharing stories. We want your input. Yeah, we want to want your input. Yeah, we want to get your input about this. We want to talk not only our stories. We're also going to be telling other flight attendants' stories and hopefully having guests on our show as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we actually like being the voice of flight attendants. I mean, you know, it's kind of fun to do, because we can't do it on a plane.
Speaker 1:No, we do it with one another, but we don't get to talk to the public about it.
Speaker 2:Well, that's the whole thing about bringing the galley to your house right now. That's what we're doing. We said this we need to bring the galley to the home, and this is the galley, and we are bringing it to your house right. Yeah.
Speaker 1:What's happening?
Speaker 2:behind the curtain, All right, so listen. The first thing that I have to address, because it just happened the other day what's that Pajamas?
Speaker 1:Pajamas.
Speaker 2:Cannot stand pajamas For the love of everything. Holy people Listen let me tell you Amen, holy people, listen, let me tell you, hey, listen, those big old pajamas, big floppy slippers. Nobody wants to see you at an airport in those pajamas, with the floppy slippers, and definitely nobody wants to sit next to you and turn around and look at you and see what you looked like sleeping last night right, nobody wants to see that.
Speaker 1:And I'm going to tell you what I don't want to see. I don't want to see your toes. I don't need you in open-toe slippers, I don't care if you had a pedicure or not had a pedicure. I guess I'm getting into my own personal things. Let's go to the pajamas though right, yeah.
Speaker 1:Pajamas are out of control on the airlines right now. People come in with fuzzy slippers and the pajama on the plane and they look like they just woke up out of bed and they also come on holding their like pillows. Oh, I know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's fine. You bring your pillow, that's fine. But let me explain to you what happens in those pajamas. Now, everybody looking at you like, okay, first of all, you didn't take a bath last night, right? That's the first thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because you're still in your pajamas.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you smell you when you come on.
Speaker 2:They come on board the aircraft. Now, sometimes they might not smell, right, sure, okay, they might not smell, but we don't want to see you in pajamas, even if you don't, but say that you didn't shower and you did come on board the aircraft and you sit next to two people that did shower. Then that little bit of funk body smell that you're having.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you got like a big old stink sandwich right there.
Speaker 2:See, I'm being nice right now, but that big hear me, yeah, that big smell, that body smell that you have that person next to you gets up, comes to the back galley, starts yelling at the nice flight attendant that we need to do something about who you. That's what they want us to do, something about you. And see, we don't even want to get involved in that situation because it's very, very touchy.
Speaker 1:Yeah Right, we try to get other people involved in that Exactly. We try to get other people involved in that Exactly, we try to move ourselves as well.
Speaker 2:Well, we have to, because a lot of times our planes are full so we can't move anyone. So let me explain to you what happens. So then that flight attendant, if the plane's full, has to go get somebody else, and that person has to come down and talk to who the person in the pajamas that they're stinky slippers on.
Speaker 1:stinky slippers on and they got the stink going from last night and just rolled out of bed and rolled into our aircraft, thinking that it's perfectly acceptable to travel in a public place with all your stink exactly and and, and it all goes bad from there, right?
Speaker 2:yeah so, so let's just stop the snowball effect of bad. Take a shower, yeah, put on some deodorant right, some nice clothes. You know, this just segues into just the whole hygiene subject Sit next to that person, enjoy that four hours yeah yeah, I mean hygiene on a plane, in public spaces.
Speaker 1:it doesn't planes, trains, automobiles. Wherever you're at, if you're with a bunch of people you know, be a little respectful to all your other people on the plane.
Speaker 2:I'll never understand that part. You're in an enclosed area.
Speaker 1:Yeah, in an enclosed area.
Speaker 2:You're sitting right next to somebody.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it gets to Shoulder to shoulder. It's so offensive. I mean, here's a little story. My wife and I travel and we're on standby. We're in a full plane, we're getting that last seat. It's in the back of the plane, last row, and we get back there and there's my wife and her seat is between these two gentlemen that I think they just got off of working and their jackets are covered in filth.
Speaker 1:You could see it also. The stank was invisible. There was like an oak you can see like the like, like you know how you see, like heat, and it's waving. It was coming off of them.
Speaker 2:it was, I wish I wish I could say he's exaggerating.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's not exaggerating, and my wife looks over at me and I'm it was awful. I mean tear, it was. Tears are coming down our eyes from this odor. It was so bad and and they're sitting next to right next to the lavatory and the lavatory we couldn't even smell the lavatory. And every flight attendant out there knows that that's a big statement.
Speaker 2:Plus, you'll know it's bad, and this is one key that's bad. A flight attendant will do a flyby right, they'll take their spray. They'll walk by with their spray, do a little shot on the ground.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a little.
Speaker 2:Just because it's too strong. But so, folks, really I mean body odor on an aircraft.
Speaker 1:Is unacceptable.
Speaker 2:Completely unacceptable.
Speaker 1:Just you know, years ago, right, everyone took the time and they wore really nice clothes on the plane right, yeah, the days you know like we come to the airport and watch your friends and families take off and we all came in suits and dresses and respected it, but even after that though right, we went through this whole generational thing Because it's only within you know this, this is only within the last so many years, right that this has happened.
Speaker 2:But it's almost like there's a group that thinks I can show up like grunge.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know, I can't put my finger on that. But hey, if anybody out there has an answer to this question of like hey, why has it changed that it's acceptable to come in your pajamas? I have no idea.
Speaker 2:Listen, leave the pajamas at home, right, Just leave them at home, I mean, and you will get a big thank you note from your crew, because nobody I'll say it a thousand times over nobody on this earth wants to see you on a plane in your pajamas, right Nope, all right brother. Hey, listen. First day of training.
Speaker 1:Wow, first day of training. Man brings up so much anxieties and excitement and just memories of this. You know what it was like that you're that you know you're anticipating. You don't even know what's going to get ready to happen to you Craziness.
Speaker 2:I mean, that's really. I mean, it's intense.
Speaker 1:It was so crazy yeah, I mean like my first day, my first story that I I I like I told you I was my girlfriend at the time was an ex-flight attendant. I came here and, uh, you know, I had a little bit of knowledge. I was very excited, I'm coming from a military background. All these guys around me and now I'm surrounded by a hundred women yeah, anyways, you could put yourself there and all that good stuff. So I'm there just having a blast and uh, yeah. So, uh, get down to the lobby and I see, um, all these women and I started talking to them and telling them about the the information that I know sharing, trying to help my fellow flight attendant.
Speaker 2:You were trying to meet people. You lie. You are such a liar. You're such a liar.
Speaker 1:We're just, you know. No, no, no, I am being a civil servant at this time.
Speaker 2:And I'm trying to help these females. At this age, you'd be a silver servant At that age. You're lying.
Speaker 1:Right, so I'm just talking to everything, and this reminds me of my good friend that went to class with me. He knows who he is. He came downstairs and he sees this mob of females all circling around. He thought there's something happened to everything. He kind of walks closer to the circle and all of a sudden he sees my head out there, right in the center of all these women.
Speaker 2:And he's looking at me like I don't like that dude already. Hey, let me tell you something, folks. Ever since I've known this guy, always, always, always, I don't care where he's at center of attention, well, center of attention. Sometimes, I don't care where he's at Center of attention.
Speaker 1:Hey, somebody's got to be the entertainment right, hey, listen.
Speaker 2:I remember the first test we took was a CityCode.
Speaker 1:CityCode. Citycode was a super big thing back when we started flying, so you've got to take yourself back All this technology. We didn't have all these phones and stuff that we started flying. I mean, we had to, you know. So you got to take yourself back All this technology. We didn't have all these phones and stuff that we had today.
Speaker 2:No, we had manuals, big thick manuals.
Speaker 1:We had manuals and everything was done manually, so we had to study city codes, all those you know. Cleveland.
Speaker 2:CLE, and it was a one and done. Folks, I mean one and done, if you fail city codes Bye. Yeah, yeah, just, I mean don't unpack. Yeah, you know, get your ticket.
Speaker 1:You're heading back to the airport. I think I remember them telling us like we're going to take this first test and please don't pack.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, because if you failed, you're just going.
Speaker 1:You're leaving, yeah, and one of the experiences I remember too is like everybody showed up with these index cards and we had these index cards and we taped them to the windows of our hotels and we're sitting and having flashcards and we'd get together in groups just for this first test. It was so silly.
Speaker 2:And you think about the technology today.
Speaker 1:You with a note card that wouldn't even be it. You know, you know, and today, like, like talking to that, I talked to another younger flight attendant and what they've done now and city codes aren't even a big thing because technology is into it and in our manuals now that are become electronic, now we don't have to remember all those. So they had a little bit of city codes, but for us it was the first big test, right?
Speaker 2:It was. I mean, that's what I said. I distinctly remember City Codes, because it was a one and done. That was the first test where they said if you don't pass, if you don't get this on your test, you're going home. And then we knew that from that point forward we had to study all the time. But let's go back. How many did you have in your class?
Speaker 1:I started off with 105 guys, 95 women.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, okay, you had 100. So I reached out to my buddy, chris, and her nickname is Big Mama. So big shout out to Big Mama, shout out to Big Mama. But let me tell you something Big Mama ain't big. Big Mama is a little right, she's a little thing right Under 100 pounds. Yeah, but man does.
Speaker 1:she got a big personality yeah big personality, big heart, big, oh huge heart.
Speaker 2:Remember, sean, when you said last time you said we come across those people that they just give right. That's what they're known for. They're just give. You know, chris. I've known her for well going 38 years, yeah, 38 years. Big mama for 38 years, right, and she works all the time, all the time. And then someone asks her for help, or she sees that someone needs help, or something like there's a charity, or something like that. I don't care how busy she is, she's the first one to volunteer to help All the time.
Speaker 1:I don't care.
Speaker 2:All the time. She's always there. She helps people all the time. But anyway, I had to reach out to Big Mama ask her about how many people we had in our class 227. Whew.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 227. That's unheard of.
Speaker 2:We had a convention center.
Speaker 1:Hey, and in that I talked to another flight attendant recently talking about what they were doing here in modern day training and their classes were made up of like I think their class started off at like 50 and they had it broken to 25, groups of 25. You know, like it's so much smaller now.
Speaker 2:I couldn't even imagine 50.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, I'd be all right with it.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, but I still couldn't imagine because we were reading things off they would put it on a projector. Oh yeah, I mean it was on a wall whenever we were looking at it. I couldn't imagine it being 50, but we graduated 206.
Speaker 1:Wow, hey, my graduating class. So we had 100, started off with 100. We ended with, I think, 95. But we had a sister class of 100, and that class only ended with 27.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they had to come back to the instructors and they were like, hey, we're trying to hire people, not fire people.
Speaker 2:Hey, how many weeks did you guys go? Ours was six weeks. See, we actually went eight, eight weeks, wait, wait, wait.
Speaker 1:I had six weeks, but I didn't have any service training.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can tell that on board the aircraft. Yeah, we had two weeks. We had additional service training. I just gave Sean a hard time because you know that's why we're so much better than him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, In the mind of G. Ladies and gentlemen, this is in the mind of G.
Speaker 2:That's the only mind that matters folks. But no, you know, it was a large class. I couldn't like I said I couldn't even imagine how many. But then I was talking to another friend of mine and her name was Angel and she had told me her story because I thought you know, angel, what do you remember about training the most? And she said that I was afraid every single day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, about training the most. And she said that I was afraid every single day. Yeah, yeah, the level of anxiety that you have as a flight attendant on a day-to-day because we're being tested every day Like you'd learn something and then, boom, you have a text the next day and it was just like so never ending. Everybody's running back to the hotel to study what we had just learned so we can do the passes test in the morning, type of thing. But yeah, angel, was sane.
Speaker 2:She had an older trainer and she was sitting there and they were just getting ready to start and the trainer said we're going to show you the difference of years ago about being a flight attendant and this was like 17 years ago. Yeah, so to put this in perspective, it's 17 years ago and we're talking about an older flight attendant, as, and this was like 17 years ago.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so to put this in perspective, it's 17 years ago and we're talking about an older flight attendant like us.
Speaker 2:Right, right, and all she was doing was just giving an example of how much time has changed. And remember I started 38 years back in July.
Speaker 1:What year did you start in?
Speaker 2:Oh, I was 87.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I came on in 89. A lot of different changes happened in the airline business.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but she, so this older flight attendant, had the whole group stand up and then they didn't know what they were doing and she said okay, so qualifications of being a flight attendant years ago she said if you're a male, sit down.
Speaker 1:Wow. So how many things sat down Well our class five, but today half the class, half right.
Speaker 2:So a lot of them sat down. And then she said if you're older than 27, sit down. Wow, okay, if you're under 5'2 or over 5'9, take a seat. If you're over 135 pounds, take a seat.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:You get in trouble for that right away right, that's a lot of limitations If you're married, take a seat, wow, and if you have children, take a seat.
Speaker 1:That's crazy.
Speaker 2:And you just turn around. She said there was one person standing and the lady said okay, you can see how things have changed. Grab your books and let's get started.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, that's a perfect example of the history of being a flight attendant and they, you know, all started off as nurses and became, you know, it was all single women in the industry and it was only women. There were no men that were in all those, all the things that are happening today, and you know, diversity and inclusion has changed the world basically.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, but it's great that way. It goes back to what we were talking about, that who can be flight attendants? Anybody?
Speaker 1:Anybody, anybody. I was just at a doctor's appointment the other day and this nurse was telling me about how she always wanted to be a flight attendant. I want to be a flight attendant, and we hear that a lot. How many times we talk to people, I always wanted to be a flight attendant and we always tell them go do it, go do it right now it's not too late.
Speaker 2:Never too late, there's no age restrictions.
Speaker 1:There's obviously extreme limitations. You can't be seven foot and be a flight attendant.
Speaker 2:Right, you want to be physically. You want to be fit to where you can do the job, no doubt. But anybody retired, it doesn't matter if it's former. If you always wanted to do it and you were thinking about it, you can do it. You can go in and try it. Anyway, going back to the training part of it, we went to the first day of training with our first test. What did we go over in training, sean?
Speaker 1:Man training involved a lot of different things. I mean lots of test taking right Lots of test taking, but everything in training is really about safety. I mean everything that we were learning. Not only were we learning about, you know, different aircrafts that are out there, also about emergency procedures, all these different aspects, but it's all related to safety.
Speaker 2:It's crazy when you think about how many different aircraft types are out there and you think you have to know all the emergency equipment on all these aircraft, where it's located, how to use it, when to get it, what situation to use it in. Right, that's just the equipment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's just the equipment. I mean just the equipment takes a few weeks to go through because there's so much different equipment and not only do we have to learn the equipment, we also have to learn how to use the equipment, the location of it too. Locations and the use of the equipment.
Speaker 2:And then if you're in an emergency, you see, that's the thing where you're thinking on on your feet too, because you have to know exactly where this, uh, this equipment is located.
Speaker 1:We're on so many different aircrafts yeah, so I got a question for you how many aircraft were in the world when you, or in our business, the company that we worked for when you started?
Speaker 2:Oh man, you remember? Oh no, but we had so many different ones.
Speaker 1:I believe there was like 28 different aircraft types that we had to learn.
Speaker 2:You got to remember too, when there was mergers, we acquired all these other airlines.
Speaker 1:Airlines right, which required more training, which required more training.
Speaker 2:Which required more training, and we had to actually get retrained and recertified on those aircraft.
Speaker 1:Different doors, different types of handles, different types of emergency equipment.
Speaker 2:There's policies and procedures, there's equipment, locations, there's equipment, there's commands for every door every window exit Different commands, different commands. And then you have situational things. You know, that's just a few things, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Training is such an experience of like. There's so much information given to you at one time and that's why everybody's so nervous, and so the anxiety levels are so high because we're learning such a high volume of information in this small. I mean, mine was six weeks, his was eight weeks, but you know, that's still a short amount of time to learn all the information that we did.
Speaker 2:You would be. You would be in class all day long, right All day, and you would sit there with these people and you get all this information, right? You gather all this information. Then you would do what? You'd run and go get something to eat after the classes were over, right? Then what? Study, study, that's all you did. You studied because back then it was one and done.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, all you seen was study groups all over hotels right Because you got with a study group and you stayed with that group because you didn't want to leave them right, Because as long as everybody was passing, you felt good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know what. So that leads me to a little bit of a story here. In training, one of the big things about being a flight attendant is that we have to get along with everybody, right, yeah, we have to be. We have to understand and empathize with everybody's different situations from all over the world and, believe me, you become very attuned as to people's. You know what's happening in the different cultures that are out there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, your roommate, yeah right.
Speaker 1:And so, yeah, we get paired up. This is the only time in our for the company we work with, this is the only time that we would actually have to be paired with a roommate. The rest of your career you're not going to when we go on these labels and stuff.
Speaker 2:Yours is six weeks, mine is eight. Yeah, you better like that person or it's going to be a long time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you like your roommate.
Speaker 2:I told you Jim, oh yeah, absolutely man. I mean Jim was a bomb. I mean me and him have been friends all these years. We'll be friends, you know, probably until the day we die.
Speaker 1:Yeah he was cool. Yeah, you make lifelong friends in training, for sure.
Speaker 2:I mean my roommate not so much that happens, trust me. Right next to me and Jim day one day one of training, these two had it out. Oh yeah, I mean it was all over a bed. Who was getting the bed closest to the door? I?
Speaker 1:believe it. I believe it Unbelievable. There's so many personalities and so many things thrown into one little place and, you know, we we didn't have like a training facility for the company that we worked for at the time. Uh, we had a. Uh, we did a lot of stuff at hotels, I mean we were in hotels doing our training and stuff, so you need shared hotel room and my roommate. I absolutely despise this man. He was um, if you uh remember gilligan's island yeah, yeah you remember?
Speaker 1:remember on the professor, not the professor. Um, who was it? Uh, thurston, how the third, yeah libby yeah that's how he talked to everybody in the class. I'm nice to meet you. How can I help you? Yeah, like, I mean, this guy was like strange. He was just a weird dude.
Speaker 2:But you had to still get along with him, though, right.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, I got along with him to the point, like you know, I wasn't fighting over bad or anything like that, you know. But but I had my own study group and he, he had his, him and the rest of the class really didn't like this guy and come to find out a little bit later, but he was, we didn't get along at all and yeah, it was not a good situation.
Speaker 2:That is a tough situation, especially when you got six weeks of that. Yeah, I mean, like I said, I was fortunate with my roommate because he was such a cool guy, but yeah, that would be a really tough situation because there's enough stress, as is, and then you got to deal with that and where you're staying?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and like my buddy that was in my class with me, one of my very close friends, he and I every day after class we had to de-stress and our de-stress was go out to the ball court. We'd go out back, hit some Bassets, play some pickup games with whoever was else. Other classes that were there do all that stuff. So it was a fun relief to get away from that stress every day. But a fun story about that was that my roommate, you know, went through the six weeks, didn't like this guy, stay away from me. We had a little incident where he actually went to the instructors and told them that he didn't have anybody to study with and I told him you know, well, no, he didn't have anybody to study with.
Speaker 1:The instructors came back to me and said hey, why aren't you studying with him? And I'm like I don't need to study with this dude. You know this guy. This guy and me we're like we're roommates and that's good, but I don't want to spend my time with him. No, you need to get along with him. They said you know, If you want to be flight attendant, you're going to have to understand other people get along all this stuff. Well, my reaction was not good when I got back to the room. Let's just say that, and it was he, and I had to straighten a few things out.
Speaker 2:Sometimes you got to do that though right. I mean, you're still adults, right? So sometimes it's better just to clear the air.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then. So what ends up happening is I'm very upset with my roommate at the time and tried to stay away from him. Still, and to the very last week, this guy decides to come out and play some basketball with us. It was beautiful.
Speaker 2:You did not check him.
Speaker 1:It was so beautiful, that's so right. I had five weeks of pent-up frustrations ready to take it out in the sky. And my buddies tell me go easy, Go easy. I didn't quite go easy on him, because what ends up happening to my roommate is that he goes up for a rebound. I did the same thing, but he ended up falling, coming down, and he came down on top of my foot, twist his ankle and broke it. He's crying on the ground and I'm like get up, get up, quit being a baby.
Speaker 2:So your roommate got sent home from training. He got sent home.
Speaker 1:It was, so it was a beautiful moment for myself and the rest of the class too. But yeah, he didn't show up till like a month and a half or something like that. Later online, when we were out there flying, and showed up looking for a room, nobody would accept him, but that's a whole other story. We'll talk about that later, in another episode.
Speaker 2:But you know, that's the thing about like and going into training you don't know who they're going to pair you up with and you're not always going to get along with people. I mean, they're going to pair you up with and you're not always going to get along with people, I mean, but you're supposed to try, that's what you're supposed to do, and you try to have a mutual ground. But again, going back to this, any person that is interested in doing this, even though we tell you that it's stressful all the way through this and it is I mean, there's a lot of things we're still going to talk about, but it's such a great career, right? Yeah?
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know what it's so flexible, it's a. It's exciting. Every time you go to the job it's different Every time. You can't like this is not a job, that I'm going to go there and.
Speaker 2:Hey.
Speaker 1:I'm going and doing the same flight. You know every day that same flight's not the same flight.
Speaker 2:Oh, no, no. But you know, going back to this, right, if you were, if you were going to say that the toughest part of training, I mean we go in through first day, we go through policies and procedures, we go through aircraft types At all that what is the hardest thing, the most stressful day of our training, the stressful day of our training Is the day we have to do our EVACs.
Speaker 1:Evacs, yeah, the EVACs are the most. That's the pinnacle of your safety procedures.
Speaker 2:Training and all you're doing is waiting to see out of your group who is the lead flight attendant right and if they go, you know flight attendant one and then your name gets called. You already feel 50% better.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So me coming from the military, I was not that guy. I was the guy that wanted to be A. I was A, I was A too. I was the guy that wanted to be A. I was A, I was A too. Yeah, I was A three times.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we'll talk about that Exactly. Let me tell you something the worst feeling in the world is when they say your name and they say that you're the lead flight attendant.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you knew you had to do it.
Speaker 2:You were on the spot.
Speaker 1:You were the leader from the moment. You're going to have to help. You're going to be the cabin commander for that day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for that minute, because the thing is, too, is your class is watching you, everybody's evaluating you and Cottonmouth sits in right.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because you're sitting there thinking, okay, I got to go through all this. And your head's spinning, everything's spinning and you know back then. I don't know what exactly they do on EVACs now, but back then let me tell you, when the EVAC started, all hell broke loose on that aircraft.
Speaker 1:And I think it does today too. But the difference is like, did you have a simulator that moved and stuff Was yours moving?
Speaker 2:No, no, we had some crazy-ass individuals that they were thrown into the scenario, and they usually were trainers, sure. So when they reacted, it was really, really intense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you're trying to follow these procedures, try to get people off the plane. We're doing our evacuation. The plane is technically, at this point, crashed in some situation, right, and now we've got to evacuate. The plane is what's happening and they've given us these situations with the other people that are giving us extra problems on the plane.
Speaker 2:No, this one. Well, when we first did it, it was a planned evacuation, but we were still in flight, so we had to get our crew together and we had to do the whole briefing right. So what they were doing is they were checking us off on our briefings. They were checking us off on everything that we did and seeing if we were following procedure with it.
Speaker 2:And then it was time to go to your seat. Well, I had a flight attendant that what they did is they came up in the middle of the briefing. She started freaking out, started screaming and yelling that she can't do this. Now she was planned right, they had put her in there for that and I kept trying to tell her. I said calm down, relax, we got this. Just let's get through the briefing. She was screaming and yelling. Finally I grabbed her by the throat, I pushed her up against the wall and I told her to shut the hell up. It's either you help or sit your ass down.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's certain times in this where you just got a little like the cordialness and us being polite.
Speaker 2:It goes out the window, it goes out the window.
Speaker 1:We just don't have time as a factor here. You have to take care of it. You have to take the situation in control.
Speaker 2:In control and you have to do what you need to do to get everything done. Yeah, and that's exactly what I did. Yeah, hey, but it was crazy. I mean it was just crazy. Everything went well, but the whole thing was just crazy. The EVACs were crazy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, evacs are the most stressful moment in training because everybody is. You know, we're under the spotlight to perform everything that we've just learned and, like I was the lead person as well and ours was planned and I didn't have the crazy berserk, uh flight attendant going off, but we still going doing our evac and all that stuff. We, we did it. You know I'd obviously I'm standing here 30 some years ago exactly. We passed right, yeah, um, but uh, yeah, so in my situation we got done and you know, back then you, it's one and done situation too, you know you don't you fail your EBAC, you're gone.
Speaker 2:You go home. That was a crazy thing, right. You went six weeks, we went eight weeks, right, and you're prepping for all this. Yeah, and at the end of it, right At the end of it. If you fail, all this training is for nothing. You go home.
Speaker 1:And ours differed in just a little bit that we did so we were coming in all the merger time, and so I think they flip-flopped the training and made it so that we did our narrow body training first and we evac'd two weeks into it. So two weeks into it was our evac and yours was at the right end.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, and we were sitting there thinking you were so stressed out because you did all this training and all of it comes down to this and if you fail this, you're going home. Yeah, and you wasted eight weeks of your life and it was just absolutely crazy.
Speaker 1:So I had the experience of mine. So I do my evac and I get done and at the end of the evacs they don't tell you if you passed right away. They wait till the whole class went through and then they got done with the vaccine. They're like okay, we want X. This person, this person, this person needs to stay and everyone else is good to go back to the hotel, bye-bye. Well, the last name in that whole list they called was mine.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:I was freaking out. I mean inside me was like I wasn't on the outside. I wasn't freaking out.
Speaker 2:You thought you were getting bad news.
Speaker 1:What happened? There's no way I just did that. I know I killed it. I know I killed it. I was like I was so confident back then and, well, still am A little overconfident at times and so, yeah, we just were like I was like what's happening? Well, they put us in the groups again and they had us re-back and I was like, wow, I didn't know we were going to get a second chance here, and so we did it again. And one of the guys in my group he was just really bad. I mean, he was just bad.
Speaker 2:He was so I think his motions were just taking over. He just could not perform.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because your nerves are going crazy at that time, right, and so he was shutting down. He couldn't get that, you know, and the whole thing, and uh, uh. So they got we, we all got done with the second chance and they like, well, we need to see this person, this person and sean, I'm like what the hell is happening right now? No, someone stop right now.
Speaker 2:Somebody's got to tell me what you thought there was like a camera. Yeah, I'm like this, is it I? I don't. I know I did this right right now. No, stop, right now, somebody's got to tell me what the hell's happening.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm like I know I did this right. You just knew it. But we had this instructor back then. That was so mean. I'm surprised that you kept it together.
Speaker 1:Yeah, dude, she was so mean and she liked to pick on people and she was picking on me, but I didn't know it and I was too confident for her, so she wanted to bust me down. But I can deal with that. Being ex-military and breaking down, I can do that, right? Yeah, exactly. So we go and we do the evac again. These guys, finally, this guy gets his shit together, finally it works out and everything. We're there so late that they are now having to drive us back to the hotel with their personal car. So when the instructor tells me you know what, sean, you passed the first time, but you were so good, we wanted to use you to help these other people. Oh, my God, and that's what I believed internally.
Speaker 2:Of course, of course. You were so damn good that everybody should have just watched you as a training video from that point forward.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, I did become a trainer eventually.
Speaker 2:That is definitely another story. Okay, so we ended up training evacs. We got the job we are. The next time that we um, the next time that we get together, um, we'll be talking about, like our first, our first flight, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, first flight, first day on the job, you know, like the experience of what that's like after they throw you to the wolves. No, no, Sean, that's throwing you to the wolves, man.
Speaker 2:That's not even it your first job. No, that's throwing you to the wolves. If you've ever had a first flight. It's thrown to the wolves. You have no idea. But before we leave we're going to talk about a little bit about why we're doing the podcast, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So each week we're going to pick a destination and we're going to talk about a specific place. Yeah, kind of give you guys some tips and places, things that we like we were talking about earlier. You know, places to eat, things, to do all that good stuff. So what's our place?
Speaker 2:Today, the place our destination of the week is Bozeman.
Speaker 1:Bozeman Montana, yeah is.
Speaker 2:Bozeman, bozeman, montana. Yeah, what we're going to do with that, though. Just understand this. What we want to do with this is any crew, right from anywhere crew people, people on vacation listening to our podcast. If you are in Bozeman for this week, take a picture, send it to the email because we want to post. We want to choose some of them. We want to post those on our page.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we want selfie photos. Whatever you want to do, any type of photos of you guys doing something in Bozeman Montana, send it to us. And the other thing that we're going to do is we're going to put our logo out there and we would really like if you printed off our logo. This would be like this is over the top. So for you listeners, I really want to do it Print off our logo, take a picture with our logo, cabin pressure and you guys, wow, we'd love that.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, yeah. But you know, in, in, in, in, in Bozeman you actually did one of the top ten things that they do in Bozeman, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I went with the crew on a layover. We decided to go do the Montana grizzly encounter. It is the coolest thing You're going to see grizzly bears up close and I'm talking about when I say up close, within like 15 feet of you, that's cool, and how far is that from actual around the airport?
Speaker 1:um, it's probably about a half mile down the road on the highway, it's all right, it's right next to the highway and what this is is a um, uh, grizzly rescue. Okay, and it's these grizzly bears. They come from all over the world and people have actually tried to make a grizzly bear their pet. They get these babies and they try to domesticate them. Okay, they try to raise them and stuff, and then they realize that they get too damn big and they're eating too much food and they can't handle it anymore.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And this place comes and rescues them.
Speaker 2:Well, that's kind of cool, though. At least people can be educated on the grizzlies, though.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you can go there and observe these grizzlies and you see them. And the last time I was there I think they had like seven different grizzly bears and one of them is actually pretty famous. He's been in many movies and all that good stuff. It's really cool, but you can see them, they feed them and all that stuff right in front of you. So what do they charge you for that? I believe right now it's $13.50 to get into the door.
Speaker 2:That's not bad at all.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so $13.50 for this experience.
Speaker 2:And you can take all the pictures and stuff you can take pictures.
Speaker 1:They've got the gift shops. You can get your stuff grizzly bear and all that good stuff there but a really cool experience.
Speaker 2:Well, that's really cool. We had another flight attendant. She had told me about fly fishing in.
Speaker 1:Montana oh, fly fishing in Montana. That is the number one thing. Anytime you get on a plane going to Montana, Bozeman in particular, you're going to see fly rod cases everywhere, right? Yeah, absolutely Loot tubes everywhere on the plane. We're going to get fly rod cases everywhere, right yeah, little tubes, absolutely Little tubes, everywhere on the plane. We're going to get it. Everybody's going out there. Some of the most wonderful fly fishing in Montana.
Speaker 2:So here's another tip from actually a flight attendant that does the fly fishing and she said that it's absolutely amazing, it's the Montana Angler, it's absolutely amazing it's the Montana Angler.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the Montana Angler is an outfit out of Bozeman that will take you on guided fly fishing. Have you done fly fishing before Gary.
Speaker 2:No, I've fished all my life and have not fly fished, oh fly fishing is amazing.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's kind of a part of that whole thing that you were talking about at the beginning of the show, of like that serenity and being out in nature. I mean when you're waiting in a stream in the middle of Montana and you're flipping that ride back and forth and he's trying to catch a fish.
Speaker 2:Just the rivers are incredible, I can imagine.
Speaker 1:Beautiful, I mean the movie the river run through it is is just like exemplary, to show you that whole aspect to be ever, ever unable to go. But yeah, fly fishing is one of those things, the sports that are just fantastic and they, and they said that, um also, uh, hiking is amazing, right oh heck. Yeah, hiking up in Montana is like there's so many trails up there. I mean you can, I mean you, you can just go outside and start walking in a direction and you're gonna be. You feel like you're hiking out there.
Speaker 2:Well, they, they, they said one of them is the M trail right.
Speaker 1:The M trail? Yeah, they're in Bozeman, Montana, we, um. You can literally from the town of Bozeman, you can hike from that town up to um. There's a big, huge M on the side of the mountain there and you can take that trail and hike up there and get a, you know.
Speaker 2:Okay, so here's one. Anybody that hikes the M Trail right this week, or if you have hiked it and you got a picture of your crew or yourself or your family- send us a picture of the M Trail.
Speaker 1:Let us see your pictures of Bozeman this week.
Speaker 2:And another one, another one the flight attendant had uh told us about. It was uh palisade falls right sean oh, palisade falls is a beautiful park.
Speaker 1:Up there I mean I'm talking picturesque, you're gonna see the rockies in a just spectacular area, huge lake there, dam up in the floor and uh, palisade Falls is just like a 1.1-mile hike Now. The first time I ever did it it was like partially paved, but I believe now they've made it totally handicap accessible.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they said it's a paved trail now, but they said that the drop is actually a 1,000-foot drop.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's beautiful. It's this waterfall falling off the Rockies and it's magical.
Speaker 2:But you know, I mean think about it Bozeman is actually the gateway to Yellowstone.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, right, A lot of people fly into there to get into Yellowstone National Park and it's a little bit of a drive to Yellowstone but that's one of the closest airports into the National Park.
Speaker 2:Yeah, bozeman, it was founded in 1864. It was actually the supply trail between the Oregon Trail and the mines of the Virginia in Montana. But also this was amazing to me. I didn't know this, but Montana State University it's actually known for the science and the tech programs.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, oh yeah. That campus is right literally intertwined with the city. So Bozeman is the city of Bozeman is the university as well.
Speaker 2:Bozeman is the university as well. So there's your tips, right. We have the grizzly encounter, we have Palisade Falls and we have fly fishing.
Speaker 1:And hiking.
Speaker 2:And hiking, yeah, with the Montana Angler. So again, you can go on that site too if you love fly fishing. Again, you can go on that site too if you love fly fishing. But the one thing that Sean will tell you about this is bear spray.
Speaker 1:Bear spray. Oh yeah, yeah, here's a little tip. This is a great tip for anybody visiting Montana. So Montana, you know there's grizzly bears everywhere. That's one of the reasons why there's a grizzly bear experience there and a lot of people go there and then they buy bear spray for hiking, you know it's. You know. Right back to our safety.
Speaker 1:It's strongly advised to take bear spray with you just in case you encounter those grizzlies out there. And a lot of people have that bear spray and they think they're going to bring it back home with them. Tsa is going to pull it out of your bag all the time and that bear spray ends up going down to our baggage claim area and when you're coming through Bozeman, it's a good idea to just stop down and if you have ever been to an airport, you have to go through baggage claim. It's a very small airport and just walk over to one of the agents of the airlines and say, hey, do you have any bear spray we can get? And nine times out of 10, they're going to have extra bear spray sitting around.
Speaker 2:That's actually pretty cool, yeah, because especially if you go hiking and you don't have to pay for it, that way you can just drop it right back off to somebody else, right, exactly A little rotating public service Very cool. All right, Sean. Well, hey, listen, it's been a lot of fun talking today, talking about training, covering a lot of things. We hope you guys enjoyed the podcast Next time right Next time.
Speaker 2:First day on the job. First day on the job Because let me tell you something, as a flight attendant, when you get thrown on that first flight right, the one thing that you'll never forget real quick first flight, where'd you go?
Speaker 1:Oh man, first flight. I have no idea. Really I know the first layover. You didn't remember your first flight. No, no, no, I remember my first flight, it's just, you know, we were flying like three, four legs or something like that yeah, but still.
Speaker 2:But I ended up in Detroit, you don't remember?
Speaker 1:what position you was on in the airplane. I know I was in the back of the airplane, All right folks listen.
Speaker 2:I was the lead position on the 747 going to Auckland, new Zealand, with the most senior flight attendants system-wide. Let me tell you I was thrown to the wolves. But again, next time we meet we are going to talk about your first time on an airplane. So remember, everyone's happiness is when you feel good about yourself without feeling the need of anyone's approval. Folks, you don't need anyone's approval.
Speaker 1:No, you do not need anybody's approval. Folks, you don't need anyone's approval.
Speaker 2:No, you do not need anybody's approval to be happy, because we're you know something, we're both. We're actually having a lot of fun with this and we hope to continue. So I hope you guys give us a like, we hope to hear from you, we hope to see the pictures, comment and comment, but again, realize this isn't just for us, this is for you too. So we want to see what our flight attendant family is doing. Again, you guys, have a great week.
Speaker 1:Yeah, fly safe. The other thing is that we want you to fly safe, be safe, think safety, be happy in whatever you're doing. See you next time. See you next time. Thank you for listening to Cabin Pressure with Sean and G. Be sure to subscribe, message us, tell us what you'd like to hear and if you'd like this podcast, please give us a five-star rating on Spotify, apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
