Hello, Sandie Go

Dear Shawn,

Finally, I am in San Diego. What a long day. It started with my alarm going off at 730am and me wondering what that infernal noise was. When I figured out what it was, I wondered why. Oh, yeah, I picked up a trip today! And I goofed!

For four days I sat at home trying to pick up a trip. This month, I held a line of trips that I didn’t like very much, so, as I’ve done many times in the past, I dropped a bunch of trips with the intent of picking up better ones. Usually, I’m really lucky. People drop them at the last minute, maybe they don’t feel well, or have to take care of a mother or child, or can’t commute in as planned for one reason or another. Normally, I can pick up a sweet international trip the night before, and even quite often, the very day of.

As my window of opportunity to pick up a trip to make money was closing, I was getting more and more desperate. This trip popped up on the pick up board, and at first glance, I thought- NO. It was three legs the first and second day. At thirteen hours, it was a shorter layover than I normally enjoy. The duty day on day one was thirteen hours, much longer than I am used to. But then I saw day two- after laying over in San Antonio, I’d work back to Houston, then to Austin and back to Houston again. Each of those flights are short enough that we don’t do a service in the back. That was an easy day!

Next, I looked at the crew to make sure I wasn’t working with someone I dreaded working with. I didn’t recognize the names straight away, so that was a good sign. Finally, what lured me to pick the trip up was that all six legs were working on the Airbus, which is so much better than that crazy 737 we have, which some of us refer to as ‘the slave ship.’ As a bonus, it had a sit in Austin of over two hours, and I love the food at the airport in Austin.

So, here was my alarm going off and I got up without feeling too tired, which is sort of rare for me any time I am awake before 9am. I pulled up the paperwork for the trip and noticed that on day two, from San Antonio to Houston, we were scheduled to serve fresh food. Now why would we have fresh food scheduled on a half-hour flight? Wouldn’t you know, I got my SAN mixed up with my SAT. SAN was San Diego, not San Antonio. So there went my easy day two! Still, it’s not a bad day flying from San Diego to Houston, and I really like the women I’m working with, so it wasn’t so rough.

I’m so used to working those international flights, after doing so for about three months or more, now. One leg and two services each day- crew rest in flight allows for a two hour nap- nice, long layover of 35 hours- higher pay. I have no reason why international pays more than domestic. Working domestic is so much tougher than international.

I’m working with Mary, who is one of those step counters. She says we’ve walked over 15,000 steps today, which equates to over five miles. I never had any idea how many steps I was taking in a long day like this one. My feet agree, though. They are tired! Much more so than when I work international trips!

So here I am in San Diego, a city that always has me thinking of a classmate of mine who once worked here with me. In the morning after our layover, we met in the lobby. She’d never stayed here before. Dawn was a great lady from England, with a proper English accent, so I enjoyed hearing her tell stories, which she did often. She was telling me how she liked the room, finding it so nice to have a note from the cleaner, which read, “Thanks for visiting, Sandie Go. She thought that such an interesting name, Sandie Go. She asked me what sort of name that was. Was it American? Maybe African?

I thought for a moment, and realized that I, too, had a note in my room, but it read, “Thanks for visiting San Diego.” We laughed about that one all day. Now, I cannot come to this city and not think of Sandie Go.

I can’t wait to get to bed and enjoy eight hours of sleep, which means I need to say goodnight and get ready for bed. Thirteen hours sounds great, but when you factor time to and from the airport, getting ready for bed, getting ready for work, going through security, and then boarding the aircraft nearly an hour prior to takeoff, that means that of that thirteen hours, if I want to sleep for eight, I only have one hour free, of which I’ve spent twenty minutes writing to you. Nite nite!