In a Funk

Dear Shawn,

Yesterday was not a great day for me. I was in a super funk. It was one of those perfect storm situations.

The night before, I landed back in Houston. It was a ten hour day with three legs. The day before that was over twelve hours, also with three legs. In between was a short thirteen hour layover. I got about seven hours of sleep, but by the time I landed back in Houston, I was toast. The ladies I worked with walked back to the bus. I took the train. I was physically and mentally exhausted.

That night was sort of rainy and the roads were not as safe as usual, just like me. I nearly missed the turn off to the North Freeway. As I crossed three lanes to get where I needed to be, I was so cautious about traffic behind me that I wasn’t paying enough attention to what was in front of me and nearly collided with the barrels that protect where the lanes split. That sort of woke me up, but then I nearly missed my exit! When I did get to my neighborhood, I then passed my street and had to loop around the block to come back.

When I got up the next day, I was still tired and I was still upset that I had pick up that trip. It was not a trip that I would normally pick up. I avoid three-leg days like the flu. The boarding process is the worst part of my job, as we endure arguments over bag space, complaints about leg room, and acts of entitlement. There were simply no other trips to pick up. I’d been home for four days trying to pick up a trip. I’d passed other trips that looked bad on paper, holding out for something good. With nothing coming up, I had to pick this one up or not make enough money this month to cover bills. I was forced into flying a trip I knew would do this, and that just made me angry.

What do I do when I am angry? I post about it on Facebook. That stirred up a shit storm. I had friends calling, texting and writing notes about my post. I didn’t attack anyone. I was polite, except that I mentioned that people who fly 140 hours are on my shit list. I thought nothing of using this term, seems my father was always adding me to his. I grew up surrounded by people talking about their shit lists. I guess today, people’s sensitivities are such that I had to go back and edit it to poopie list. Later still, with nearly 500 responses, the post was deleted entirely. Probably better that it was. Not a single friend asked about me, though. No one thought to ask how I was doing, since I was obviously upset, which made me feel alone and singled out for expressing how I was feeling.

One of the things that scares me most in life these days is seeing how so many of our trips are built in such a way that I know I can’t fly them. I feel like I’m being squeezed out of the job I love so much. My health and age just won’t let me do six legs in two days without adequate rest between. We have so many three and four day trips with too many flights in one day and not enough rest in between. I’m scared that this kind of flying is either going to force me out, or kill me.

So yesterday, after venting my anger, taking a nice nap with my cats and watching some movies, I started to feel better. Let’s hope this period of poorly built trips is short-lived, and that with spring will come trips that are not only easy on the body, but ones that I’m senior enough to hold!