the DARK side of being a flight attendant | former singapore airlines cabin crew

on the outside my life as a flight attendant seemed like a constant Adventure full of smiles and Jet siding glamour but let me tell you behind the scenes there is a darker reality that I want to open up about today are you ready to hear the unfiltered truth hey friends welcome back to the channel my name is febby and on this channel I share stories about my nonlinear life journey to encourage you to embrace your own journey and feel less alone in the process in today's video I want to dive into the dark side of flying as a flight attendant and this is based on my personal experience flying as a flight attendant with Singapore Airlines for 4 years if I should have talked a bunch about flying in many different videos and I'll link the links in the description box down below and you can check them out if you're interested before we get started I just wanted to say that the purpose of this video is not to discour you from joining the airlines by any means choosing to fly has personally changed my life that being said the job is not an easy job far from it there are so many aspects to it behind the scenes that could potentially be damaging so in today's video I want to share my perspective from this lens you can take this inside decide for yourself whatever you want to do and use the information for I'm going to structure this video into six key points and I will share and expand on each point as we go along the first one is bullying this one is so real I remember that up until I quit which was preo bullying was still normalized in the environment where I worked at there's this term that is familiar amongst crew which is zapping which which is basically the same thing is bullying how this usually goes is the more senior ones bullying the more Junior ones The Bullying could come in the form of snooky comments gaslighting manipulation or Fally abusive or root comments I remember when I went for my second trial flight while I was still a traine I got bullied on board by a more seniority ERS and I cried on board there was the first and last time I cried throughout my flying life I was reprimanded throughout the whole flight for not knowing what I was doing for being slow I mean that was only the second flight I had ever operated in my entire life it's all about repetition since we were on the operationalization front and she forgot what she was like on day one I remember the pig was I was in the cabin working with her and she asked me to bring her a seven up so I went back to the galley take the seven up and bring it to her and she lost it because I used my hand to pass the seven up along to her from the tray instead of handing the tray and have the seven up on the tray for her to take it and she yelled at me I at that time I think was just not mentally strong enough so I went to the washroom and cried um it's so funny like now that I look back at that time it was huge and I know that from a service B practice it is a good practice but I think the how was a little bit uncult for because she yelled at me in the cabin yeah there were so many other experiences but this I think is the most ingrained in my mind because was during my early flying days I worked with her on the way back to Singapore and I remember hearing some stories from the crew members who worked with her on the way up I think they knew that I cried so they made me a hot chocolate they even wrote me this card which I still keep until this day like I just took it out from like my Trasher box and that was like one of my experiences with bullying to top this off chances are no one will back you up in a more actionable way sure you can try to escalate but sometimes it will lead to nowhere and I think a part of it is also because it is a pretty normalized Behavior it happens and it's it's part of the culture I heard though these days things are slightly better so I'm hopeful that the culture has improved I mean please respect one another as a human being like you've been here longer doesn't mean that you have the right to bully others number two is gossips are normalized and rampant which also creates a toxic environment I think a large part of it is because we always fly with different people 95% of the time let's be real creating meaningful relationships takes time getting to know one another Takes Time Imagine in this environment I would meet a group of new people and I would have to work with them for 14 hours straight as an example don't get me wrong here I'm very grateful of the skills that it taught me from having to work and adapt to different people every single flight while I was flying but at the same time this microwave side relationship also has its own downside like you want to make things less awkward you want to get comfortable with each other as soon as possible while you're working it takes time to get to know one another so most of the time you would end up gossiping you would talk about your previous flights weird passengers you made on board or weird fellow crew members that you made on board and sometimes you don't even know who the other person is referring to to me it usually is far from positive and uplifting of course there are also other types of conversations I am just saying that this is something that happens a lot at least when I was flying and I'm just sharing it from this perspective number three is being submissive at work the airline industry could be hierarchical in a way and things work based on your seniority which could be in a form of your rank or in my case your uniform color your tenure or your stuff number or even age sometimes and I think that it was more prominent for my case too because I was working with an Asian company and how this translates into the dayto day is what the senior says goes and I think I eventually developed the habit of keeping my thoughts to myself because I feel like my opinions as a more Junior crew member would not be welcome I think I internalized this a lot personally and it took me some time to reprogram my mind after I quit flying I decided to pursue my MBA the MBA program is so different from the flying life it was such a 180 degree shift and I personally struggled with it a lot because in the NBA program you encouraged to speak up to voice your opinion to develop your leadership skills challenge other people thoughts Embrace diversity of thoughts so it was very different the type of behavior that was encouraged and welcomed and appreciated is very different as compared to the things that would be considered as good behaviors when I was still flying after I quit flying I realized how much flying has changed me for the worse and the better for the things that have changed me for the worst I really worked hard to unlearn those behaviors and try to reinvent myself and grow from that version of myself so that was really a lot of inner work and it's still a work in progress I would say until today number four is working while sustaining physical injury before we got into the need- gritty of this point if you're still watching maybe consider liking and subscribing to the channel I would really appreciate that I think for this point the main reason is because the bulk of our pay comes from when we operate a flight so if a crew member is not able to operate a flight for whatever reason that would significantly impact their take-home pay I'm not talking about being down like with fever or catching a cold I'm talking about working while being physically injured like you pull your back you have a slip desk so many other things flying can be an extremely physically demanding job from lifting the meals to the often racks and taking stuff from The Galley compartments helping to leave passengers bags or heavy or even like pushing and pulling the meal cars like it is legit heavy not to mention the need to do everything fast this also adds to the rhythm of the job which also makes crew members more prone to injury the fifth point is couldn't say no right away I think this is more relevant when it comes to interacting with the passengers partially it's also because I was in a service oriented job obviously and also because I was working for an Asian Airline so I think there's also this Asian culture that plays a part in this particular experience for example if a passenger ask me for something and I don't have it I can't say right away that sorry unfortunately we don't have that I would need to say yes let me check and get back to you to me it doesn't make sense because why waste the passenger's time also you might think that it's easy to just pull the stun and walk one round and then get back to the passengers imagine if it's a full flight I just didn't think that it was the most efficient approach the longer I flew the more I took my own approach in this regard cuz I just wanted to be efficient instead of doing that or pulling that stunt I would just say sorry we don't have it unfortunately and all for alternative there and then so case closed I can move on to the next thing and I don't waste the passenger's time and have them waited out for the thing that we don't have on board to begin with when you're 35,000 ft above sea level like you either have it or you don't and if you don't there Alternatives up for grabs the last one is ego complex because no one keeps you on check for this one I think it has something to do with accountability accountability to yourself and accountability to others and I think a part of this is because no one really has that sense of camaraderie because you would always fly with different people and maybe this is most relevant to the more Junior crew members because the turnover is obviously higher when you're junior because it takes 5 to seven years on average to get promoted to the next level so maybe like the senior crew members they have different perspective but I'm just sharing this from my own perspective it is a lot of ego complex and I feel like some crew members are Merit to their seniority and their rank which I don't think is the healthiest I think a lot of people think that they could be mean to others and don't have to pay the price they think their seniority and their Rank and their uniform color give them a free pass to trade people however they want a lot of people think that they don't have to pay for the price they don't have to be kept accountable so they think that it's okay to do it but it's not okay and please don't do that hey friends that is all I have for today's video so to recap in today's video we discuss the Dark Side of flying as a flight attendant that is not really talked about and that includes six different points that are one bullying two how gossips are rampant three being submissive at work four working while sustaining physical injury five can't say no right away and six ego complex because no one keeps you check now I have a question for you which part about flying as a flight attendant that surprises you the most or if you're a crew member or used to be one what was your experience like let me know in the comment section down below because I'd love to hear from you if you find this video useful and insightful in any way please like And subscribe to the channel so we can help each other embrace our own journey and feel less alone in the process okay thank you for watching have a good one and I will see you in the next video bye now

Channel: Febby Lyan

Views: 42,520

Keywords: flightattendant, flightattendantvlog, singaporeair, singaporeairlines, flightattendantlife, lifestyle, siacabincrew, globetrotter, travelvlog, travelling, flight attendantlife, life experience, life lesson, life, sq girl, lifestylevlog

Id: dctufCZJG80

Length: 11min 1sec (661 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 09 2023