Yo, Flight Attendants! What's your problem with providing fucking CHANGE?

The BBQ Pit
1

I don’t like to fly. It makes me nervous. So nervous that I’m willing to spend $6 on a drink or two. It is extremely difficult for me to fly without a drink.*

So why is it that every single time I get a drink I’m treated like some hideous leper for not giving the flight attendant exact change? I’m always treated with a snippy “I’ll try and see if I can find you some change” comment and they storm off.

This most recent flight took the cake. I had exact change for the first one, but then all I had was a twenty. She loudly exhaled, grabbed my twenty out of my hand and stormed off. The woman next to me gave me a “what’s HER problem?” look, and I shrugged. Then she gets on the Intercom and says, I shit you not, “Does anyone have change for a twenty? I’ve got someone here without exact change for his drink.”

News flash! You’re SELLING drinks to over 100 people on this plane. What’s the fucking problem with change? Can’t you, oh I don’t know, anticipate that people will need fucking change for the drinks that you’ll be selling them? How hard can it be to keep some extra small bills on hand? What’s with the fucking attitude?

Now before everyone charges in here and tells me it’s my problem for not having change, I’m aware of that. But when you’ve paid cash for cab fare, sky caps, gift shop stuff, etc, you can’t always be sure that you will have exact change later, nor do you have time to go get change when you’re trying to make your flight.

Yet every time, I’m made to feel like shit for this horrible burden I’m placing on the flight attendants. Maybe this only happens to me, but it happens every damn time, and I’m sick of it - hence the rant.

  • Yes, yes, drinking is evil, why can’t I just not drink on the plane, why can’t I have some empathy, they’re just doing their jobs - save your righteous indignation for another thread, please.
2

Okay, I would normally agree with you, but with all the riders attached to your OP, is anyone allowed to come in here and do anything but agree with you completely?

3

Ha ha, the intercom. You should have stood and taken a little bow.

Why not bring your own booze? You know you want a few drinks when you fly, so guarantee your peace of mind.

On my most recent flight we were given the dinner choice of chicken or fish. The woman in front of me asked what kind of chicken and the F.A. answered: “the kind with wings and feathers.” And she wasn’t smiling.
Ah, the friendly skies.

4

I’ve never understood the attitude of these glorified waitresses. I know some flight attendants, and when they got together, I’d hear them say to each other at least once a night “Sure they call us waitresses, until it comes time for us to save their asses” and then they would exchange knowing nods and nudges. I shit you not. Every single fucking time I saw two or more of them together, they shared that little gem. It’s as if they were trying to convince themselves. It took alot of control for me not to scream at them to shut the hell up.

I’m a friggen computer geek, and I’ve been involved in trying to save lives three different times. Hell, I didn’t have much luck, it didn’t work. And the chances are it wouldn’t work for them either. It’s not like they are going to step in front of the plane as it plummets to the ground, saving all aboard. The FAA will be picking up their pinky toes along with everyone elses.

If I do survive the crash, they’re going to show me the door. I won’t need anyone to show me. I’ll be out the damn thing before you can say “Thank you for flying with us”.

So because they know where the doors are they feel that they are too good to provide the actual service that 99.99999% of their job consists of.

5

I remember a time when it was actually a fairly prestigious job, flying and pouring drinks. THAT’S pretty fucking scary!

I’ve had the same problem with the no change thing. Maybe next time you should report her to the airlines, complete with name, flight number, and blah, blah, blah. Maybe she’ll remember to grab her changepurse next time.

6

Air Canada still owes me $7.00 in change from a flight I took about 10 years ago.

7

The worst FA I’ve ever encountered was on a flight back to LA from D.C., and I was already in a nasty mood because I had broken my ankle on the trip 2 days before we left for home (the broken bones hadn’t been set yet, I had no painkillers, and only had a crude cardboard splint on to keep my ankle from flopping everywhere). There was a metal riser in the middle of the isle for some reason, and the stupid FA was NEVER careful going over this bump. As a direct result, she spilled stuff on me more than once. But what really took the cake was when she spilled COFFEE on me, and said “whoops, looks like that will take bleach to get out”. She didn’t have any napkins, either, and when I asked for a towel or something her reply? “Oh, just go to the galley in the back and someone will get you some napkins”. Did you notice my fucking broken ankle??? It’s kinda hard to miss, considering it was swollen up to the size of a grapefruit, in all sorts of reds and greens, with a splint holding the damn thing in place!

Most of the time the FAs I encounter try to put on a good act of actually caring about what they do, but that was the first time I’ve encountered a total BITCH of a FA. I don’t even want to imagine how much of a bitch she would have been if I had ordered a drink and couldn’t pay with correct change.

8

I have nothing to add except that currently in my browser window the thread title is displayed as “Yo, Flight Attendants! What’s your problem with providing fucking”

9

I wonder if the airlines are run by the UK Post Office?

10

Don’t knock the intercoms…my GF left about $70 of duty-free in departures (most of it for me :smiley: )…and it made it onto the flight and was announced as “if anyone has lost a large bag of bottles…”…embarassing, I guess, but useful

11

Last time I flew a guy two rows behind me asked for a beer berfore there second go round, he only had a fifty, the FA (is stewardess taboo nowaday?) asked the people behind me and I heard them and spoke up, that I had change, I only had 10s and 20s so the poor guy ended up buying 2 beers.
When she brought me back the fifty I asked if I could get 2 more crowns, and as I asked a huge bitch of stewardess walking up the aisle and screamed “WE WILL BE SERVING DRINKS IN A FEW MINUTES”. My jaw almost fell to the floor, so did the attendant I was talking too. The nice FA brought me my drinks and wouldn’t take the cash when I tried to pay.

So is my only cruddy experience offset by a really nice one to remind me that a few bad apples spoil the bunch.

12

Could somebody who speaks this language please translate this into English?

13

Sure.

Ph-nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyleh wgah’nagi fhtagn.

You’re welcome.

14

Heh. Everyone agree with me dammit!! :smiley:

15

Sure, why not.

I would like to know why we have to pay extra for headphones. What kind of nickel-and-dime bullshit is that? If they tacked to 5 bucks onto the price of a ticket I wouldn’t even notice it :^/

16

Because any seasoned traveller knows to bring stuff to do… along with a discman or personal player of some kind and they fit just fine into the headphone jacks on the planes. Not everyone needs to buy a set of headphones… why make everyone pay for them when it’s only a few on every plane? Besides, if you travel lots, you already own the headphones they sold you last time you flew even if you don’t have a personal player.

Unless you are just renting them which is unheard of (at least to me)

And actually I’m curious about what bubba means too… It makes no sense. Crowns? I finally figured out why the waitress was bringing him the fifty at least…

17

ph:lerbag, I ahreww witcs chooo.

18

My father is a retired airline pilot who retired in 1992. He worked back in the 60s-70s-and 80s and times have changed in the industry since then. I think at one time being a FA was a good job, that was reletively easy (except for the drunks occasionally). Now, I think the job pays less, there are longer hours, more FAA regulations, more pissed off customers.

I agree with the OP. They are SELLING drinks on a flight. Anyone who is SELLING drinks ought to have some damned correct change. Selling drinks is not anything new, they have always done this for alcohol in coach. You can’t bring your own booze, it is against the law (but if you get a coke and make your own cocktails behind their back, big deal. If you are caught, they will just tell you to put it away.

Flight Attendents in the USA think that they are vital people on a flight. They are vital only because the FAA requires them to be there for “safety” concerns, like showing you how to put on that oxygen mask and showing you the emergency exits. So, I think a lot of them see themselves as a bout a bartender or a cocktail waitress and see them serving you a drink as a courtesy, and a pain for them.

They cannot accept tips either. The airline makes all the fat profit and the FA gets nothing for serving them. Now the airlines are going to charge money for food, which is good/bad. What is good I think is that the quality of the food will be better and the price for flights will go down, the downsideis that you have to teach all these FA the fine art of being waiters, a job that they do not want in the first place.

These people are all union, so you end up with FA’s who look like Hillary Clinton and Cloris Leachman who have worked for these airlines since the 1960-70s. Back in my father’s day, most of these gals quit after 30-35, and got married. Now, because of the economy, both man and wife have to work, and the USA has strict age discrimination laws. I have flown on Korean and Japanese airlines where the girls are still 21-30, pleasant to look at, and happy to have their jobs (mostly).

Lastly, I went with my father on a trip. This was back about 1976-1978 or so) when the stewardess complained to my father about a drunk guy hassling them after he has been cut off. My father went back there and told the guy to sit down, shut up, or he was going to kick his ass off the plane. Now, my father is about 5’7" and weighed maybe 150 lbs and drunk dude was about 6 foot ansd about 190 pounds or so. But drunk dude got quiet. No air marshall required!

I remember when pilots did not have to go through security. I remember being able to go with him to the tarmac of the airport to his crew lounge to see about work. Not anymore.

ET

19

You could try Valium or whatever the hell they’re giving people for anxiety these days. It’s probably cheaper per dose, more effective, less likely to cause public embarassment, and much less likely to cause hangovers.

Maybe it’s not the change issue. Maybe it’s all the drunken enraged fools they’ve had to deal with, not to mention the blitzed tourists taking a shit on the beverage cart or pissing on the carpet. Hey, maybe they just hate dispensing a legal drug because they don’t know which of their customers are going to spazz out in an hour.

YOU’ve flown before. You know how this system works. Why can’t YOU make sure YOU have adequate small bills before you leave home? If you’ve got money for the fucking “cab fare, sky caps, gift shop stuff, etc,” why can’t you pony up for the booze, hmm? Carry your own damn bags, skip the overpriced shit at the gift shop and you’ll have money left to pickle your brain. Fucking think ahead next time. If you can remember your underwear and your toothbrush you can damn well remember to put a roll of singles in your pocket before you leave.

20

Ha! Wanna bet?