I know flight attendants put up with a lot of crap and it’s not an easy job, so I don’t mean to slag them, but I haven’t been on a flight in YEARS on which the flight attendants demonstrated a single thing to do with safety. Every flight I’ve been on for quite some time, they just play a tape that demonstrates the safety procedures.
Frankly, unless my stewardess can transform into a flying, jet-powered, adamantium-armored robot-woman, I somehow doubt she will make much of a difference in my chances of survival if my flight barrels into a cornfield at 500 miles an hour.
And if you want to purchase something from duty free while flying you should have $64.95 in you pocket?
I would think that if you choose to offer a service, then you should be prepared for people who actually want to use it. On the other hand, it isn’t the waiter/waitresses fault that the airlines don’t provide them with change. So, I think the OP’s rant would be better directed towards the airlines.
If you’re selling something for cash, you should be well-prepared enough to have change. That’s just how it works. If you don’t have change available, don’t plan on trying to sell things. I’m not saying you need to be able to break a hundred, just that if somebody is buying a $6 item - and you have chosen to offer the item at $6, and knew in advance that people would be likely to buy an item for $6 - they should be able to pay with a ten dollar bill and get change. It’s just a reasonable expectation. For crying out loud, who goes into retail of any sort without any concept of “making change?” Should I be expected to carry rolls of pennies on my person at all times in case I go to a store and my total is $7.52? Just because it’s on an airplane doesn’t change the basics of a retail situation.
This is certainly true; however, I think the main cause for Dooku’s anger is the way he was treated by the FA. It might very well be “a horrible burden” (in the OP’s words) on the FA to make change for that beverage due to limited resources provided by the airlines, but as a person in a customer service position she certainly shouldn’t act that way. Her anger should be directed at the airlines, and while she’s serving Dooku, she should be pretty darn accomodating and polite to him.
My favorite FA experience was when I was flying from Rome to Chicago. There were a couple older FAs who had established themselves as bitches by talking to the passengers in the most condescending way possible. At one point, the pilot came on the intercom and warned us that we were heading into some turbulence. Just then, one guy (about 17 or so) decides he really needs to go to the bathroom then. So he gets up and runs to the toilet. One of the FAs yelled, “Excuse me, little sir!: Just what do you think you’re doing?!” and when she saw the kid just kept running to the bathroom without acknowledging her, she then turned to the other FA and asked, “Just what does he think he’s doing?!” The other FA threw up her hands in the air and let out this terrific sigh, as if this kid was going to the bathroom for the express purpose of antagonizing her. After that exchange the first FA let out a similar sigh and stomped to the back of the plane–note that the bathroom the guy ran to was in the middle of the plane, so I don’t know what stomping to the back of the plane meant. Perhaps she threw a tantrum back there. Hee! Anyway, I thought the whole incident was pretty funny. Also, I can see them getting the slightest bit upset that he got up just then, but all in all I’d rather have the guy go to the bathroom than have some turbulence-induced bowel movements in his seat. And I think everyone else on the plane could agree with me on that sentiment, seeing as we had at least 5 or 6 more hours to go.
Unfortunately, actual reality SHOULD agree. It’s not that fucking hard to carry change - the FA’s can carry a damn change purse while they do the main serving.
I mean, what the hell is the problem? They fear being robbed? They haven’t learned simple math?
You take one customer’s order at a time, and you provide the proper change. Then go on to the next customer. Pretty fucking simple concept, that.
I have no issues with not being able to accept $50 or $100 bills. But a twenty? a ten?
Get on the intercom at the beginning of service and politely request that people try to pay with exact change. But be prepared for them not.
I’m not a bank either. But if I hold a garage sale, I make sure that I have enough in my “float” to start the day. Here in Canada, I get a roll of loonies ($1s equalling $25), a roll of two-nies ($2 equalling $50), a roll of quarters (equalling $10), 3 x $5 (equalling $15), 10 x $10 (equalling $100), and 5x $20 (equalling $100). That’s $300 for a FLOAT AT A GARAGE SALE!!!
Why? Because I want to sell my junk. Why? Because I don’t want to LOSE a sale (nor reduce my price) because I don’t have proper change. If anything, if the airlines don’t have proper change, they should give the drink at the lowest price that they can give change for.
If I CAN THINK AHEAD, why can’t the airlines? As a footnote, though I agree your FA’s have been nothing but bitchy with you, I have FA friends who tell me tales that you wouldn’t believe ~ including MANY PEOPLE putting crying babies into the over-head carriers to appease them.
This was my take on it as well. For one thing, out of the couple hundred people on the flight, not ALL of them are drinking. In my experience (I’ll concede that there may possibly be flights full of lushes who simply MUST drink, and drink hard the entire flight resulting in plenty of change), most don’t.
So, if out of the 200 people on the flight, if 10-20 drink, and give exact change, if one or two people don’t have exact change for either a 20 or a 50, that IS going to screw things up. Particularly since different FAs are servicing different parts of the plane with their annoying little carts, so it’s not as if they can just dash back and forth exchanging change.
AND there’s the added slowdown of service for 200 people (spread out amongst just 2 or 3 FAs) that the searching for change for ONE guy, exchanging the change, and getting it BACK to the guy over and around carts etc, causes.
It’s not as if the FA’s carry a “bank” for drinks or something. FTR, I’ve not had a “bad” flight attendant as long as I can remember. I’ve been taking commercial flights since I was 8 or 9, and since I fly a lot for my job (my former job :D, I’m unemployed as I’m getting ready to leave, and flying out of AK at the beginning of Jan).
As long as I’ve been flying, the “have exact change” thing has been in effect. You don’t bitch at the bus driver do you? I mean, COME ON, the “rule” if you want to call it that, isn’t anything new. I’ve traveled as part of my job since the 80s. I can remember the “have exact change” thing being an industry standard even way back then.
Everyone knows this, everyone knows about all the little tips and crap here and there that one has to pay when flying.
I’m returning from a business trip. I have a twenty, a five, and a one in my wallet. I want a beer on the flight home.
It’s my fucking duty to know whether the airline charges $4 or $6 dollars for the beer? If it’s $6, I’m set? But if it’s $4, I have to go find a retailer who will exchange my fiver for five ones? Just so I can have exact change for a $4 beer?
I’ve asked flight attendants before why they never have change, and have been told that the airlines are too damn cheap to give them a pre-flight float. So if they actually happen to have change, it has to come out of their own pockets.
So don’t blame the FAs entirely. The airlines are screwing over their own employees, too, in this situation. And do they care? Hah!
Yup, I figured that was the reason. The airlines don’t want to provide twenty or forty bucks in change because then they’d have to keep track of it. They have enough trouble keeping track of all their planes! One day soon we’ll have those machines where you can just swipe your credit/debit card and be done with the cash transactions entirely.
Well HERE’S an idea, since you had to pay tips, and so on on the way THERE, then oh I don’t know, maybe it would occur to you that you’d have to pay tip and so on on the way BACK?
Is it THAT hard to plan to have enough ONE’S on hand? Sounds as if you’re just TRYING to make it hard.
Of COURSE you’re not going to know the exact price of a beer, but if you know that the price will be in a certain range, most LIKELY involving some ones, would it be too much trouble to make sure you had enough ones to cover a few different price ranges?
FTR, I absolutely disagree with the FA in the OPs rant, it sounds as if she was a real bitch. I guess I’ve just been lucky, I have had really good experiences with FAs.
But then, I was a waitress in a former life. It’s amazing how, if one treats someone with some respect and kindness, how even the bitchiest, most stressed out person will suddenly be on YOUR side (I’m not saying it always works, but it’s never failed for me).
My most stressful experiences when flying come, NOT from the FAs, but from my “fellow” passengers. Good grief, I have horror stories aplenty about those.
But FAs? I would imagine that for one to behave the way that’s descrbed in the OP, that they would have to have been pushed to THEE very limit of their patience before acting that way.
Hold on a sec. I can’t believe that nobody has picked up on this yet:
Yeah, maybe that’s because we realized that the young/attractive/female quotient has nothing to do with the ability to survive drinks; that there’s little point in firing an experienced crew member because he or she is experienced; and that the world does not revolve around horny straight male (and lesbian) travellers’ taste for ogling the cabin crew. Pobre de ti. Bring a Playboy if you’re so crazy mad after in-flight eye candy. Some people are trying to work.
Thanks for pointing that out Matt, actually I noticed it, but figured that the guy was stuck in the era from which he quotes, regarding the “role” women should play in society, so I just rolled my eyes, laughed and let it go, figuring nothing anyone said would pierce the void anyway.
I’m not TRYING to make it hard. And I’m not blaming the situation (esp. after the last few posts pointing out it’s probably the airlines, not the FAs, at the root of the cause), but anyplace that wants to sell me something should at the very least provide the ability to give change.
And no, I don’t have all that much time to think about, nor do I want to spend time worrying about, what exact combination of bills I have in my wallet. When I go on business, virtually everything is charged, including tips.
I understand the empathy you might feel for the FAs. But I don’t understand why you feel that the situation itself is acceptable.
Carrying change when you are selling something is really not that difficult a proposition.
>> My most stressful experiences when flying come, NOT from the FAs, but from my “fellow” passengers. Good grief, I have horror stories aplenty about those.
I concurr. Which is also why I would solve this change problem by banning alcohol on board. The last thing I need is the obnoxious person sitting next to me to turn into a drunk obnoxious asshole.