Do You Want To Be A Flight Attendant?

Welcome back to What Do You Want to Be? I'm Mark. And I'm Joy. Today, we're talking to someone whose office is 30,000 feet in sky.

Please welcome our friend, world traveler, Brenda, who is a flight attendant. Hi, Brenda.

Hi, Joy and Mom. Thanks for having me. I'm actually excited to be here.

Well, let's get started with the interview questions. Joy?

What's the coolest place you've ever traveled into for your drop-up?

I think for me it would be Greece because if you actually look down or look at pictures of Greece,

the buildings in Greece are actually blue and white for some reason and it's actually very satisfying to just look at it.

Hmm. What's the... Is your job mostly serving snacks and drinks or is there more to it?

Believe it or not, there is actually more to it. I'd say snacks and drinks is part of it,

but serving the passengers and also managing their children is another thing.

And that's something I enjoy.

What's the most important role on an airplane that kids should know?

I believe it would be to not run around on an airplane, especially when the crew is walking

because we're going to be pushing out our carts, we'll be carrying a lot of things

and we don't want mishaps to happen so we don't want kids to just hit onto the carts

neither do we want to hit them by accident.

Those carts can be pretty painful because they're made of metal, aren't they?

Have you ever had a really funny or silly thing happen on a flight?

I do have a lot of things that happen on a flight, but one thing I really enjoy is that

when I meet kids, they tend to be very open and they start to show me magic tricks

or they could just start singing, it's sort of like showing off their talent

and that's something really enjoyable and it's really fun to actually see kids doing it.

What do you do when the airplane hits turbulence? Does it scare you?

Actually it does scare me, but because we are trained to make sure that we are safe

so what we do, we immediately squat down low

and that way when the turbulence hit, we won't really fly off

so that we'll be more balanced when we just crouch down low.

What's the hardest part about being a flight attendant?

I think for me the hardest part is usually dealing with some passengers

who don't really understand why we give them certain instructions.

It's always hard to educate certain people, especially when they are unsure of what's happening.

If a kid in a gay listening loves to travel,

what's one thing they can do to be a great passenger on a plane?

I would say for kids, they should always talk to the crew.

No matter how shy they are, just go up to a crew and just talk to them

because they're the one person that can actually share so many things with you.

Anything that you want to know of a certain country, what to do in your destination that you're going to.

Believe it or not, they have a lot of insight on what to do in this new country that you're going to.

Do you get to sleep when you're on a flight

or do you have to stay up most of the time?

That's actually a really, really good question.

So believe it or not, in our airplanes, some aircraft has actually a bunk upstairs for us to sleep.

So we've got this special door that we open up and we actually head upstairs

and there are actually beds for us in the aircraft just for us to lie down.

But it's very, very small and I'd say it can get phosphophobic but we need the rest.

So I guess a lot of passengers don't know this but for us as a crew, we know about it.

I mean we're sleeping out there so that's something, I guess something that's a fun fact for people.

They actually don't know about this.

Interesting.

Okay, well it's time for our interactive segment.

Brendan, your job requires you to be ready to go at a moment's notice.

So we're going to play a speed game called Pack the Suitcase.

I'm going to give you a surprise destination

and you have 20 seconds to verbally pack your suitcase

telling us the most important things you bring.

Are you ready?

Yeah, I am.

Okay.

Your first destination is a sunny beach in Hawaii.

Go.

Definitely my passport.

Some higher than some sunscreen.

My bathing suit.

Pretty much I'm done with that.

Nothing else.

Alright.

Should we try another?

Sure.

Do you have one, Joy?

Hmm.

Your next destination is the rainforest.

Rainforest again.

My passport is going to be a must as for sure.

Probably some long pants and some long sleeves maybe.

At least if I'm going to go into the rainforest, I don't get bitten by things in there.

Yeah, that's it.

I don't need much.

All I just need is my passport at the end of the day.

Okay, how about one more?

The fjords of Norway.

Hmm, interesting.

I guess, passport.

My winter clothes.

That's for sure.

That's it.

Nothing else.

You got all this back light.

Yeah, that's what I'm noticing.

That'll all fit into the carry-on one.

Yeah.

Okay.

Well, that was fast.

You had to answer right away, but I'm noticing the theme of passport is the key there.

Definitely.

Passport.

Passport.

Passport.

Passport.

Before you go, we have two final questions.

What's the favorite part of your job?

I guess when you get older, earning money is something very important.

And when you get to travel and you get paid to travel, that's the best feeling ever.

So that's something that I really enjoy about the job.

And of course, meeting people.

And last, what advice would you give a kid in who might want to be a flight attendant when they grow up?

I would say if they're interested in knowing what's beyond their country that they're in right now,

I guess the best job would be to be a flight attendant.

When you get the option or when you get the freedom to travel, you start to learn more things

and you start to explore what are things out there that you may not see in your own country.

So I guess that's something that I would advise people to do.

Thank you.

Brendan, thank you so much for giving us an inside look to life as a flight attendant.

This was so cool.

Definitely.

It was my pleasure.

I guess happy travels, everyone.

And a huge thank you to our listeners.

Join us next time for another episode of What Do You Want to Be?