Monday, September 2, 2013

Me, Flat Stanley....and "that guy"

First four day trip in months. I tried to get out of it.....not luck.

The original Captain was a guy I've only heard great things about. I was looking forward to flying with him as he was new to me.

Well the day before the trip the original Captain was pulled off the trip. He is the new Chairman of our Union and was removed for Union work. In his place I was assigned a guy I've flown with once before. The most non-interesting man in the world.

The trip was absolutely boring. Eighteen hours of flight with only the checklist read out loud. The rest of the time was spent in complete silence.

The quietness of the guy didn't bother me, but his "all about himself" attitude did.

Most crews will leave the airplane or jet-bridge at the same time when swapping planes or headed to the hotel. It's common courtesy in case the cabin crew needs help or the First Officer is still outside doing the post-flight and finds an issue.

This Captain always headed right up the jet bridge and waited either in the terminal or walked to the hotel van each time. I always waited with the cabin crew. Thankfully I didn't find an issue during my post-flights that required him to write it up.

Another annoyance was at the hotel.

We have a sign in sheet made by our company. It's basic stuff like name, employee number, room number, wake up call excetera.

Most crews take turns filling it out. On the first night I simply asked the other crew members to spell their last names and their employee numbers. Takes 2 minutes.

The second night my Flight Attendant did the writing.

On the third night I thought for sure the Captain would do the job. Well he grabbed the sign in sheet and started writing. He had a piece of paper in his hand I thought had our names and employee numbers (some people print them out for each trip. I was wrong.

He just filled in his information and the flight information and walked away. Ah....that guy.

I did have some fun on the trip.

A friend of mine is home schooling her kid and is working on a project with "Flat Stanley". I offered up my services to take some photos of Flat Stanley during my trip. At each stop I took a photo of Flat Stanley at the terminal. I also took a few photos in flight. Happy to help out.

I finished my trip early Saturday morning. I go back Monday afternoon for a two day trip.

After that I have a one day simulator session Thursday and go back to the line next week on Wednesday.

I don't want to ever be referred to as "that guy".

4 comments:

  1. Hey, where's the pics then??? :)

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  2. I'll have to revisit the photos. Most have my face, airplane or other "identifying" marks in them.

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  3. Sorry, I hadn't considered that....fair point

    ReplyDelete
  4. No problem. I have been meaning to take more photos....

    ReplyDelete

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