tired and ranty
So damn exhausted. My word. I just finished a 4-day trip that may have sucked a portion of my soul out of me. Seriously. I feel like I've been assaulted by a band of dementors. *sighs melodramatically*
They scheduled us an 8:40 minute layover in Las Vegas. That's madness. Complete and total. It takes a half hour just to get out of the airport and to the hotel shuttle pickup and then it's a 10 minute van ride, check-in, get to room, etc. etc. And you have to leave at least an hour early in the morning to get to the airport clear security (even in the employee line) and get clear out to the gate area) which gives me about 4 1/2 hours for sleep-- in between two long, full days of work. How is that legal?
Don't even get me started on crew rest requirements-- because what's "legal" is not even close to good enough. I know that a lot of people have jobs where they are busy and don't get much sleep-- and I empathize, but it's not really the same thing. In my line of work it's a legitimate safety concern-- and not just for me or a few other people. The lives of hundreds of people depend on us daily and a mistake can be deadly. Not to one person, but an entire plane full of people. In a life and death situation do you want your crew operating on 5 hours of sleep? Of course not. Planes crash because of this. Medical emergencies or security situations arise en route and flight attendants are not quick enough to react. It's fucking scary is what it is.
To add insult to injury on our already way too short overnight, the hotel (which is contracted to pick up our crews at the airport every single fucking day) said that the van was "unavailable" so we had to take a cab. Take a cab. From McCarran International Airport. On a Friday night. Bloody hell doesn't even begin to describe it-- there's a queue 300 people long! Which made our night even shorter.
TL;DR-- short overnights in Vegas suck and are unsafe and this was the worst one ever.
And to make things interesting, early morning flights out of Vegas-- all kinds of strange. Half the plane is hungover or still slightly drunk from the night before. You've got people buzzing on a gambling high and practically bouncing in their seats wearing their fancy new expensive clothes and flashing their new watches and $1500 handbags. You've got the hungover frat boys still clutching their 1 liter booze tubes and starry-eyed over their recent exploits with casinos and fake volcanoes and hookers and buffet dinners and way too many jack-and-cokes. You've got the slightly stunned looking folks, who probably just lost several thousand dollars and have nothing but a stolen hotel towel to show for it. Weird, weird crowd.
Nothing that can't be fixed with a bubble bath, a pot of tea, complex carbohydrates (mmmm.... mac and cheese!) and a movie night.
10 Things I Hate About You (with repeat viewings of Heath Ledger's serenade and Julia Stiles reading the poem and crying) and Some Kind of Wonderful (because it's lovely, I love all things John Hughes, and I've a mad crush on Watts)
And then I will sleep. And it will be grand.
They scheduled us an 8:40 minute layover in Las Vegas. That's madness. Complete and total. It takes a half hour just to get out of the airport and to the hotel shuttle pickup and then it's a 10 minute van ride, check-in, get to room, etc. etc. And you have to leave at least an hour early in the morning to get to the airport clear security (even in the employee line) and get clear out to the gate area) which gives me about 4 1/2 hours for sleep-- in between two long, full days of work. How is that legal?
Don't even get me started on crew rest requirements-- because what's "legal" is not even close to good enough. I know that a lot of people have jobs where they are busy and don't get much sleep-- and I empathize, but it's not really the same thing. In my line of work it's a legitimate safety concern-- and not just for me or a few other people. The lives of hundreds of people depend on us daily and a mistake can be deadly. Not to one person, but an entire plane full of people. In a life and death situation do you want your crew operating on 5 hours of sleep? Of course not. Planes crash because of this. Medical emergencies or security situations arise en route and flight attendants are not quick enough to react. It's fucking scary is what it is.
To add insult to injury on our already way too short overnight, the hotel (which is contracted to pick up our crews at the airport every single fucking day) said that the van was "unavailable" so we had to take a cab. Take a cab. From McCarran International Airport. On a Friday night. Bloody hell doesn't even begin to describe it-- there's a queue 300 people long! Which made our night even shorter.
TL;DR-- short overnights in Vegas suck and are unsafe and this was the worst one ever.
And to make things interesting, early morning flights out of Vegas-- all kinds of strange. Half the plane is hungover or still slightly drunk from the night before. You've got people buzzing on a gambling high and practically bouncing in their seats wearing their fancy new expensive clothes and flashing their new watches and $1500 handbags. You've got the hungover frat boys still clutching their 1 liter booze tubes and starry-eyed over their recent exploits with casinos and fake volcanoes and hookers and buffet dinners and way too many jack-and-cokes. You've got the slightly stunned looking folks, who probably just lost several thousand dollars and have nothing but a stolen hotel towel to show for it. Weird, weird crowd.
Nothing that can't be fixed with a bubble bath, a pot of tea, complex carbohydrates (mmmm.... mac and cheese!) and a movie night.
10 Things I Hate About You (with repeat viewings of Heath Ledger's serenade and Julia Stiles reading the poem and crying) and Some Kind of Wonderful (because it's lovely, I love all things John Hughes, and I've a mad crush on Watts)
And then I will sleep. And it will be grand.