Date: 25th March
Flight: Accra
The bliss of my profession as an air hostess means getting the opportunity to meet different people, cultures and experience a mix of the world inside one congested airplane. It takes time to understand different norms, and practices of different cultures. For instance, Japanese people are very polite and don’t like to be touched. Italians use a lot of hand gestures when expressing themselves. Brazilians love to chat, and party even on board, Nigerians may sound aggressive but that’s being polite.
An airhostess get’s on the job learning this with time. It is normal to have had offended a few people unknowingly at the beginning of our careers. Thus with time and experience an air hostess's will get the super powers of identifying, where the people are from, identify their languages and expressions (well some of us at least). When working for an International airline it is important to have an understanding about the rest of the world, their culture. Even wine and dine may not be part of our culture growing up, being an air hostess's, will get to know the types of cooking, types of cheese, complimenting wines, cocktails as time goes by, especially in the premium cabins.
A newbie to the premium cabins was last seen talking to a middle aged African customer. Since she was missing in action for a while the senior stewardess sent someone to look for her. There she was walking up and down with the passenger name list, desperately in search of someone. However as she was needed for the service she returned back to the galley to find herself in an awkward situation. The gentleman she was talking to before was exasperated, and complaining to the senior stewardess.
Upon seeing her, he burst out “There she is! Lady I asked you to make yourself useful and get me a Black Russian where did you disappear? It's been almost an hour?” Saving the day another crew swiftly poured up the cocktail he wanted and apologized for the delay.
The newbie has turned red by the time of this and was almost crying."C'mon now, you have been missing for over a half an hour, and you didn't give that customers cocktail on time! Is everything all right? “
She was meekly blurted, “I was looking for a Black Russian! You know someone with a name rhyming to Chekhov and who also happens to be black...I thought the passenger was looking for a relative...he didn't give me a name, every time I asked, may I know the name please, he kept on saying the black Russian!"Everybody had a blunt expression in their faces; the newbie didn't have the faintest idea that it could be a cocktail. It didn't take much time for the crew to roll out of laughter “Thank god he didn't ask you for a screwdriver” and she joined the rest!
Comments (2)
dimuthu de silva
Apr 17, 2013 12:00 amHa haha thats a good one...but also teachers a lesson....
Replyirangii
Apr 26, 2013 12:00 amthats hilarious .. but hey .. these things happen all the time ! but it sure may have been real embarrassing !
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