Blog-TOWER OF BABEL

I have become quite sentimental over the last few months. I have pondered the last twenty years of corporate work. When you showed up for on interview, people told you that they were thankful that you could make it. They laughed and joked, told old stories of bizarre flights and they hired you right away. They gave you a uniform that you were not ashamed to wear, like Brooks Brothers, or Ann or Calvin Klein, you were given an expense account (not that of a supermodel) where you could actually eat and maybe wash the great food down with a few glasses of vintage red.

Crews had your best interest at heart. You got two weeks off if you got married and as long as you needed to have a baby. The carpets and interiors of the jets were new and the wood sparkled. The supplies to perform you job were unlimited, and if you got sick, they filed nothing and you still got paid. Catering was whatever the passengers and crew wanted. The crew ate what the pax ate. There was never a compartmentalized box lunch with mystery meat and polyester bread, with token shrunk plum and saran wrapped brownie from 2009. The hotels smelled good, the lobby with marble flooring and a great staff. They remembered you and what you drank, and your room number without reminding them, people acted looked better and stood taller back then. Room service was an event to witness and you could leave your shoes outside your room to be shined. The bathroom was larger than my present hotel room. There were sometime heated towel racks and hot pipes to warm up the bathroom floor. All these things required thoughts of the guest.

Now, it is suggested we live on 25-50 dollars a day. whether in Chicago or London, no dry cleaning, no movie, no snack and no love. If catering is over 50.00 per person, they do not want to pay for it. No magazines, no cell phone, not internet,  imported chocolates or bathroom amenities, no floral, no eyeshades, no linen, no fine china, no mileage, no tolls, no no no no.

Are we headed to a socialist flying position? Am I supposed to fill up on the vending machine honey bun or Oreos packet? The FBO provides popcorn, apples, cookies, creamers, coffee, tea bas. pens, and mints. If I fill up on these comp items, will I be dead by next year? Or will I live long enough to be told I do not get any Medicare or Social Security, because the government ran out of money? What a choice.

When you see that 25 year old flight attendant in the FBO, you can smile at them and know that they will never know what we had. It is sad in a way. Her life will be filled with only cut rate hotels with see thru towels with no fabric softener,  Applebee's, Ponderosa, a dirty uniform from Cintas catalog, a cell phone bill, no movie, no pillow chocolate, 40 watt bulbs, a banner across the toilet saying it has been sanitized, a broken alarm clock  and a broken attitude.

We knew what the days of Camelot were, and the memory is forever mine. I have lived at the Peninsula, The Mandarin. the Ritz, the Greenbrier Resort,The Park Lane London, The Hotel Gansevoort, they were all the bomb. I can see for miles in my memories.
 

I have discovered that I do not like to say no to flights that are very hard to man. 

A company asked me to fly on Easter Sunday and since this holiday is not big in my family, I said yes. Ben is past the point of caring about Easter egg hunts and the standard chocolate basket. He usually goes with his dad for the day. So I traveled to MMU (2 hours) to take a dead head flight from MMU to New Hampshire to pick up 1 pax and bring him back to MMU. Sounds simple, right? One thing I forgot about, I landed at 530 p.m., left the hangar at 630, I am 90 miles for MMU. I sat in my car for 6 hours in traffic. 

The Tappan Zee Bridge had a major accident, so I opted for the George Washington Bridge. I sat so long my butt was afire, my brake foot numb. It was now 1230 a.m., the next day. I sat at the Fort Lee exit for another hour before I just gave up the fight. I had to wait another 45 minutes to get to the next exit, to do an illegal u turn. There must have been a major accident, to this day I will never know. 

I ended up in the hotel from hell. I did not want to spend and arm and a leg, but this one was for the books. The Travelodge at Fort Lee was something from a Quentin Tarantino movie. There was a bullet proof checkin window in the lobby, "no checks accepted" sign behind the managers desk, and fly paper , yellowed spiraling down over a 60 watt bulb. At this exasperated point, I did not care. I shut my eyes, turned my cheek, and said " just do this for 5 hours, until the traffic stops." 

The clerk, was super nice, he asked if I wanted smoking, did I want the room hourly, and that there was free breakfast in the morning. It room was $69.00, not bad for a hotel 12 miles from NYC. The room was dismal, pea green chenille bedspreads and yellow shag carpet, with grayish lamp shades housing a 40 watt bulb. I took the dry cleaning bags off my recently cleaned uniforms, and laid them on the bed to prevent the bedbugs from biting the crap out of me. If these walls could talk!  

I slept in my clothes and raincoat, complete with socks and shower cap. And I passed out for 4 hours until the neighbors next store decided to come back at 5 am, to hold a very liquored argument outside my door. I have a baseball bat in my truck and I wished I had brought that in as part of my survival gear. They eventually went away, passed out or died of bedbug poisoning. I had to check out, they did not have enough staff the put the bill under the door. The lobby with the free breakfast was booked with tired and hungry prostitutes. I looked too shitty to pass as one, I think. 

I left, no bedbugs, and was really glad to get back into my car and speed home. This one was one for the books.