murrayhill

Guess the percentages catch up with you if you fly enough, but it'd been a while since I had a crappy flight attendant. On my American Eagle #3527 YUL-JFK run yesterday, mine was just short of being outright surly. No eye contact when I got on. Rather than ask me if I wanted something to drink, I looked up from my reading to see her staring darts at me before I could ask for a Diet Coke. Then she handed me the cup and can rather than putting it on the tray. When I thanked her, no acknowledgment. Never did I see a smile. When I said goodbye while deplaning, blank stare. I get it. Job's not as glamorous as it looks, especially on the regionals. But I've almost always found service met or exceeded expectations. Maybe she had a long day. but that didn't make her unique. Bottom line: most FA's rise to the occasion. If you can't manage that, there are thousands of others who want to do what you do. If a modicum of courtesy is not in your DNA, you are very much in the wrong line of work.

JDiver

You put your finger on a particularly relevant issue, and I'll expand a bit.

If you have imagined an FA job as providing glamorous travel opportunities and meeting well-traveled, wealthy potential partners, and feel this is just a lark - plus really don't have a love for customer service, you'll be very disappointed.

The larger problem is that, like civil service and tenure, union contract jobs provide both job security and pay increases based on seniority - and a genuine dilemma: if you hate the job, you're stuck because you'll start at the lowest rung in the ladder if you go elsewhere.

In working over the years with many employee groups, including union groups, this can create increasing levels of dissatisfaction and poor performance. But if minimum standards are met or there is poor supervision and evaluation, you'll stay and inflict yourself on customers and fellow employees - until you retire as a used-up, sour she'll of who you might have been.

Fortunately, many FAs on flights I've flown don't meet this characterization - but a few unfortunately have.

arollins

My .02. Without getting into Omni area, their jobs tend to be more secured, takes a lot for them to loose their job, hence the motivation to excel is not there.

JDiver

Without leadership, clear expectations, accountability and community values, they're left to their personal values, such as they are, good, bad or indifferent. That's typical of these kinds of work situations.

Here, we probably get more reports on the outstanding and the substandard.

lobo411

No, the bottom line is you didn't get a smile with your coke, and you perceive this to be the end of Western civilization.

lobo411

If you work at Eagle, you ARE on the bottom rung.

Doc Savage

OP, I'd ascribe it to an FA at the end of a long day and let it go. Who knows what kind of DYKWIAs she had threatening to write her up for some perceived slight earlier, or whether there was a sick family member at home. There are some days we all have to just power through and get to the end of, and may not be at our most cheerful.

Safe travels,

Doc

jsfrSE

No, I think that "When he said goodbye while deplaning and there was a blank stare" this appears to be a lack of education more than anything else in my opinion.

PhxFlyGuy

flying in long haul domestic first the other day, the person that turned out to be the lead FA got split up from the other FA's (as in, probably didn't come from the hotel with them), and raced on to the plane so we could board. She burned the nuts, and the ice cream (usually rock hard) was served completely liquefied. She stood at the front of the first class cabin and apologized to the group of us. She said that she had 20+ years doing this, and it was just "one of those days". The acknowledgement made all the difference. It didn't change things, but like a previous poster said, we all have days like that.

swajames

Nothing in the OP could reasonably lead anyone to that conclusion

ClimbingCook

That seems totally legit to me. A simple apology is all it takes in most cases.

DevilDawg1960

I am amazed that in this age of "big data" AA (and other airlines) are not using survey thechiques to evaluate customer experience and staff performance. Even my corporate travel agency (American Express) sends me a shaort survey after each booking to gather infomation about the service experience. TSA lets me give them a similey face or a frown. By aggregating large amounts of data over prolonged periods they could get a really good idea of who is doing a good job and who is not. Everyone has a bad day, what you are looking for is the people who consistently have bad days.

AA knows the value of data and uses it for revenue management (and many other functions). Why don't they use it to evaluate their customer facing employees?

BayAArea

I would think the unions would throw a fit. If everything is seniority-based anyway, can they actually penalize or re-train those that get low scores?

boss315

after many,many years as a school admn., things are no different in education! What gets supervised is what gets improved!

rjw242

Companies that do this generally don't get my business. One of my pet peeves about our "modern age" is being constantly pestered about surveys everywhere I turn.