I've Met Her, And She's In The Washington Post

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First Person Singular
Caroline Darby, Southwest Airlines flight attendant
Washington Post
Sunday, October 1, 2006

I just completed 20 years back in March. You have to be very flexible because you are on the road; you're living in different hotels every night, different restaurants, different crew members. At this stage, I know my weaknesses. Honestly, I like the shorter flights. Anything over three hours, and I get antsy. The flight attendants that sit up front -- there's two of them -- one's on the aisle, so she's always in view of everybody. And when I fly on the inside, where they can't see me, I always tell her, "Keep a nice, straight face, honey." Naturally, if the plane drops, it's like you're on a roller coaster, but people look to you for guidance. They say: "My God, we dropped -- Oh, she's okay. The stewardess is still laughing and smiling, so everything's good." They still call us "stewardess." So that's what you try to do: You talk to each other in the jump seat to portray that feeling and look that everything's fine. You just have to be prepared to accept anything. At this point ...more>>