Training!!!

Training for United Airlines will more than likely begin sometime in August. We are not sure the exact dates yet but should find out sometime at the end of this month. Training will be SEVEN LONG WEEKS in Chicago, Illinois. Exciting, huh? During those seven weeks we will be staying at the United Headquarters in apartment-like hotel rooms. I will be living with two other girls and we will have a living area as well as a kitchen connected to our rooms. So it is going to be like freshman year in the dorms all over again...except much bigger and more luxurious. All accomodations are paid for by United including the flight out to Chicago and back, the hotel stay for seven weeks, and a meal plan to eat in their cafeteria whenever we want. Just like college :)

Flight attendant training is a grueling process where we will be in classes TEN HOURS PER DAY and tested daily on the previous day's material. We only get a couple of days off during the seven weeks and those are usually spent sleeping and catching up on some needed rest. The plus side to training is you often make lifelong friends in your classes and you get to go on three real flights to other cities. Two will be DOMESTIC and One will be INTERNATIONAL...in which they will be flying us to JAPAN for four days!!! How cool is that?

Once training is over I will receive my WINGS and obtain official flight attendant status. This is also when I will find out where my base will be located. In other words, what city my new home will be in. It is looking like either Chicago (where their headquarters are) or Washington D.C. (where they are sending a lot of new flight attendants). The other major bases are Denver, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. I have no say in where they originally send me. It is based on where the need is. However, after six months I will be able to put in the request to be tranferred anywhere I want...I am shooting for San Francisco. More updates to come...stay tuned!

2nd Interview

As I sat in the cubicle-size, white-walled interview room waiting for my interviewer to return, I no longer felt the rush of nervousness I had been experiencing throughout the entire day that had begun the moment I stepped foot on the plane to Chicago. Maybe it was because I had spent so much time waiting, so much time filling out paperwork, and so much time answering questions that I had shifted into some auto-pilot interviewing mode and no longer had control over the rollercoaster of emotion one might experience when placed under so much pressure. Or maybe, just maybe it was because I knew I was perfect for the position and every answer I had given reflected my bubbly personality that was exactly what they were looking for. The interviewer returned. I took a deep breath, tightly gripped my hands together and said a silent prayer in my head as I waited for her to give me the news. This is what she said. "You passed every aspect of the interview process. You are perfect for the position. We would be crazy not to hire you. YOU GOT THE JOB!" (in more or less words than that) :)

The rest is all kind of a blur but I do remember what I said after she gave me the good news. I whispered the question, "I got the job?" And she whispered back with a big smile, "You got the job!" I felt like Brittany Murphy at the end of Little Black Book when she was interviewing for a position to work with Diane Sawyer, which had been her dream since she was a little girl. The scene played out in my mind as I reinacted it in real life and then proceeded to explain the movie ending to my amazingly sweet interviewer. We shared a great laugh and went back and forth with the "I got the job? You got the job" bit just like in the movie minus the jumping up and down. And then I gave her a huge hug before she walked me out as I attempted to control the beaming smile that had taken over my expression.

Making our way back to the airport after the interviewing process, me and one of the other girls decided to grab a drink in the airport bar. Turns out people stuck in airports during layovers are extremely friendly as we had all kinds of guys buying us drinks and shots. Good times. By the time I actually boarded the plane back to Dallas I was feeling pretty good from all my generous free drinks. :) As we took off and flew over the city past downtown Chicago, I caught a glimpse of sparks in the distance. There, creating the most amazing view ever, were fireworks going off all over the place above the skyscrapers of downtown. It was magnificent! The perfect ending to the perfect day.

Interviewing

I had an interview with one of the top international airlines in the world this week. They flew me all the way to Chicago for the interview. Pretty cool, huh? Here is how the trip unfolded...

2:45 wake up call by my personal alarm service a.k.a my cell phone. My airport adventures began around 4:00 a.m. where I preceeded to wait in a line for about an hour just to check in. After acquiring my lovely boarding pass and making it through security without being mistaken for a terrorist, I finally boarded the plane and we were ready for take off. Seated in the very last row I made casual conversation with my seatmate until I fell into a blissful slumber lullabied by none other than Michael Buble.

Once we landed I made my way through the airport, strutting my stuff in my business suit and heels toward the rent-a-car place. The guy at the desk informed me that the economy-sized vehicle I had ordered was unavailable at the moment and they were going to upgrade me to a "Lincoln towncar!!!" When my eyes became wider the man assured me it was no larger than my normal civic-sized car and that I would be perfectly fine driving it. Not the case! So there I was, driving this boat of a car through the interstates of Chicago in this ginormous city I had never been to. Big mistake.

I was okay until I reached the city and realized I was driving straight into the heart of downtown Chicago amongst a million one-way streets and another handful of angry, insane taxi drivers who were a little too fond of their horns and gas pedals. After driving in circles on the one-way streets for about an hour and randomly asking business people and construction workers on the street for directions to a parking garage, I finally parked the monstrous towncar in the Union Station garage on the very top level where there were no other cars to be seen 1) to avoid getting a ding in the precious Lincoln by unsuspecting passerbyers 2) because I couldn't fit into any parking spots between other cars.

My choice of footwear was poorly thought through as I made my way to the building through the crazy streets of Chicago in heels. While waiting the 2-3 hours to be called in, I made a lot of friend in the office. The interview itself was about 30 mins. and was finalized with a "well I would like to offer you a second interview and have you fly back out here next week." Sweet! Then me and some of the girls went out to Blackies restaurant for some drinks and food. If you thought my depiction of getting into the city was bad, wait until you hear of getting out of it.

One of the girls rode back with me instead of taking the train so it was the two of us manuvering through downtown in attempt to just make it out of the city. Little did we realize we were leaving right smack dab in the middle of rush hour traffic. It reminded me of the images I saw on television of the traffic jam of people trying to get out of New Orleans after the evacuation for hurricane Katrina was issued. Completed stopped! On top of that we were fumbling through my directions trying to figure out what streets to take next all the while trying to avoid getting hit in my rented car by the hundreds of cars around me. After an hour of "death-grip to the steering wheel" driving we made it safely to the airport and made a run for our separate departure gates.

The whole way home I spent in the rear galley with the flight attendants discussing what I should do in the next interview and the ins and outs of the company. It was awesome. I am already excited for the chance to work with all of them if I get hired on. 10:15 p.m. we landed in Dallas and Becca picked me up from the airport. Made my way home and into my bed where visions of flight attending filled my dreams until the early morning. Mission completed!