The Crew Room

I have a love-hate relationship with the crew room.  I love it the .001% of the time when I’m the only one in there.  I hate it most other times.  The crew room is loud, bright, small, hot in the summer, and cold in the winter.  It’s just as active as the rest of the airport, so if I’m sitting reserve and want peace and quiet; a place to gather my thoughts, I’m s.o.l.  I commute an hour and a half from the airport via car, so if I have a late night followed by an early morning, I’ll get a hotel in town for the night.  There have been times I’ve slept in the crew room if I’m the only one in it, which I don’t like to do.  Pilots are far more respectful than flight attendants when it comes to peace in quiet in there.  If there are three people asleep on the couch, the first flight attendant to walk in at 5AM will walk in, turn on all the lights without a second thought, just to use the computer; something which requires no light other than the monitor.  During the busy times of the day, there can be up to 20 people in a confined space; all on the phone, or having loud conversations with each other—something that they can go in the terminal to do.  95% of the conversations in the crew room are bitching about schedules on the flight attendant side, which is why I’m usually conversing with the pilots.  Far more to talk about with them.  I’m one of the few that believes that the crew room should be a place in the airport where one could go and relax and gather one’s thoughts.  One of the few things I enjoyed about being based in Washington-Dulles, was that most people respected the crew room as a quiet place, and there were always places in the airport that one could escape to any time during the day for some peace and quiet.  I’ve found myself having to pause my NetFlix on numerous occasions, while sitting reserve, because the loudness was drowning it out, even with my noise canceling headphones.  So for the love of sanity people, we understand that you’re super senior in the company, and love the social hour between flights in there, but some of us who don’t have lines yet and actually have to be in there during ready reserve daily from 5AM to 1PM generally, would like to maybe watch a movie, or perhaps even take a nap.  Shut your mouth or take it outside.

Oh, and I'm in here at 4:40AM on Christmas morning.  Not cool.