Sarah Ashley: September 2015

I'm sitting here on an early Saturday afternoon as travelers pass me in the DFW Airport. It's my second day as an official FA (Flight Attendant) but I've been traveling as an FA for almost a week now.

This morning called for a 4am wake up call in order to make my 6am flight. I stayed in a hotel in North Carolina and crashed on the bed at 7pm the night before. This job requires odd sleeping hours, as I'm finding out.

Graduation!

One thing I needed to consider is the amount of money I would need to get started. I started FA ground school in early August and have spent $1500 easy in the past month on FA supplies, uniforms, food and taxi/rental transportation. Not to mention that I still had to pay my bills even though I had no income for the month of August.

I was very hopeful to start making income for September, but as a newbie it's very difficult. Since I'm the fresh employee who is at the bottom of the totem pole, there is no assigned schedule for me yet. Which means that I have to be near the airport on-call, from 4am to 4pm everyday and wait for the airline to call me with a day-of schedule. Thankfully I was assigned an overnight trip yesterday, which means I'm slowly gaining a schedule.

I spend many evenings at different hotels every week. Time to take advantage of the pool.

The good news is that I will have line (known as a set schedule) in a couple of months, which means I won't have to sit around on reserve (known as being on-call).

Since I'm reserve today, I've decided to stay at the airport to avoid the risk and hassle of having to come back to the airport. I don't get paid while sitting on-call, and it's also required by my job to do so. Bummer! The perks of being on-call, include the chance of picking up a trip and also being able to take advantage of DFW super fast WiFi. I can enjoy YouTube videos and FaceTime my friends while I'm on-call.

Although being a newbie isn't the best, there are some great perks to the job! I do get to travel where I want on my days off (within reason) at no cost. When I have the opportunity, I plan to fly home.

Some other perks include layovers in exciting cities. From last Monday to Wednesday, I went to LAX and had the chance to explore Hollywood. I had Tuesday off and was a studio audience member for "The Price is Right." I didn't win anything, but the girl next to me had the opportunity to go on stage and won a new car!!