Heather PooleBesprekingen

Behind the scenes look at the life of a flight attendant.

This was a good book to drift in an out of when you have a few spare minutes. There was nothing to remember about storyline or characters.

It really glosses over just about everything but makes it clear that doing this job is pretty thankless.

A quick, fun, fascinating read that really gets in to the other side of an airline experience - that of the flight attendant.

Now I know the training it takes to be a flight attendant--and I know I'd never be able to do it. I also couldn't live in those "crash pads", which is their term for apartments housing 5 or more flight attendants, temporary sleeping quarters for those in between flights. And it's also comforting to know that she had to put up with (and be sweet as pie to) nasty, obnoxious, ignorant people masquerading as passengers. I, too, have a customer service oriented job, and I get a lot of, ahem, "challenges" also!

Was expecting more of a tell-all book about flying, when it turns into more of a complain-all. It's a fine book and enjoyed it enough to subscribe to Heather Poole's blog. Just had to wade through a lot of complaining about pay and logistics of the lifestyle of a flight attendant on the bottom of the totem pole.

I am stunned to learn flight attendants are paid for only the time in flight ... not the time saying hello or helping you put your bags in the overhead bin. Is this really true? And their on-call/reserve system after a couple times reading, it still baffled me, and sounds worse than the Brad's voice in the State Farm commercial.

Flight attendants don't have an easy job. I get it but all the complaining bogs down the book. I was expecting to hear more crazy stories from 35,000 feet in elevation and not 0 feet elevation.

Like a flight attendant, Heather displays more than meets the eye and I think worth following. The book is a little turbulent but worth flying.

This book was less gossipy and more informative about what life is like for flight attendants than I expected. Not as light a read as I thought, interesting more than fluffy, and I enjoyed it.

I attempted to read this once several years ago, stalled, and never got back into it. I don't think I'm ever going to finish it and need to offload some books, so this is going on my "Offload" pile. On the plus side, I recall it including a useful tip about packing for flights (roll your clothes up rather than folding them - they'll be more compact and won't wrinkle as much), but also enough terrifying information about one company she worked for early in her career to make me amazed that people ever survived commercial flights.

I fly a lot. This book was a firsthand account of what flying is like by a flight attendant (for one of the big US legacy carriers). I didn't care much for the "what passengers are like" passenger interaction parts, but "what do flight attendants actually do", how they live, etc. was interesting. I didn't realize just how badly paid most of them were, or how inefficient for their time a lot of the airline meal preparation is (I'd assumed single-serving packaging for business/first meals, rather than bulk-pack and being separately plated).

Surprising tales of life as a flight attendant that perhaps shouldn’t be so surprising. A few people behave poorly and are really rude on airplanes, and the attendants have to suck it up, which shouldn’t come as news, but did. Attendants, at least in the U.S., don’t earn that much either, which was more unexpected, and have to work for five years or more before getting enough seniority to be able to get on good flights with a reasonable amount of time off each month.½

Being a flight attendant often seems glamorous to the uninitiated. Heather Poole is here to tell you that it’s not all jet-setting to exotic locales and hooking up with pilots (also, she explains why flight attendants might not want to). She talks about rude passengers, funny incidents, celebrity encounters, and life skills she learned as she progressed in her career.

This was funnier than I expected; part of me thought it might be a bit trashy (buying into the stereotypes about pilot/flight attendant relationships, I guess), but I enjoyed this a lot. It made a highly amusing couple of hours. The chapter ragging on pilots was especially funny to me because I have friends who used to be pilots before I knew them, and I could very well imagine one or two of them acting exactly as Poole describes here! And I loved the story about how her mom became a flight attendant too and they ended up working together.

This book is recommended particularly for frequent fliers: you need to realize just how much work flight attendants do. They are not there to look pretty and serve you drinks. They are trained professionals who will have to save your ungrateful ass in an emergency, so listen to them.

I really enjoyed this behind the scenes look at what it takes to be a flight attendant. I always admire these hard working individuals that have to multi-task at 35,000 feet while dealing with a variety of personalities in a very confined space. Really a great book to read if you've flown once or numerous times!

Cruising Attitude by Heather Poole is written in a similar fashion to Waiter Rant and The Nanny Diaries. It’s a behind the scenes look at airline travel from the perspective of a flight attendant. It was quite engaging at first but I lost interest in the stories about half way through. Some were interesting stories and you can certainly commiserate with the flight attendants after reading about some of the interactions. One question came to mind – why are people so rude these days? As a customer or client I know we should be waited on and have our concerns addressed but you don’t need to treat others rudely.

The narrative about the hiring process and exhaustive training program for flight attendants is crazy. There are stories about people having sex in the bathrooms, dealing with people with motion sickness, rude people and many other odd things an attendant has to endure during a flight. The stories did jump around a bit and the author could have spent more time describing the characters and the individual situations more.

Certainly a very different read and an enjoyable one to read while on a plane - albeit a very different flying experience then the world Heather completed her training in. The pre/post 9/11 changes are stark. But sadly I don't think FAs are paid any better - the crash pads are just a sad reality.

I don't think you can look at flying the same way after reading this book. I definitely didn't think of the lifestyle that flight attendants have (living communally with 'odd' supers) and, while I was expecting there to be crazy events, I was still shocked my a lot of the tales. Mostly it was just a good memoir about a difficult job that holds the remnants of a more romantic flying age.

I had no idea flight attendants had so much training. And that if they messed up once during schooling that they were out...

Otherwise, pretty interesting read. There are a lot of things I didn't know about flight attendants. The glamorous life isn't quite as glamorous as we might think, but it still sounds like fun. If the pay wasn't so crappy.

Should read if you like personal memoirs.

Nothing stands out particularly in this book about the trials and tribulations of Heather Poole's early career as a flight attendant. But added all together it is an easy and entertaining read. My interest in the book was through a recent acquaintance and colleague who was one. I found there was a lot I didn't know about what these people put up with in their chosen career. But for all the crap they take from demanding customers and relatively modest pay, the travel perks tend to offset.

What an exercise of vapidity Cruising Altitude is; within the first few pages, I put the book down and refused to give it any more of my attention. Then, I decided I wanted to review it online and determined to finish it; I promise you, I am that much more dumb for finishing this inane, poorly-written “memoir.”

Heather Poole does not suffer from anything remotely resembling a self-esteem problem; if anything, her narcissistic delusions seep across the narrative like an egregiously-placed fart in a crowded room by a pretty woman. Poole cannot write, Poole cannot thread together any sort of story, Poole cannot do anything but condescend to the reader and preen about her own amazing awesomeness.

For instance, here is this gem on page 14: “Only the most qualified applicants are hired [to be a flight attendant]. Even though a college degree is not a requirement, there are very few flight attendants who do not possess one…This should tell you a lot about me, and anyone else you encounter in navy polyester. Think about that the next time you’re on a plane.” And yet, mere pages later, she is touting that her “bachelor’s in psychology” will help her “way to a real career [in] something…oh, I don’t know…I could figure it out later!” (25). As someone who has experienced the collegiate life myself, I know that a monkey could walk out of those walls with a B.S. in psychology. Try harder to impress me, Poole.

When Poole attempts to get down to the actual grit of being a flight attendant, it is lost with her vapid complaints about packing, uniforms, other peoples’ looks, and the like. When she first got her training assignment, instead of focusing on “[memorizing the] more than five hundred airport city codes before training began” (“Did the airline really expect [that]?”) she worried more about what to pack, and spent more time describing the contents of her suitcase (27-28).

And really, I can go on and on. She’s an idiot who speaks disparagingly about passengers, about her friends, about the people her friends love (“Jake, John, Jack, whatever his name was”…ad nauseum). Poole makes no attempt to flesh out what could be interesting anecdotes about the not-so-run-of-the-mill people she has met throughout her years, but instead she’s too busy preening for her own reflection.

http://goodbookshere.blogspot.com/½

If you're thinking about an exciting career in airborne customer service, this is the book for you! If, like me, you are not considering becoming a flight attendant, it is hard to explain why you would even pick this book up, much less read quickly through it in fascinated excitement, as I just did.

I guess this book answered a question that we all must have asked, but never really pursued, as we are served a diet coke or commanded to take our seats. Who are these people? What are their lives like?

Heather Poole provides the real deal, the inside scoop on the glamorous flight attendant life style. And, man, is it ever not glamorous. Who would do this work? And why?

You know how much flying sucks? OK, now imagine that it's your job, and you do it for 30 or 40 hours a week, and have to smile and pretend you like it. Then imagine you get paid really badly, and have to hot bunk it (share a bed) in dingy flop houses spread around the country where fellow attendants come and go at all hours of the night. Now imagine the passengers, the whining, complaining, needy, rude mass of humanity, who hate flying as much as any sane person would, and who you must passify, calm, and herd. Then imagine the polyester uniform you must wear, and the hair and makeup codes you must conform to.

If you do this kind of work, you do get travel benefits. Sort of. But they don't sound very generous, and of course every time you use them you have to do what? Get on another stinking aluminum tube and fly. No, ladies and gentlemen, this is a truly awful way to make a living, and we can only shake our heads in wonder at Ms. Poole's excited telling of adventures and misadventures over her 15 year career in the sky. Good on her, for creating a very readable memoir. She's got some real war stories. I loved the awfulness of the life she described. But I don't think she thinks her life is awful. I believe that she thinks it's been a rollicking good ride.

I guess that's what you'd want your flight attendant to feel - that this is a pretty good life, all things considered. So it's all good. Thank you Heather Poole for sharing your experience of work.

I have never ever wanted to be a flight attendant. Ever. However I do like reading about people who do things that I don't want to do so this book was fun.

Fun memoir of airline career

Heather Poole speaks in a friendly, positive way while detailing the sometimes bleak life of a flight attendant. Her stories are entertaining and informative. With no hint of self pity, she talks about rude passengers, awful living conditions and loneliness. The book is far from depressing though, it's light and fun to read. If you, a son or daughter or friend considers flight attending, this read is a must before sighing up. The most important come away from Cruising Attitude is this is a job that few could do well for long.

Truly behind the scenes. I really appreciate flight attendants more now and give them props. It's a tough job that you're not well rewarded for and many people could not make the grade.

You know, these days I read travel books with a whole different eye. One, I’m usually reading them in an airport or a hotel. Two, the situations and places in the books seem very familiar to me now. That’s one of the reasons I was so interested in Cruising Attitude: Tales of Crashpads, Crew Drama, and Crazy Passengers at 35,000 Feet – I see a lot of flight attendants in the course of a week’s work, and it looks like an interesting, exciting job. Like most jobs, though, it’s not quite what it seems.

Author Heather Poole was encouraged by her mother to apply for a job as a flight attendant — the job her mother had always wanted. That first interview was a complete failure, but after college and a few years spent designing watches, she tried again. Her stories of flight attendant training school were really surprising — they are tough on those students! The whole thing seems designed to wear them down and weed out the weak. That’s probably a good thing because the job itself is not for delicate flowers. The hours are long, the schedule is unpredictable and the people you meet are crazy.

Poole does a great job of working in stories about crazy passengers and other flight attendants without giving too much away:

“I may not remember her name, but on the descent into New York she told me all about her ex-husband, a pilot who cheated on her numerous times with other flight attendants, and whose former mother-in-law is trying to get sole custody of the children using her job against her. There was another man who never told me his name, but I do know his first sexual encounter took place with a man twenty years his senior and now he only has a thing for older men — with red hair. Just like the man sitting in 22B. I couldn’t tell you their names, but I do know they’ll be spending the night in jail because he punched her after she scratched his face for daring to call his wife in her presence as soon as the flight touched ground.”

It’s like a soap opera in the sky!

And, of course, there are the celebrity encounters for the folks working in first class. That has to be one of the more interesting parts of the job. Poole talks about her time working on a private jet, the rich and powerful men that she met (and occasionally dated) as they were sitting in first class, and there are celebrity stories that read like gossip column blind items:

“So, here’s the galley gossip. He was one of the biggest pop stars of our time, and while he wouldn’t breathe the air at 35,000 feet without wearing a face mask, he had no problem scarfing down two first class meals…This actor known for having a thing for supermodels fell asleep with his hand down his pants in first class…The comedian who got kicked off of one of daytime tv’s hottest talk shows asked the pilot not to make any more announcements because her baby was sleeping…A Canadian who shot to the top of the music charts for her scathing lyrics wouldn’t allow a passenger in the window seat to pass by her in order to use the lavatory until quietly meditating with her first.”

I was really interested in the stories about the schedules and workload. As much as I travel now and the crazy schedule I keep, hers is so much worse! What they put flight attendants through ought to be criminal. The crazy hours, the backbiting, the competition for good flights — it’s all insane and one of those jobs you really have to love to put up with all of that.

This is a fun read for anyone who travels a lot. It gives you a whole new respect for the people serving your beverages (although after what she says about Diet Coke, I’ll feel guilty about asking for it!) and pretzels. It’s certainly an enlightening read for anyone interested in a career in travel. I could have skipped a lot of the stories about her love life and personal life in favor of more travel anecdotes, but it’s generally a pretty good balance.

An honest, light-hearted, well-written first book. Easily one of my favorites :-)½

Absolutely loved this book. Having been a passenger on many a flight I always wondered whether the flight attendants lives were as glamorous as a lot of people often think.

I hope Heather Poole writes another book soon!

I thought it was a cute book. It was about Heather's trials and tribulations about becoming a flight attendant and the stories about the passengers, other flight attendants and the pilots.

For the rest of the review, visit my book blog at: http://angelofmine1974.livejournal.com/47250.html