This letter popped up on my crew confessions page. It was just too funny not to feature here….
Dear Heather,
I’m one of the road warriors that spends nearly as much time in the air and hotels as flight crews. I generally sympathize with flight attendants, especially during this time of year which I call “amateur season”.
You, like me, probably also hate inconsiderate hotel guests, those who come in late at night, have loud conversations in the hallway, and allow room doors to slam in the middle of the night. Its even worse when you have a short night already due to a late meeting and a 4Am wake up call and a full day of meetings in the next city before catching a late night flight home for the weekend. But revenge is sweet.
I ignored it when the first late arriving flight crew slammed their doors at 12:30Am and I rolled over and went back to sleep about 15 or 20 minutes later. But shortly thereafter another flight crew did the above as they checked in at 1:30am, standing outside their room doors (and mine) yacking it up loudly enough to wake me, and long enough for me to have time to put pants on, open the door and point out that they were being quite rude and to please keep it down. All I got were arrogant looks and smirks…, then more doors slamming, and again a few minutes later as they hung the “do not disturb” signs on their doors. So since I could not go back to sleep anyhow, I got more work done and left the hotel early to get some coffee on my way to the airport.
But before leaving, I direct dialed each of their rooms and, as soon as they answered the phone, in my most pleasant voice announced it was their wake up call. Oh, yeah, and before that, I removed the “Do not disturb” signs from their doors, took their newspapers, and placed used room service trays in front of their doors as well, that way the housekeeping crew would be more likely to knock as this is their signal the room is likely vacated. Revenge is sweet indeed. To the Delta crew that had an early wake up call near CLT, you deserved it. To other crews who read this, please, have some consideration when you are in the same position. I do.
Ticked Off!
Heather Poole 
Lol… Ok, I lose $20 that they probably never noticed the signs missing, but I’m up $10 as there is no way they were at the airport before me (4:05AM). So I’m down $10 overall, How about if I send you a pic from my next flight for your Laviator (very funny, btw) section.
Oh, and the USAToday, they went to the table by the elevator for others to grab. The “do not disturb signs” went to my 3 kids who will proudly display them on their room doors hoping that we will once, just once, abide by them. 🙂
Happy to have gotten this off my chest, sign me
LD
I have a collection of Do Not Disturb signs you wouldn’t believe. 😉
I suspect that “Ticked Off” might have been an extra in Revenge of the Nerds because he certainly is a misguided dweeb. His grand ploy of revenge seems like childish jibberish from a man who can’t hold his wad. Moreover, I can’t recall airline staff ever being a nuisance in a hotel (but there are many other kinds of guests who have been). Instead of whining on your Web site, he could have called the front desk at the time of the incident to have security address the problem (and he probably would have received a complimentary concession on his hotel bill at check-out for the inconvenience). “Ticked Off” ain’t a “road warrior.” He’s amateur “road-kill.”
As I said on the Gadling post, not all aircrew are bing inconsiderate. Some hotel doors are so heavy and have auto-closers on them, that no matter how hard you try, they still slam. (Especially loud in hotels with paper-thin walls!)
Sorry Heather, but I side with Mr. Ticked Off here. Why be so inconsiderate? They didn’t have enough time on the crew van or in the lobby to make their plans? At the end of a long day of flying (at 1:30 a.m.), the last thing I want to do is chit chat outside my room with the crew I’ve been working with all day (and I’m no slam clicker, I just value some quiet time after being surrounded by crowds all day). When in uniform, I personally try to be even more considerate than I normally would be because I’m representing not only myself but a company of thousands of people. Slamming doors is one thing but having a hallway party at that hour is ridiculous.
As a former employee of American Airlines, KJFK, during the glory-days of airline travel, management instructed us to be conscious of public-opinion.
If we were on a break or off-duty and in the passenger-terminal, we were ordered to represent the “company” and behave. If anyone of us decided to relax in a bar or an establishment serving liquor, management had no further requirements except one; we had to remove our uniforms or any logos representing AA.
Not attempting to cause in-flight turbulence but, I admired that policy back then and have a similar policy established in my business.
Okay, can we all still be friends? 🙂 Let us all continue to be “Something Special in the Air”. Remember that line?
Hey LD aka “Ticked-off”,
You can purchase a Laviator t-shirt from Windtee™ by clicking http://bit.ly/8L4rj. Now you’ll have the official garment to wear as you pose (grinning) with your recently acquired “Do Not Disturb” door-knob sign.
Have a safe flight! 😀
Windtee,
Brilliant. We have yet to see that! BTW, Started a laviators group on Flickr!
Heather,
I’d enjoy seeing that too! I can link to your Flickr group from the Windtee Laviator page. You can Twitter DM the link to me.
Bryan
Haha, love it!