Believe it or not?
December 20th 2006 00:45
Rumours. No workplace would be complete without them. I heard some very interesting ones in my hostie days. Although the narrators of these rumours would recount their tales with the utmost conviction, I was never too sure whether to believe them or not.
My favourite story involves a disgruntled hostie seeking vengeance on a cabin manager she had a run-in with. I don’t know the particulars of the incident that provoked this act of retribution, but clearly the hostie was angry. The hostie placed a note saying, “have a shitty day” in the cabin manager’s company mailbox, along with a pile of excrement to emphasise her message. Totally vulgar, yet this gem of a story left me in hysterics. My source of information was reliable, making this rumour likely to be true.
There were an abundance of rumours relating to crew hotels.
Apparently the crew were ‘evicted’ from a luxurious hotel in an Asian destination because hosties were continually taking part of the luxury home with them, helping themselves to paintings, pillows, doonas, and even cutting up pieces of carpet under the bed. Unfortunately, there are many kleptomaniacs in the industry who even steal from their fellow hosties (it’s a fact), so perhaps this rumour is not entirely a myth. I can’t imagine wanting hotel carpet though, it’s disgusting.
Someone once told me that some hosties wash their undies in hotels by boiling them in the room’s kettle. Outrageous, definitely fiction, but admittedly since hearing this I have never made myself a cup of tea in a hotel room.
I have heard various versions of the story about a dead body under a crew hotel bed, however these details remain: the hotel was in Africa, there was a dead body under the bed, the hostie didn’t notice and slept on the bed, she didn’t find out until she returned home and the police contacted the airline so she could be queried. Thankfully, I have never been in a similar situation, but I would think the stench of a decaying body would not go unnoticed. Still, after that rumour started circulating, too frightened to actually look under a hotel bed, a friend carried out his ‘rolling an orange under the bed test’- if the orange was able to travel smoothly from under one side of the bed to the other, the room was deemed ‘safe’.
Another spooky rumour involved the crew rest compartment on the plane. Located near the cargo storage area of the plane is a small room with beds for crew on long haul flights. According to legend amongst hosties, a pilot went to have a rest when he noticed a lady who was not a crew member sleeping in one of the beds. He told her she must return to her seat, asking where it was. She told him her seat was at __ explaining she wasn’t feeling well and wanted to sleep. As the pilot was to preparing to rest, the lady vanished and later the pilot asked a hostie to check on the passenger sitting in seat __ to see if she was alright. When the hostie went to that seat, she found a man sitting there- the husband of a dead woman whose body was being transported in cargo. Surely a hostie made this story up one day when they were too bored. Nevertheless I get shivers just writing about it.
There are many first time travellers on planes. Some think there are separate male and female toilets, others try to open the wardrobe door thinking it is the toilet door and there are those who press the toilet call bell button mistaking it for the flush button. But this story was absolutely one of a kind. On a flight to a poor country where porcelain toilet bowls and privacy when attending to the call of nature are foreign to the majority, a male passenger asked a hostie walking through the cabin where the toilet was. She indicated to the back of the plane, as there were toilets next to the galley. Understanding only that the toilet was somewhere in the vicinity of the back of the plane, the man found a gap in between the curtains sealing off the cabin and the galley and proceeded to urinate. On the other side of the curtain bewildered hosties sitting down for their meal break saw a steady stream flowing into the galley.
Believe or not?
My favourite story involves a disgruntled hostie seeking vengeance on a cabin manager she had a run-in with. I don’t know the particulars of the incident that provoked this act of retribution, but clearly the hostie was angry. The hostie placed a note saying, “have a shitty day” in the cabin manager’s company mailbox, along with a pile of excrement to emphasise her message. Totally vulgar, yet this gem of a story left me in hysterics. My source of information was reliable, making this rumour likely to be true.
There were an abundance of rumours relating to crew hotels.
Apparently the crew were ‘evicted’ from a luxurious hotel in an Asian destination because hosties were continually taking part of the luxury home with them, helping themselves to paintings, pillows, doonas, and even cutting up pieces of carpet under the bed. Unfortunately, there are many kleptomaniacs in the industry who even steal from their fellow hosties (it’s a fact), so perhaps this rumour is not entirely a myth. I can’t imagine wanting hotel carpet though, it’s disgusting.
Someone once told me that some hosties wash their undies in hotels by boiling them in the room’s kettle. Outrageous, definitely fiction, but admittedly since hearing this I have never made myself a cup of tea in a hotel room.
I have heard various versions of the story about a dead body under a crew hotel bed, however these details remain: the hotel was in Africa, there was a dead body under the bed, the hostie didn’t notice and slept on the bed, she didn’t find out until she returned home and the police contacted the airline so she could be queried. Thankfully, I have never been in a similar situation, but I would think the stench of a decaying body would not go unnoticed. Still, after that rumour started circulating, too frightened to actually look under a hotel bed, a friend carried out his ‘rolling an orange under the bed test’- if the orange was able to travel smoothly from under one side of the bed to the other, the room was deemed ‘safe’.
Another spooky rumour involved the crew rest compartment on the plane. Located near the cargo storage area of the plane is a small room with beds for crew on long haul flights. According to legend amongst hosties, a pilot went to have a rest when he noticed a lady who was not a crew member sleeping in one of the beds. He told her she must return to her seat, asking where it was. She told him her seat was at __ explaining she wasn’t feeling well and wanted to sleep. As the pilot was to preparing to rest, the lady vanished and later the pilot asked a hostie to check on the passenger sitting in seat __ to see if she was alright. When the hostie went to that seat, she found a man sitting there- the husband of a dead woman whose body was being transported in cargo. Surely a hostie made this story up one day when they were too bored. Nevertheless I get shivers just writing about it.
There are many first time travellers on planes. Some think there are separate male and female toilets, others try to open the wardrobe door thinking it is the toilet door and there are those who press the toilet call bell button mistaking it for the flush button. But this story was absolutely one of a kind. On a flight to a poor country where porcelain toilet bowls and privacy when attending to the call of nature are foreign to the majority, a male passenger asked a hostie walking through the cabin where the toilet was. She indicated to the back of the plane, as there were toilets next to the galley. Understanding only that the toilet was somewhere in the vicinity of the back of the plane, the man found a gap in between the curtains sealing off the cabin and the galley and proceeded to urinate. On the other side of the curtain bewildered hosties sitting down for their meal break saw a steady stream flowing into the galley.
Believe or not?
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Comment by TomN
Boat Heaven
Because I am a big bloke I try for the aisle seat and notice this more and more. Being banged by a hip every time I take a cup or glass to my lips is not fun. I could understand if I had made some offensive comment but maybe there was a code that the girls had. "Get this bugger in row 16"?
Are you on holiday at the moment? I am looking forward to your next post.
Comment by Judy
Ex-Hostie