Working

by Studs Terkel

  Sometimes I get tired of working first class. These people think they’re great, paying for more, and want more. Also I get tired of coach passengers asking for something that he thinks he’s a first-class passenger. We get this attitude of difference from our airlines. They’re just dividing the class of people. If we’re on a first-class pass, the women are to wear a dress or a nice pants suit that has a matching jacket, and the men are to dress with suit jacket and tie and white shirt. And yet so many types of first-class passengers: some have grubby clothes, jeans and moccasins and everything. They can afford to dress the way they feel . . .

  If I want to fly first class, I pay the five dollars difference. I like the idea of getting free drinks, free champagne, free wine. In a coach, you don’t. A coach passenger might say, “Could I have a pillow?” So you give him a pillow. Then he’ll say, “Could you bring me a glass of water?” A step behind him there’s the water fountain. In first class, if the guy says, “I want a glass of water,” even if the water fountain is right by his arm, you’d bring it for him. We give him all this extra because he’s first class. Which isn’t fair . . .

  When you’re in a coach, you feel like there’s just head and head and head of people. That’s all you can see. In first class, being less people, you’re more relaxed, you have more time. When you get on a 727, we have one coatroom. Our airline tells us you hang up first-class coats only. When a coach passenger says, “Could you hang up my coat?” most of the time I’ll hang it up. Why should I hang up first class and not coach?

  One girl is for first class only and there’s two girls for coach. The senior girl will be first class. That first-class girl gets used to working first class. If she happens to walk through the coach, if someone asks her for something, she’ll make the other girls do it. The first stew always stays at the door and welcomes everybody aboard and says good-by to everybody when they leave. That’s why a lot of girls don’t like to be first class.

  There’s an old story on the airline. The stewardess asks if he’d like something to drink, him and his wife. He says, “I’d like a martini.” The stewardess asks the wife, “Would you like a drink?” She doesn’t say anything, and the husband says, “I’m sorry, she’s not used to talking to the help.” (Laughs.) When I started flying, that was the first story I heard.

  I’ve never had the nerve to speak up to anybody that’s pinched me or said something dirty. Because I’ve always been afraid of these onion letters. These are bad letters. If you get a certain amount of bad letters, you’re fired. When you get a bad letter you have to go in and talk to the supervisor. Other girls now, there are many of ’em that are coming around and telling them what they feel. The passenger reacts: She’s telling me off! He doesn’t believe it. Sometimes the passenger needs it.

  One guy got this steak and he said, “This is too medium, I want mine rarer.” The girl said, “I’m sorry, I don’t cook the food, it’s precooked.” He picked up the meal and threw it on the floor. She says, “If you don’t pick the meal up right now, I’ll make sure the crew members come back here and make you pick it up.” (With awe) She’s talking right back at him and loud, right in front of everybody. He really didn’t think she would yell at him. Man, he picked up the meal . . . The younger girls don’t take that guff any more, like we used to. When the passenger is giving you a bad time, you talk back to him.

  It’s always: the passenger is right. When a passenger says something mean, we’re supposed to smile and say, “I understand.” We’re supposed to really smile because stewardesses’ supervisors have been getting reports that the girls have been back-talking passengers. Even when they pinch us or say dirty things, we’re supposed to smile at them. That’s one thing they taught us at stew school. Like he’s rubbing your body somewhere, you’re supposed to just put his hand down and not say anything and smile at him. That’s the main thing, smile.

  When I first went to class, they told me I had a crooked smile. She showed me how to smile. She said, “Kinda press a little smile on”—which I did. “Oh, that’s great.” she said. “that’s a good smile.” But I couldn’t do it. I didn’t feel like I was doing it on my own. Even if we’re sad, we’re supposed to have a smile on our face.

  I came in after a flight one day, my grandfather had died. Usually they call you up or meet you at the flight and say, “We have some bad news for you.” I picked up this piece of paper in my mailbox and it says, “Mother called in. Your grandfather died today.” It was written like, say. two cups of sugar. Was I mad! They wouldn’t give me time off for the funeral. You can only have time off for your parents or somebody you have lived with. I had never lived with my grandparents. I went anyway.

  A lot of our girls are teachers, nurses, everything. They do this part-time,’cause you have enough time off for another kind of job. I personally work for conventions. I work electronic and auto shows. Companies hire me to stay in their booth and talk about products. I have this speech to tell. At others, all I do is pass out matches or candy. Nowadays every booth has a young girl in it.

  People just love to drink on airplanes. They feel adventurous. So you’re serving drinks and meals and there’s very few times that you can sit down. If she does sit down, she’s forgotten how to sit down and talk to passengers. I used to play bridge with passengers. But that doesn’t happen any more. We’re not supposed to be sitting down, or have a magazine or read a newspaper. If it’s a flight from Boston to Los Angeles, you’re supposed to have a half an hour talking to passengers. But the only time we can sit down is when we go to the cockpit. You’re not supposed to spend any more than five minutes up there for a cigarette.

  We could be sitting down on our jump seat and if you had a supervisor on board, she would write you up—for not mixing with the crowd. We’re supposed to be told when she walks on board. Many times you don’t know. They do have personnel that ride the flights that don’t give their names—checking, and they don’t tell you about it. Sometimes a girl gets caught smoking in the cabin. Say it’s a long flight, maybe a night flight. You’re playing cards with a passenger and you say, “Would it bother you if I smoke?” And he says no. She would write you up and get you fired for smoking in the airplane.

  They have a limit on how far you can mix. They want you to be sociable, but if he offers you a cigarette, not to take it. When you’re outside, they encourage you to take cigarettes.

  You give your time to everybody, you share it, not too much with one passenger. Everybody else may be snoring away and there’s three guys, maybe military, and they’re awake ‘cause they’re going home and excited. So you’re playing cards with ’em. If you have a supervisor on, that would be a no-no. They call a lot of things no-no’s.

  They call us professional people but they talk to us as very young, childishly. They check us all the time on appearance. They check our weight every month. Even though you’ve been flying twenty years, they check you and say that’s a no-no. If you’re not spreading yourself around passengers enough, that’s a no-no. Not hanging up first-class passengers’ coats, that’s a no-no, even though there’s no room in the coatroom. You’re supposed to somehow make room. If you’re a pound over, they can take you off flight until you get under.

  Accidents? I’ve never yet been so scared that I didn’t want to get in the airplane. But there’ve been times at take-offs, there’s been something funny. Here I am thinking, What if I die today? I’ve got too much to do. I can’t die today. I use it as a joke.

  I’ve had emergencies where I’ve had to evacuate the aircraft. I was coming back from Las Vegas and being a lively stewardess I stayed up all night, gambled. We had a load full of passengers. The captain tells me we’re going to have an emergency landing in Chicago because we lost a pin out of the nose gear. When we land, the nose gear is gonna collapse. He wants me to prepare the whole cabin for the landing, but not for two more hours. And not to tell the other stewardesses, because they were new girls and would get all excited. So I had to keep this in me
for two hours, wondering, Am I gonna die today? And this is Easter Sunday. And I was serving the passengers drinks and food and this guy got mad at me because his omelet was too cold. And I was gonna say, “You just wait, buddy, you’re not gonna worry about that omelet.” But I was nice about it, because I didn’t want to have trouble with a passenger, especially when I have to prepare him for an emergency.

  I told the passengers over the intercom: “The captain says it’s just a precaution, there’s nothing to worry about.” I’m just gonna explain how to get out of the airplane fast, how to be in a braced position. They can’t wear glasses or high heels, purses, things out of aisles, under the seats. And make sure everybody’s pretty quiet. We had a blind woman on with a dog. We had to get people to help her off and all this stuff.

  They were fantastic. Nobody screamed, cried, or hollered. When we got on the ground, everything was fine. The captain landed perfect. But there was a little jolt, and the passengers started screaming and hollering. They held it all back and all of a sudden we got on the ground, blah.

  I was great. (Laughs.) That’s what was funny. I thought, I have a husband now. I don’t know how he would take it, me dying on an airplane. So I thought, I can’t die. When I got on the intercom, I was so calm. Also we’re supposed to keep a smile on our face. Even during an emergency, you’re supposed to walk through the cabin and make everybody feel comfortable with a smile. When you’re on the jump seat everybody’s looking at you. You’re supposed to sit there, holding your ankles, in a position to get out of that airplane fast with a big fat smile on your face.

  Doctors tell stewardesses two bad things about them. They’re gonna get wrinkles all over their face because they smile with their mouth and their eyes. And also with the pressurization on the airplane, we’re not supposed to get up while we’re climbing because it causes varicose veins in our legs. So they say being a stewardess ruins your looks.

  A lot of stewardesses wanted to be models. The Tanya girl used to be a stewardess on our airline. A stewardess is what they could get and a model is what they couldn’t get. They weren’t the type of person, they weren’t that beautiful, they weren’t that thin. So their second choice would be stewardess.

  What did you want to be?

  I wanted to get out of Broken Bow, Nebraska. (Laughs.)

  POSTSCRIPT: “Every time I go home, they all meet me at the airplane. Not one of my sisters has been on an airplane. All their children think that Terry is just fantastic, because their mom and dad—my sisters and their husbands—feel so stupid, ‘Look at us. I wish I could have done that.’ I know they feel bad, that they never had the chance. But they’re happy I can come home and tell them about things. I send them things from Europe. They get to tell all their friends that their sister’s a stewardess. They get real excited about that. The first thing they come out and say, ‘One of my sisters is a stewardess.’

  “My father got a promotion with his company and they wrote in their business news that he had a family of seven, six girls and a boy, and one girl is a stewardess in Chicago. And went on to say what I did, and didn’t say a word about anything else.”

  BERYL SIMPSON

  Prior to her present job as an employment counselor, she had been an airline reservationist for twelve years.

  My job as a reservationist was very routine, computerized. I hated it with a passion. Getting sick in the morning, going to work feeling, Oh, my God! I’ve got to go to work.

  I was on the astrojet desk. It has an unlisted number for people who travel all the time. This is a special desk for people who spend umpteen millions of dollars traveling with the airlines. They may spend ten thousand dollars a month, a hundred thousand a month, depending on the company. I was dealing with the same people every day. This is so-and-so from such-and-such a company and I want a reservation to New York and return, first class. That was the end of the conversation. They brought in a computer called Sabre. It’s like an electric typewriter. It has a memory drum and you can retrieve that information forever. Sabre was so expensive, everything was geared to it. Sabre’s down, Sabre’s up, Sabre’s this and that. Everything was Sabre.

  With Sabre being so valuable, you were allowed no more than three minutes on the telephone. You had twenty seconds, busy-out time it was called, to put the information into Sabre. Then you had to be available for another phone call. It was almost like a production line. We adjusted to the machine. The casualness, the informality that had been there previously was no longer there. The last three or four years on the job were horrible. The computer had arrived.

  They monitored you and listened to your conversations. If you were a minute late for work, it went into your file. I had a horrible attendance record—ten letters in my file for lateness, a total of ten minutes. You took thirty minutes for your lunch, not thirty-one. If you got a break, you took ten minutes, not eleven.

  When I was with the airlines, I was taking eight tranquilizers a day. I came into this business, which is supposed to be one of the most hectic, and I’m down to three a day. Even my doctor remarked, “Your ulcer is healed, it’s going away.” With the airline I had no free will. I was just part of that stupid computer.

  I remember when I went to work for the airlines, they said, “You will eat, sleep, and drink airlines. There’s no time in your life for ballet, theater, music, anything.” My first supervisor told me that. Another agent and I were talking about going to the ballet or something. He overheard us and said we should be talking about work. When you get airline people together, they’ll talk about planes. That is all they talk about. That and Johnny Carson. They are TV-oriented people.

  I had much more status when I was working for the airlines than I have now. I was always introduced as Beryl Simpson, who works for the airlines. Now I’m reduced to plain old Beryl Simpson. I found this with boyfriends. I knew one who never dates a girl with a name. He never dates Judy, he never dates Joan. He dates a stewardess or a model. He picks girls for the glamor of their jobs. He never tells you their names. When I was with the airlines, I was introduced by my company’s name. Now I’m just plain old everyday me, thank God.

  I have no status in this man’s eyes, even though I probably make twice as much as the ones he’s proud of. If I’d start to talk about some of the stocks I hold, he’d be impressed. This is true of every guy I ever dated when I was working on the airlines. I knew I had a dumb, stupid, ridiculous, boring job, and these people were glamorizing it. “Oh, she works for the airlines.” Big deal. When I used to go back home, the local paper would run my picture and say that I work for the airlines and that I had recently returned from some exotic trip or something. Romance.

  A lot of times we get airline stewardesses into our office who are so disillusioned. We’d like to frame their applications when we get a bright-eyed, starry-eyed kid of eighteen who wants a career in the airlines. Big as life disillusionment. We want to say, “It’s not what it’s cracked up to be, girlie.” If a girl’s a stewardess, she might as well forget it after twenty-six. They no longer have compulsory retirement, but the girls get into a rut at that age. A lot of them start showing the rough life they’ve lived.

  JILL TORRANCE

  She is a photographer’s model, high fashion. Her face is a familiar one in magazine ads as well as on television commercials. She has been engaged in this work for eight years. She earns the city’s top rate: fifty dollars an hour.

  I do whatever kind of products anyone wants. This week I had a job for some South American product. They said, “We want you to be sexy, coy, pert, but not too effervescent.” It always means the same smile and open eyes. For forty-five minutes they tell you what they want. They explain and explain and you sort of tune out and do the same thing.

  There are a lot of people there: the person who has the product, the man from the ad agency, a couple of people from the photography studio, the stylist, who poses your dress to make sure it hangs right . . . suddenly there are a dozen people standing around. Each is
telling you to do something else. You know they are even more insecure than you. You pretend you’re listening and you do what you’d planned to do in the first place. When you’ve worked before a camera long enough, you know what they want even though they don’t.

  At first you work very hard to try to discover different looks and hairdos. After a while, you know them all. Someone once asked me, “Why do high-fashion models pose with their mouths open? They look like they’re catching flies.” (Laughs.) This look has been accepted for a long time. They want everything to be sexy, subtle or overt. After a while, it’s automatic.

  Now the natural look is in. Jumping up and down or staring out there . . . What’s natural about looking into space? They want you natural but posed. (Laughs.) How can you feel natural with three pounds of make-up, in some ridiculous costume, standing there and looking pretty? What they think of as being natural is very phony.

  You never know from day to day. I did a job for a snow blower in Michigan. It’s a little machine that ladies are able to push to get snow out of the way. It was ten below. We flew over at five thirty in the morning. I had my long underwear on, but I forgot to wear my heavy shoes and I froze my feet. You’re either doing fur coats in 110 degrees in the summer or bathing suits in the winter. I do whatever they ask me. I take the money and run.

  Someone will call you at seven in the morning and say be ready at eight thirty. Can you be there in forty minutes? You’re a basket case trying to get your wardrobe together and be there on time. You’re having a cup of coffee, suddenly the phone rings and you have to run. It’s terrible. Somehow you manage to make it on time. I’m very seldom late. I’m amazed at myself.