Birmingham and the Bitch

My fellow crew members tell me how lucky I am that Azim is here with me, flying with me, exploring the world with me and constantly within arm's reach whenever I need some TLC or some anger management. Many of them left their other halves back in the country they hailed from and problems arise aplenty as distance takes a toll. Some of their other halves took the push to shove and actually fly over to Dubai to try and get a job here so that they can be here, closer to the person they love. Some, who never considered flying as a career in the first place,applied fervently for Emirates cabin crew vacancies just so that they can be in Dubai. The tales are endless. And I know I am lucky.

But it does come with strings attached. Oh yeah......thick,coarse ones with ugly monsters at the other end.

Take for instance this Birmingham flight I did with Azim. Oh yes, I enjoyed Birmingham with him. We went into Shakespeare's house and spent AGES in there, this time I took pictures INSIDE the house though I wasn't supposed to!! We got MacDonald's takeaway and for the first time, I tried MacDonalds' vegetarian fast food selection. It's hard to stay kosher in England but Mac's delectable vegetarian burgers pretty much makes up for the lack of kosher local meat. We went boating down the Stratford-upon-Avon river and caused much of an upheaval to the swans I went livid about in my previous Birmingham post. We wolfed down our takeaway Mac meal while drifting aimlessly amongst the cypress and the fellow boaters. I got my arms all achy from rowing for about five minutes. Azim got his hands blistered from rowing for about an hour...
Yessiree.....I enjoyed Birmingham with Azim far more than I enjoyed it when I came here alone two months ago . Love just makes things more fun.

What bogged down my positive aura is my SFS, my Senior Flight Stewardess (read: Leading Stewardess in SIA's ranking terms). I won't name her coz it's just going to pop up on some search engine someday and REALLY get my ass slandered. Let's call her....Jill. She just didn't like me and throughout the flight, it showed that she didn't like me and that hurt! I am quite easily likeable,okay?!!

And she didn't like me coz she likes Azim. So I have become virtually unlikeable by sheer association. And maybe also by the fact that my butt is much cuter (and smaller) than hers.
She was on Azim's flight team a few months ago, on a long trip to Accra. Azim said she was a good SFS albeit rather flirty. I say,she's a right skank! On this super-full Birmy,she was nice to everyone else under her charge but she was lukewarm, even icy, to me ever since she always sees Azim and I out and about alone together in Birmy. She even had the nerve to give me an earful for not "informing" her that I was going over to the mid-galley. Well,I did. I told her I was going to pass something to a passanger. I did and it was just bad coincidence that this passenger was sitting near the mid-galley.
She also had a big issue about my uniform. She kept asking what I did to it coz I know it looks nicer than most others. Of course it does! I bloody ALTERED it! I won't go around with uniforms that make me look like a potato sack,would I? And when I explained it to her, she kept insisting that I put on my jacket during boarding and disembarking coz the jacket can't be altered so the jacket would cover my "curves" supposedly evident via my modified uniform. During service, I must always have my service tabbard and cardigan on.
I beat down an urge to give her my middle finger.....SHE IS the only one who EVER had an issue about this. Senior Flight Pursers (read:IFS in SIA's ranking terms), Flight Pursers (read:Chief Steward/ess in SIA's ranking terms) and plenty of SFS ladies have been impressed with how nicely my uniform is altered and have asked me how I did it, they'd want to do it themselves. However, patience is a virtue and I am virtous (if not, self-loved!). I calmly took it all in and went by her instructions. But oooohh....do I have a violent streak for her now!

Azim can't stop laughing at my ranting shenanigans. He is duly amused and I do not fathom why.
It is not amusing. How can a self-sufficient woman, who has climbed up the ranks considerably and is expected to be more mature about most things, get anal retentive about petty little kindergarten stories? How can one such as her, let her personal feelings and pure biased opinions get in the way professionally? How can women progress steadily without objection if our own kind hinders us from taking that big step forward together? If I see a girl with a flatter tummy than mine, I admire and I'm inspired. If I see a happy couple, mismatched or not, I am pleased that love conquers. If a girlfriend I know ups herself in life, I am pleased for her. Jealousy need not apply coz we're all in this together. This complicated thing called life.

As it is, life was already handed to each of us on a hot plate. Why mess it up further by heating it up more?